Hyping Hyperspace: Possibilities and Practicalities
Most ideas surrounding hyperspace travel sound pretty far fetched; especially since a lot of them come from science fiction movies and shows that I don’t watch. But some ideas are actually rooted with scientific evidence that makes them technically physically possible– it’s just a matter of getting every physical aspect to line up in just the right way at just the right time. So what’s possible, what’s probably not, and is anything in the works right now?
So what are the options? Teleportation is technically possible in theory. There is some evidence to suggest that subatomic particles can move faster than the speed of light– at least according to physicist Ian Durham at Anselm College. But it gets difficult to put a human “back together” after you’ve broken them up into enough pieces to travel in a randomized fashion faster than the speed of light. I’d imagine it’s like throwing a bucket of water through a screen with a fan behind it; and then trying to get all the droplets back into the bucket. Except on a much tinier and faster scale.
Related – 2019 Astronomer’s Guide to the Night Sky
So another option for hyperspace travel is the wormhole. Which personally, is something I’ve always written off as an option. But the more I looked into current research for supersonic or hypersonic travel, the more the wormhole seemed like the route we could be (or are) headed in. Maybe not in outer space, but in our own atmosphere– and in the most general sense of a wormhole. A wormhole is an area of space that curves in on itself; thus creating a shorter distance between two spaces or objects via a tunnel– and they actually have some basis in Einstein’s theory of relativity.
Some scientist think that wormholes are created all the time– but they are microscopic and extremely unstable. So even if they could find one, that would make it near impossible to study. And if they can’t study a wormhole, they can’t figure out how it formed. And if they can’t figure out how it formed, how can they figure out how to recreate it?
The most likely way would probably be by accident– and we would probably never hear about it. While it’s not commercially or economically viable for a host of reasons, engineers are still trying to figure out ways to travel faster. Maybe not passenger jets, but definitely missiles and military aircrafts. Even if we completely ignore fuel costs for traveling at supersonic or hypersonic speeds– the propulsion technology hasn’t been figured out yet. Scientists have compared it to lighting a match in a hurricane– the engines required to move at that speed will only work for a few minutes tops. Another issue is thermodynamics. Not only would the engines have to survive the heat of extreme speed, but the body of the object or aircraft would too. And if you’re adding passengers to the mix you have a whole new host of problems involving temperature and cabin pressure.
But this doesn’t mean it’s impossible, we just haven’t figured it out yet. Hypersonic or even hyperspace travel isn’t something you can take an idealized approach to because you’ll always be let down. The United State’s NASA budget for 2016 is roughly $18.5 billion and the defense budget is $534.3 billion. The defense budget is split up between several departments, but part of that budget (I can’t find an exact figure) also goes to the Long-Range Research and Development Planning Program– which includes aerospace innovation. So if they somehow accidentally create a wormhole while experimenting with missiles, we probably won’t hear about it.
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Randi Nord lives in Pontiac, Michigan. She is a journalist for the The Fifth Column and co-hosts a podcast about geopolitics.