Welcome to Mars express: only a three hour trip

IAN JOHNSTON
SCIENCE CORRESPONDENT
AN EXTRAORDINARY "hyperspace" engine that could make interstellar space travel a reality by flying into other dimensions is being investigated by the United States government.

The hypothetical device, which has been outlined in principle but is based on a controversial theory about the fabric of the universe, could potentially allow a spacecraft to travel to Mars in three hours and journey to a star 11 light years away in just 80 days, according to a report in today's New Scientist magazine.


The theoretical engine works by creating an intense magnetic field that, according to ideas first developed by the late scientist Burkhard Heim in the 1950s, would produce a gravitational field and result in thrust for a spacecraft.

Also, if a large enough magnetic field was created, the craft would slip into a different dimension, where the speed of light is faster, allowing incredible speeds to be reached. Switching off the magnetic field would result in the engine reappearing in our current dimension.

The US air force has expressed an interest in the idea and scientists working for the American Department of Energy - which has a device known as the Z Machine that could generate the kind of magnetic fields required to drive the engine - say they may carry out a test if the theory withstands further scrutiny.

Professor Jochem Hauser, one of the scientists who put forward the idea, told The Scotsman that if everything went well a working engine could be tested in about five years.

However, Prof Hauser, a physicist at the Applied Sciences University in Salzgitter, Germany, and a former chief of aerodynamics at the European Space Agency, cautioned it was based on a highly controversial theory that would require a significant change in the current understanding of the laws of physics.

"It would be amazing. I have been working on propulsion systems for quite a while and it would be the most amazing thing. The benefits would be almost unlimited," he said.

"But this thing is not around the corner; we first have to prove the basic science is correct and there are quite a few physicists who have a different opinion.

"It's our job to prove we are right and we are working on that."

He said the engine would enable spaceships to travel to different solar systems. "If the theory is correct then this is not science fiction, it is science fact," Prof Hauser said.

"NASA have contacted me and next week I'm going to see someone from the [US] air force to talk about it further, but it is at a very early stage. I think the best-case scenario would be within the next five years [to build a test device] if the technology works."

The US authorities' attention was attracted after Prof Hauser and an Austrian colleague, Walter Droscher, wrote a paper called "Guidelines for a space propulsion device based on Heim's quantum theory".

Well if they test the engine in five years i guess ill be getting ready to die right about then. I think something along these lines is how we will all end up going one days.

2150 just called. They want their hyperspace engine back.

How do they stop that thing once its gotten going?

Greeeeaaaaatttt!!!!  More junk science to piss money away on!


Why can't we just hitch a ride with these guys??  

Heim's Quantum Theory

Your body couldnt handle tha kind of accelleration.. You would be chunky salsa....Whatever ship you happened to be in might just crush itself too...

Quoted: Greeeeaaaaatttt!!!!  More junk science to piss money away on!

As my advisor says, no such thing as bad research. You never know what you'll stumble on.

I like that they're working on outlandish stuff like this.  I now want to go read some Heinlein.

Pffft. Like we don't already have that kind of stuff!

watch out for the tripods    

Quoted: Your body couldnt handle tha kind of accelleration.. You would be chunky salsa....Whatever ship you happened to be in might just crush itself too...

If I read the theory right, at the moment of accelleration, you would "zap" into another dimension - then "zap" back out when you shut the drive off, as if nothing had happened only you're a distance away from when/where you left. Possible that you wouldn't suffer physical affects of the trip, or you'd explode like a fat tick.

Who knows. Where's a monkey we can try it out on?

Quoted: Quoted: Your body couldnt handle tha kind of accelleration.. You would be chunky salsa....Whatever ship you happened to be in might just crush itself too... If I read the theory right, at the moment of accelleration, you would "zap" into another dimension - then "zap" back out when you shut the drive off, as if nothing had happened only you're a distance away from when/where you left. Possible that you wouldn't suffer physical affects of the trip, or you'd explode like a fat tick. Who knows. Where's a monkey we can try it out on?

Time to watch Event Horizon again.

Holy SHIT!  John Titor was right, man.....

You know what's funny? Even if they perfected such a drive...we couldn't use it!

Why? Even over 25 years after we landed on the Moon, we STILL don't have a reliable system to lift people and cargo from the surface of the Earth to orbit!

So our wonderful hyperdrive ship would sit there unmanned and un-provisioned...because we couldn't get up there to use it...

Quoted: Who knows. Where's a monkey we can try it out on?

Ask and ye shall receive:

Quoted: Quoted: Who knows. Where's a monkey we can try it out on? Ask and ye shall receive: www.realnews247.com/kerry_nasa_pic.jpg

Damn!  Now I've got whiskey all over my monitor.

Quoted: Quoted: Who knows. Where's a monkey we can try it out on? Ask and ye shall receive: www.realnews247.com/kerry_nasa_pic.jpg

n1!

Quoted: Your body couldnt handle tha kind of accelleration.. You would be chunky salsa....Whatever ship you happened to be in might just crush itself too...

Nope. Once you have the field up and running, you are relatively at rest inside the bubble. It's the bubble itself that'd be moving from point A to point B. You aren't moving at all relative to the space/time inside the bubble. Ergo, no inertia felt inside your ship.

www.hpcc-space.de/publications/

First three PDF's and the Fifth one lay out the ground work. Heim knew what he was about.

oops!

Check all your units this time, boys.  Not a good time for an English/Metric system mixup.

The discovery channel has a show on alternative/future travel research.

The scientists had a garbage can lid size disk that they successfully launched using this gravity field stuff.

The electric pulses had the sound pattern of extended machine gun fire but with a sound much like static discharge instead of an explosion.

They couldn't move much weight at all, but it was pretty cool.

I would seriously consider joining the Navy or Air Force (whichever gets the vehicles) if thats what it took to get a ride to another planet.

Kharn