star trek first human warp drive

From the Bonaventure to the Phoenix

Ever-changing ideas of the first warp ship - by Jörg Hillebrand and Bernd Schneider

The history of the first warp vessel, whether it was built by Zefram Cochrane himself or not, was subject to a number of revisions throughout the history of the Star Trek production. Ships with different names and different designs were labeled as the "first warp-powered vessel" or something along these lines. They are listed and investigated in the following.

In the first pilot episode, after the survivors from the SS Columbia have been found on Talos IV, Tyler tells them that "the time barrier's been broken" . We could understand this as a reference to the invention of warp drive. It would have taken place no more than 18 years before the episode, the time when the Columbia crashed on the planet (although it raises the question how the Columbia could have got there without FTL propulsion). Considering that there is solid evidence from later episodes that warp drive already existed for many decades prior to TOS, we could still argue that the "broken time barrier" refers to a breakthrough in warp propulsion not unlike the first warp flight. A breakthrough so significant that some people in the 23rd century casually call it the "invention of warp drive".

TOS: Metamorphosis

This TOS episode does not show or mention a first warp ship, but it introduces us to the inventor of warp propulsion, Zefram Cochrane. Nothing is mentioned that would imply that Cochrane himself built the first warp ship, however. We may only surmise that the first warp flight took place not too long after Cochrane's revolutionary discovery irrespective of his possible direct involvement in the building of the prototype. Since Cochrane is said to have disappeared at the age of 87 some 150 years prior to "Metamorphosis", the latest date for the launch of the first warp vessel is around 2117, because realistically he could have made his final journey into outer space only on a warp-powered ship. Since the Valiant quite obviously went to warp as soon as around 2065 according to TOS: "Where No Man Has Gone Before", the first warp prototype must have been launched a few years earlier, when Cochrane was still a young man.

Side note It is an already classic inconsistency that, according to Kirk, Cochrane used to be a denizen of the Alpha Centauri in the TOS episode, whereas "First Contact" leaves no doubt that he had never left Earth until he went of the first warp flight. Read more at Biography Inconsistencies .

TAS: The Time Trap

Regarding the age of the Bonaventure, Spock speculates that "the crew's descendants may still be living" , thereby implying that at least roughly a century has passed since her disappearance. This rules out the Bonaventure as the ship that broke the "time barrier" that was referred to in "The Cage". However, the Bonaventure could be old enough to be Cochrane's warp ship prototype, although most other evidence speaks against it.

TAS: The Counter-Clock Incident

Or does she just mean she was the "first (=chief) medical officer" on no particularly important warp ship, which would pose no problem at all? This doesn't seem so, as she puts too much emphasis on "first", and Kirk agrees with her that she used to be a pioneer in space.

Spaceflight Chronology

This book from 1980 is non-canon and was never really intended to be canon, also because it consists of just too much speculation. Aside from Rick Sternbach's co-authorship (he made the illustrations) there is one reason, however, to take the Spaceflight Chronology into account. It is the first time that the name "Bonaventure" (as a homage to TAS: "The Time Trap"), or any ship name at all, is linked to Zefram Cochrane (as a homage to TOS: "Metamorphosis"). The design depicted in the book will never show up in any canon installment of Star Trek though.

We learn in the Spaceflight Chronology that the Bonaventure was "the first ship with warp drive" and was launched in 2061. Actually, according to the book, an Earth sublight ship named UNSS Icarus made first contact with Alpha Centauri in 2048 where Zefram Cochrane, a native of the planet, discovered the principle of warp drive in 2051 (at the age of 21!). The Bonaventure is listed as a ship of the Cochrane class, which is odd, because in the tradition of Earth and Starfleet we would expect the class to be named after its lead ship, not after the inventor of its propulsion technology. There is no mention of Cochrane being involved in the development of the class aside from being its name giver.

Rick Sternbach: "I wish I had more information or memories about this particular ship, but there's not much to tell. The design was part of an evolution of early warp ships, with the lineage ultimately taking the reader up to the TOS Enterprise and the refit. The beginnings of the familiar ship elements are there, just not terribly obvious. The forward section evolved from an aerodynamic body and would later become the saucer, the body behind it would evolve into the secondary hull, and the side pods would become the warp nacelles. The big package at the aft end housed big waste heat radiators and was probably where the impulse nozzles would be located. Of course, the Phoenix seen in 'First Contact' went straight to the TOS-type nacelles, so that short-circuited any slower developmental hardware steps."

Star Trek Chronology (1st & 2nd edition)

The first edition of the Star Trek Chronology from 1993 depicts two black-and-white photos of a miniature and a color painting of Zefram Cochrane's unnamed first warp vessel. The painting can be found on the front cover. The first photo is a three-quarter front view, which adorns the introduction to the 21st century chapter with the heading "Breaking the warp barrier" . The second photo shows a side/rear view of the vessel in the entry to the year 2061, when the first warp flight was intended to have taken place. It is labeled "Zefram Cochrane's first warp-powered spacecraft" .

We can make out a registry on the painting and even a bit clearer on the front view photo. It appears to be "C1-21", which does not make sense compared to other Star Trek registries, but may simply stand for "Cochrane 1 - 21st century".

The launch date of 2061 and all depictions of this vessel were removed in the second edition of the Star Trek Chronology , issued in 1996. This adjustment was necessary because "Star Trek: First Contact" was just being produced and established different canon facts. The following notes were added to the entry of 2063: "Cochrane's ship, the Phoenix, was designed by illustrator John Eaves under the direction of production designer Herman Zimmerman. Eaves's design was based on a conjectural design for Cochrane's ship developed by modelmaker Greg Jein for the first edition of this Chronology. (Eaves made several significant changes to the design of the Phoenix, in part because the storyline for Star Trek first contact reveals that Cochrane's ship was launched from an uprated U.S. Air Force Titan missile, a fact known to Jein at the time the first Chronology was compiled.)"

DS9 episodes

The warp ship design from the Star Trek Chronology showed up in early DS9 episodes in two different forms: as the already mentioned model built by Greg Jein and as a side view depiction on a wall chart along with the then five known starships named Enterprise. More precisely we can see the early warp vessel in the following installments:

1. In DS9: "The Nagus" we can make out the wall display with the early warp ship in Keiko's classroom. There are also models of the Miranda, Nebula and Galaxy but not Jein's miniature. The classroom was previously seen in DS9: "A Man Alone" but not yet with the wall chart. 2. We can briefly see the wall chart as well as the miniature in DS9: "In the Hands of the Prophets". 3. The miniature more prominently appears in DS9: "Cardassians", but without the wall chart, although the classroom is full of other LCARS displays.

We get a good look at Greg Jein's miniature in the DVD special features to DS9's season 2, when it can be seen as a desktop decoration in Mike Okuda's office. We can clearly make out the comparably small warp engines, which are mounted on straight horizontal pylons. In contrast, the nacelles of the vessel in the Star Trek Chronology (the painting as well as the model photo) are slightly tilted down. It looks like the nacelle assembly was modified some time prior to DS9, or a second model was built as set dressing.

Mike Okuda: "Greg Jein designed the version of Cochrane's ship that was featured in the Star Trek Chronology . He did the models as a favor to us, so we pretty much gave him free reign to make what he thought was appropriate. I told him that we thought the ship would be experimental and very powerful, so he came up with that big curved radiation shield. The only change we made was to add the two rudimentary warp nacelles. We wanted it to look like something from the Matt Jefferies universe, but we wanted it to look much more primitive, and far more dangerous. Greg later made a second copy of the model, which we provided to DS9 set decorator Laura Richarz for use as set dressing. The nacelles may have been slightly different in that version, which could account for the difference in the 'dihedral.' I think the flat version was the second model. Doug Drexler loved that model and later did a quick drawing of it for use in a number of background DS9 graphics, including the one you mentioned. I'm pretty sure that those graphics were the only time that we called it 'Bonaventure,' although we did suggest that name for use in First Contact. 'Phoenix' did end up being more appropriate, given the film's story."

It also seems that in DS9: "Cardassians" the nacelles are missing, but actually they are just barely discernable because we see the ship almost straight from the side, and the nacelles are the same color as the engineering hull. If we look very closely we are able to recognize the red nacelles caps also on the episode screen cap. Hence the nacelles are still present as of the DS9 episode.

Let us have a closer look at the wall display. The big surprise is that, according to the display, this vessel is named Bonaventure. So unlike in the first edition of the Star Trek Chronology , where the design first appeared, the ship does have a name. The sub-title is "Discovery of the Space Warp" , which links the Bonaventure to Zefram Cochrane.

The wall display was made by Doug Drexler based on Greg Jein's already existing model, and prior to "First Contact". Comparing the drawing and the available screen caps of the miniature, also those from Voyager (see below), we can spot some inaccuracies in the drawing, however. Especially the rear engineering hull and the transition from this section to the aft engines is different from the model. The nacelles are located well below the centerline of the hull on the drawing, whereas they are most likely exactly on the centerline on Jein's miniature in Okuda's office. So the display is obviously based on the other version. Finally, the drawing is more colorful than the model was at any time that we know of. Our reconstructed side view schematic is based on the side view on the wall chart, but is corrected in a way to reflect the structure of the original miniature.

Doug Drexler: "Wow! I forgot about that one. That's a pretty early one for DS-9. Good times! Like so many of the graphics on the show, this one benefited by creation of the Star Trek Encyclopedia by Mike and Denise. It was a resource to them, because I'd developed so many peripheral diagrams. If a backlit came out of the blue for an episode, I could put something fun together in no time flat. Sometimes you only had a few hours to get a last minute request addressed. The Bonaventure model that Greg Jein built for Mike as made specifically for the Star Trek Chronology . See that? I automatically called it 'The Bonaventure.' The idea is that it was built by Cochrane using off the shelf garage technology. At the time that seemed far fetched... from another era... like the Wright Brothers. Could never happen again. But then Burt Rutan [who built the experimental airplane Voyager to fly around the world] came along. I'm a believer! The Phoenix grew out of this design. Early in the planning of 'First Contact,' Mike and I had done a number of illustrations showing how it would get into orbit. By the way, 'Bonaventure' was absolutely a nod to the animated show."

Star Trek: First Contact

The feature film makes it clear that Cochrane is human. Also, his ship is now named Phoenix and its design is a different one than anything shown so far, although it has many features in common with the Bonaventure that appeared on DS9. The date of the launch is now nailed down to 2063.

There is no way of denying or re-interpreting that Zefram Cochrane is a human being from Earth, that he constructed the first human-built warp vessel called Phoenix and launched it in 2063, as depicted in "Star Trek: First Contact". Everything that we have heard or read of other "first warp vessels" must be accordingly amended at latest in the wake of this feature film.

If TAS is canon , then the TAS Bonaventure must be ruled out as the first ship with warp drive, much less as a design by Zefram Cochrane. It has to be some other historically important vessel with a new form of warp drive and not much older than from the late 22nd century. The vessel may have been named in honor of the other canon Bonaventure, the vessel from the classroom in DS9. The design from the Spaceflight Chronology is non-canon and has been ultimately invalidated just like idea that Cochrane is indigenous to Alpha Centauri. Regarding the Star Trek Chronology , there is no notable information about a first warp ship that hasn't already been revised with regard to "Star Trek: First Contact". Ironically, the ship design that was removed from the first edition is canon nonetheless thanks to its appearance in three DS9 episodes.

The miniature and wall display from DS9 may be incorporated into the history of warp flight. Yet, we need to re-interpret the line "Discovery of the Space Warp" , knowing that Cochrane developed warp drive on Earth and made the first flight (at least the first manned one) on the Phoenix and not on a ship named Bonaventure. This leaves the option that the DS9 Bonaventure is either an unmanned testbed, or rather a vessel that was launched soon after the Phoenix and hence still contributed to the "Discovery of the Space Warp" . It is well possible that the Bonaventure was the first warp ship built for real journeys through space, as opposed to the Phoenix that served as a test vehicle for just one flight. However, even without the Bonaventure the amassment of too early and/or too advanced warp vessels poses a problem.

Finally, we may speculate that the model in VOY represents an actual early Malon vessel just like the Bonaventure is supposedly an old Earth design.

TAS Starfleet & Federation Ship Classes - including the entry about the Bonaventure

Biography Inconsistencies - gaps in biographies and other anomalies

21st Century Earth History - thoughts about early interplanetary travel, the Eugenics Wars and the Third World War

Other History Inconsistencies - about the TOS movie timeline, the UESPA, first contact with the Borg, Klingons in the Federation, etc.

Thanks a lot to Adrian of Myprops.co.uk , who is the proud owner of the Bonaventure wall chart and who authorized us to use his photographs. Thanks also to John Mesiavech, John Ritter and Zarm R'keeg for additional suggestions to resolve the Bonaventure problem. Special thanks to Doug Drexler, Mike Okuda and Rick Sternbach for their annotations!

https://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/articles/bonaventure.htm

Last modified: 25 Oct 2021

© Ex Astris Scientia 1998-2024, Legal Terms

This website is not endorsed, sponsored or affiliated with CBS Studios Inc. or the Star Trek franchise.

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Screen Rant

Every new version of warp drive in star trek.

Star Trek's warp travel was the universal standard for three centuries, but there have been significant upgrades to it in more recent times.

Star Trek popularized the term " warp speed " but the franchise has created several alternatives to travel by warp drive technology. By the time of Star Trek: The Next Generation , warp drive had been in existence for roughly three centuries, and had progressed considerably in the time since Zefram Cochrane's first warp flight. Warp drive allows Star Trek 's starships to travel at speeds faster than light by forming a warp bubble that locally distorts the space-time continuum to enable the ship to travel at a degree of warp velocities. It's the most widely used form of interstellar travel in the 24th century, but recently some replacements have been introduced, borne out of necessity.

An alternative to warp travel is being sought by Star Trek Discovery season 4's tragic villain , Ruon Tarka, following the devastating effects of the Burn. With the dilithium needed for warp drive technology being vastly depleted and at risk of instability, the Federation was looking into advancing Discovery's spore drive technology. However, this is just one of many alternatives to warp travel that have been introduced in recent Star Trek canon.

RELATED: First Contact Is The Origin Story Star Trek Needed

The Spore Drive

The spore drive was introduced in Star Trek: Discovery season 1, as Starfleet co-opted the research of Paul Stamets and Straal to gain an advantage in their war against the Klingons. Stamets and Straal's research was based on the idea that, on a quantum level, the universe was no different from a living organism. The implication of this discovery was the theory that a starship, aided by a suitable navigator, could traverse a subspace network of spores known as the Mycelial Network.

It was a groundbreaking discovery that allowed Discovery to abandon warp travel in favor of this more organic approach. It wasn't without its drawbacks, however. Although the spore drive allowed for near-instantaneous travel across the network, it could take a physical toll on the navigator. Starfleet began investigating a non-human interface, but this research was abandoned and evidence of the drive was suppressed when Discovery was lost during the Red Angel incident. The Federation of the 32nd century has now picked up where the 23rd century had left off.

Transwarp Drive

The concept of transwarp travel was introduced in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock , when Starfleet was attempting to install a transwarp drive aboard the USS Excelsior. However, it remained a theoretical concept until Picard's Enterprise encountered the Borg . The Borg used transwarp technology to travel across the galaxy at speeds beyond traditional warp travel. This would later be harnessed by Admiral Janeway when she traveled back in time to get the USS Voyager home much faster.

To date, no one has been able to install a transwarp drive, presumably because better alternatives have been found to exist. Another drawback to the transwarp drive is the severe mutations that Tom Paris experienced while trying to break the transwarp barrier during the efforts to bring Voyager home to the Alpha Quadrant. A safer option was also found during Voyager's time in the Delta Quadrant.

RELATED: Janeway's New Ship Vs. Chakotay's: Which Star Trek Ship Is Faster

Quantum Slipstream Drive

Admiral Janeway's new starship connects to Voyager and its time in the Delta Quadrant. The USS Dauntless has a quantum slipstream drive, which means that the starship is able to travel at speeds far beyond standard warp capability. This is necessary for Janeway's mission back to the Delta Quadrant to recover the Protostar and discover the whereabouts of her former Number One, Chakotay. The Voyager crew first discovered the quantum slipstream drive when it was used as a lure in a revenge plot against Janeway and the crew in the season 4 finale "Hope and Fear".

In Star Trek: Voyager season 5 episode "Timeless," the crew attempted to construct their own quantum slipstream drive, but due to a miscalculation, Voyager crashed into a planet, killing all hands. It was up to Chakotay and Kim to travel back in time and fix the miscalculation. Their mission brought them up against TNG 's Geordi La Forge , who attempted to stop their dangerous temporal plot. Correcting their mistake, Voyager abandoned experiments in slipstream technology. Sometime after Voyager returned home, B'elanna Torres led the construction of the USS Dauntless, which was fitted with a quantum slipstream drive.

The Protostar Drive

Star Trek: Prodigy introduced the USS Protostar, an experimental starship that had a completely new power source, an actual star. The protostar is the earliest phase in stellar evolution, which neatly reflects Prodigy 's younger crew. While the protostar drive still requires a dilithium matrix to operate, it can travel far faster than any other ship in the fleet. It's implied that the Protostar was sent to the Delta Quadrant to address some of the mistakes made by the Voyager crew during their time there. The ship was captained by Chakotay, who is now missing along with the rest of his crew.

Janeway was present at the launch of Chakotay's new Starfleet ship , and has taken it upon herself to track the missing vessel down. The USS Protostar is the most advanced ship in the fleet, and Starfleet are terrified that it will fall into the wrong hands, unaware that it already has. The crew of the Protostar have been able to outrun the Dauntless so far, protecting the Federation from the weapon housed inside the ship. However, Prodigy revealed that the quantum slipstream drives and protostar drives can reach similar speeds, so all it will take is for one false move for the highly advanced USS Protostar to be recaptured, spelling disaster for Star Trek 's Federation.

NEXT: How Janeway's New Star Trek Ship Compares To Voyager

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Comment and Physics

How star trek’s warp drives touch on one of physics' biggest mysteries.

Field notes from space-time | Star Trek’s light speed engines may not be possible in our universe, but we are learning more about the particles that fuel them

By Chanda Prescod-Weinstein

12 June 2019

Paramount Pictures/RGA

EVERY year, I attend the Star Trek convention in Las Vegas, and every year, I get asked whether warp speed will ever be possible. In the Star Trek universe, humanoid species zoom around the galaxy at speeds faster than light, using warp engines fuelled by antimatter. Travelling faster than the speed of light is unlikely, but antimatter is real. Every particle has an antimatter partner that we call an antiparticle.

So, as a particle physicist, what I really want to be asked about isn’t the likelihood of travelling long distances quickly, but instead about the particle type that underlies this fictional technology. Star Trek ‘s futuristic antimatter engine touches on one of the great unsolved mysteries in particle physics: where is all of the antimatter anyway?

The best known type of antimatter is the positron, which is the antielectron. The positron has the same mass as an electron, but the opposite electrical charge. When matter collides with its antimatter partner, they annihilate each other . This isn’t simply a matter of theory: we have seen antimatter in the lab, and not just with the electron and its partner.

Positrons can be made through radioactive decay. They are also created in a pair with electrons when extremely energetic photons, better known as gamma rays, interact with atomic nuclei. Antiprotons have also been produced, and, in 1995, scientists were finally able to directly combine positrons and antiprotons to create antihydrogen.

Although antimatter is real, it is rather difficult to make in the lab. Since matter and antimatter annihilate one another on contact, one has to wonder why we are here at all. If they are each other’s complete opposites, one might expect the same amount of matter and antimatter to have been produced in the big bang, quickly leading to annihilation and an empty universe. Instead, we live in a highly asymmetric version of the universe, where the negatively charged electron is a fundamental particle that forms a core part of all atoms, hovering in their orbitals. Why did nature use only half of the building blocks available to it?

“ Star Trek ‘s futuristic antimatter engine touches on one of the greatest unsolved mysteries of particle physics”

Efforts to make sense of this asymmetry are under way in both theoretical and experimental physics. Many theorists believe that the lopsided bias towards matter is connected to violations of something called charge-parity symmetry, more commonly known among physicists as CP symmetry. This is a property that demands that all particles are interchangeable with their antiparticle when their spatial coordinates are flipped, a kind of mirror symmetry. Most observed particles obey CP symmetry, but it can be violated.

Though most famous for being the facility where the Higgs boson was first detected, the Large Hadron Collider is also home to experiments that are seeking to learn more about CP symmetry breaking.

The Large Hadron Collider beauty (LHCb) experiment, for example, specifically focuses on b-physics. B-physics refers not to low-budget physics, something that our governments surely dream of, but instead to the physics of beauty quarks (sometimes referred to as bottom quarks).

Beauty quarks are just one of six flavours of subatomic quarks, which are the constituents of neutrons and protons. The other five varieties have equally delightful names: top, up, down, strange and charm. The fundamental “weak” nuclear force can cause quarks to change flavours, and it also causes the quarks to break CP symmetry. This gives us an important hint that CP symmetry violations are possible, leading theorists to consider matter-antimatter models that rely on it.

In addition to beauty quarks, LHCb can also study the properties of charm quarks. Excitingly, the experiment recently found the first evidence of CP violation among them. In order to achieve this result, LHCb looked at decays of D° mesons – short-lived particles made of a charm quark and an up antiquark.

This result is an exciting affirmation of a phenomenon that scientists had expected to find for decades, but had yet to produce in the lab. The discovery doesn’t radically change our perspective on physics yet because it matches theoretical predictions – and it certainly isn’t a warp engine. But it suggests that, under the right conditions, CP violation can occur. Perhaps those conditions existed during the big bang, producing the nearly antimatterless universe we see today.

• This column will appear monthly. Up next week: Graham Lawton
• particle physics

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59 Years Later, Star Trek Just Proved It Still Needs Its Oldest Sci-Fi Plot Device

Trek just can’t quit the warp drive, even in the 32nd Century.

After almost six decades and hundreds of years of future history, the fastest way to travel in the final frontier is still by firing up your faithful warp drive. Star Trek’s famous faster-than-light tech was originally conceived as a “time warp” drive in the 1964 pilot “The Cage,” but was later changed to just a “warp” drive to avoid confusion. But why is this concept still around? Surely people living in the 25th and 32nd centuries have come up with something a bit faster? In a new clip from Discovery Season 5, a piece of dialogue reminds us why warp drive is still such a big deal, even 900 years after the era of Captain Kirk.

Although the plot of Discovery Season 5 is still vague, we do know it will involve a galaxy-wide treasure hunt that will see our Starfleet heroes compete against thieves named Moll (Eve Harlow) and L’ak (Elias Toufexis). In an extended preview revealed at San Diego Comic-Con, we find Captain Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) chasing them and jumping on their ship as it goes into warp. As Burnham hangs out inside their warp bubble and tries to disable their engines, another Starfleet ship arrives: the USS Antares , commanded by Captain Rayner, a new character played by Callum Keith Rennie.

Some brief technobabble ensues, in which Burnham realizes that if the Antares keeps their tractor beam on the escaping enemy ship, its warp bubble will collapse and she’ll be crushed. Why can’t the Antares just pull this smaller ship out of warp? Burnham raises this same question, saying, “reverse engines and pull them out of warp.” But Rayner can’t , and it’s all connected to the type of FTL drive his ship is using.

“If I had a Pathway Drive, maybe,” Rayner says. “But we’re still making do with Burn tech out here.”

By “Burn tech,” Rayner means old-school warp drive. The “Pathway Drive” is an experimental propulsion system Starfleet was working on during Season 4 of Discovery . So although the ships in the 32nd Century of Discovery look slicker, they’re running off the same FTL drives that Pike, Kirk, Sisko, and Picard deal with in the 23rd, 24th, and 25th centuries.

Why does this matter? Well, Discovery Season 3 posits that a catastrophe called “the Burn” put the entire galaxy’s ability to develop new technology back roughly 120 years. The Burn also made dilithium, the crystal crucial to stabilizing warp fields, even rarer than it already is. Dilithium also caused the Burn, which is like saying Star Trek’s reliance on warp drive caused Star Trek to become reliant on warp drive.

Star Trek’s alternate warp drives

The Enterprise-D going waaaaay too fast.

Discovery has been trying to make other forms of space propulsion happen since Season 1. The obvious example is the USS Discovery’s Spore Drive, which uses the Mycelial network to instantly transport the ship. But it’s way more complicated and can only be operated by specialists like Paul Stamets (Anthony Rapp). The Spore Drive isn’t sustainable, just like Star Trek’s other alternate drives.

In Star Trek III: The Search for Spock , the USS Excelsior had something called a Transwarp Drive. This was mostly a punchline, and Scotty was easily able to sabotage it. The Excelsior is still around in Star Trek VI, but had been refitted with a regular old warp drive. In The Next Generation’s “Where No One Has Gone Before,” Kosinski and the Traveler attempt to introduce a thought-based form of propulsion that goes horribly awry, and in “Remember Me” Wesley traps his mom, Dr. Crusher, in an alternate dimension when he tries to create a new kind of warp bubble. And, of course, in the Voyager episode “Threshold,” crossing the Warp 10 barrier turns Janeway and Tom Paris into salamanders.

You get it. Anything that’s not warp drive, in the Star Trek canon, is unpredictable and dangerous. And yet, now that Trek canon has pushed several centuries beyond its original timeline, it seems likely that at some point warp drive will have to become obsolete. Back when The Next Generation was in early development, Roddenberry and other producers briefly floated the idea that in the distant future transporters will be so powerful that Starfleet wouldn’t even need ships. So, if Trek ever does get rid of warp drive, they can just beam people around.

Star Trek: Discovery Season 5 is expected in early 2024.

• Science Fiction

Is Star Trek’s Warp Drive Possible?

The concept of the warp drive is currently at odds with everything we know to be true about physics.

Central to science fiction, and Star Trek in particular, is the ability to travel the galaxy at speeds far faster than light via a fictional technology called a “ warp drive .” What is that, and will we ever have one ?

No Warp Drive for You

A provisional answer is “no.” According to the accepted laws of science, nothing can travel faster than light . Even though light is fast enough to circle the Earth over seven times in a single second, space is very large. It takes eight minutes for light to travel from the Sun to the Earth, and it would take four years for light from our Sun to reach the nearest star ( Proxima Centauri ). Most stars—and hence, most planets—are much more distant, so travel time would be correspondingly longer. The distances are so vast that interstellar travel would take lifetimes.

That makes for a boring sci-fi plot, so the creators of Star Trek invented a convenient, but imaginary, technology. According to Star Trek canon, the warp drive works by creating a “warp bubble” around the spaceship, inside of which space is literally warped. In front of the spaceship, space is compressed, while behind the vessel, it is expanded. In this way, a spaceship never travels faster than light; it merely passes through a shorter distance. For example, if a warp drive could shrink the distance to Proxima Centauri by 1/1,461 times the normal length, it could travel there in a single day.

A Massive Problem

Is this realistic? Maybe. To begin with, our best modern understanding of space comes from Einstein’s theory of general relativity . In this theory, gravity is understood not as a force as we typically imagine it, but rather as a bending of space. So, if space can be bent or distorted in some way, then a warp drive could be within the realm of accepted science.

However, this is where things get tricky. Within the theory of relativity, the quantity that bends space is mass (or, equivalently, energy). In familiar and simple terms, the enormous mass of the Earth bends space in its vicinity. This distortion results in the phenomenon we know of as gravity.

While the bending of space by matter is a fact, it doesn’t help our warp drive very much. The bending of space near the surface of the Earth is relatively modest. After all, the distortion doesn’t appreciably shorten the distance between the Earth and the Sun, let alone the nearest star. Thus, for a warp drive to be a useful propulsion technology, a spaceship might have to carry with it a mass much larger than a planet — or even larger than a star. This extra mass would make the craft too difficult to move, meaning that the idea just isn’t tenable.

Negativity about Negative Energy

Does this completely invalidate the idea of a warp drive? Not quite. The equations governing special relativity are rich and complex and there are many solutions. In 1994, theoretical physicist Miguel Alcubierre found a solution that distorted space in a way very similar to that originally envisioned by the creators of Star Trek . Under exactly the right conditions, it is possible to expand space behind an object and compress it in front.

There is a problem, though. To accomplish this distortion, researchers would have to use negative energy—that is, reduce the energy of empty space to below zero. According to Einstein, a warp drive requires an impossible premise. As an analogy, it’s possible that some mathematical calculation involving a person’s height might have a solution that is negative. But what would it mean for a person to have a negative height? It doesn’t make physical sense.

Therefore, while scientists try to find loopholes in the conditions required for Alcubierre’s solution, most think that a warp drive will not be created this way; negative energy is a mathematical artifact and not a physical phenomenon.

Is a Warp Drive Possible or Not?

Altogether, our current understanding of the laws of nature neither allows for faster-than-light travel nor an Alcubierre-like solution to warping space. However, those who dream of traveling the stars should not give up. Scientists do not have a full understanding of the laws of nature. Indeed, my colleagues and I spend our days looking for new phenomena—things that have never been seen before.

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In speculative science, it is always foolhardy to say that something is impossible. In 1850, if you asked the best scientists of the day if it would be possible to speak in Europe and have someone in America hear you, or if it would be possible to look inside a person’s body, they would have told you “no.” Yet a scant half century later, the invention of radio and discovery of X-rays would have proved them wrong.

That is what it will take for a warp drive to be a reality. Some bright soul is going to have a new idea, something quite different from our current understanding of physics. Then, maybe—just maybe—we will be able to boldly go where no one has gone before.

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The U.S.S. Enterprise , depicted here in the 2013 movie Star Trek: Into Darkness , relies on its warp drive to zip across the galaxy.

Inside the Quest for a Real ‘Star Trek’ Warp Drive

It may be a while before starship captains can race across the galaxy, but engineers and physicists have a few ideas for making it so.

Within the Star Trek universe, traveling across the galaxy is a breeze thanks to the famed warp drive . This fictional technology allows humans and other civilizations to zoom between star systems in days rather than centuries.

Such rapid travel times are impossible in the real world, because our best theory for the way the universe works, Einstein’s special relativity , says that nothing moves faster than the speed of light.

While current rocket propulsion systems are bound by this law, plenty of hopeful engineers and physicists are working on concepts that might bring us a step closer to Star Trek ’s vision of racing across the cosmos.

“Currently, even the most advanced ideas behind interstellar travel entail trip times of decades and centuries to even the closest stars, due to the restrictions of special relativity, and our abilities—or lack of—to travel at an appreciable fraction of the speed of light,” says Richard Obousy , director and founder of Icarus Interstellar, a nonprofit dedicated to making progress toward interstellar flight.

“Being able to build starships with the capability to travel faster than the speed of light would open the galaxy for exploration and possible colonization by humans.”

Nuclear Engines

Distances in space are so vast that astronomers usually measure them in light-years, the distance light can travel in a year’s time. A single light-year equals about six trillion miles.

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The closest star to our solar system, Proxima Centauri, is 4.23 light-years away, so even traveling at the speed of light, a one-way voyage there would take 4.23 years. That may seem pokey, but it would be a huge improvement over current technology.

Right now, the fastest spacecraft headed away from Earth is Voyager 1, which is puttering along at about 38,600 miles an hour. At that rate, it would take more than 70,000 years to reach Proxima Centauri.

Still, various teams have proposed ways to at least reach a fraction of light speed and hasten our exploration of interstellar space.

Back in 1958, researchers at San Diego-based defense contractor General Atomics came up with Project Orion , which involved a spacecraft driven essentially by nuclear bombs. A controlled series of nuclear explosions would propel the ship at high speeds, rapidly carrying a hundred tons of cargo and eight astronauts to places like Mars and even the outer solar system.

Faster propulsion technology would allow us to visit our galactic neighbors, like this satellite of the Milky Way known as the Large Magellanic Cloud.

Blueprints were also created showing how to adapt the technology for interstellar travel. However, all experimentation with this so-called nuclear-pulse propulsion came to a halt with the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty of 1963.

Announced earlier this year, the ambitious Breakthrough StarShot initiative represents a less explosive effort to undertake an interstellar mission. Run by a conglomerate of billionaires and big thinkers, including famed physicist Stephen Hawking, the project’s goal is to send a flotilla of postage stamp-size spacecraft to Alpha Centauri, a triple star system that’s 4.3 light-years away. (See “Is the New $100 Million ‘Starshot’ for Real?” )

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The tiny spacecraft would be attached to a thin light sail, a piece of technology that would allow mission managers to propel the probes with lasers shining from Earth’s orbit. The lasers would accelerate the craft to 20 percent the speed of light, and the probes would arrive at their destination in roughly 20 years.

While many of the tiny travelers may never make it to Alpha Centauri, a few of them should survive and may even fly past any planets orbiting the far-off stars , beaming back data about these alien worlds.

“I’m incredibly excited to see private money being used to explore breakthrough ideas that may advance the field of interstellar flight,” Obousy says.

“I hope to see more like this in the future. While there are engineering challenges associated with the Starshot Initiative, none appear insurmountable.”

Warping Reality

Of course, the real breakthrough would be a true warp drive, which requires technology to catch up with our theoretical designs.

In 1994, Trek fans got a glimmer of hope from Mexican theoretical physicist Miguel Alcubierre, who came up with a radical theory of hyper-fast space propulsion that doesn't break Einstein’s special relativity.

Instead of accelerating the spacecraft itself to light speed, why not bend, or warp, the fabric of space and time around the ship itself? Alcubierre presented calculations that produce a bubble in space-time in which one end is expanding and the other is contracting. A spaceship could, in theory, be carried along with the warp bubble and accelerated to velocities up to 10 times the speed of light.

While that sounds simple on paper, to make it work, we may need to harness exotic forms of matter, like antimatter, that for now are poorly understood. In addition, numerous unsolved issues plague the creation and control of a warp bubble, Obousy says.

“One such problem, for example, is the idea of causal disconnection, which implies that any spacecraft sitting within the bubble would not be able to ‘communicate’ with the exterior of the bubble, suggesting that a ship would not be able to ‘turn off’ the bubble once inside of it,” he notes.

As is often the case in space travel, developing true interstellar travel like what we see in Star Trek will require significant changes in the cost and energy requirements.

“Currently, the amount of energy and money required to entertain the notion of manned interstellar travel is measured in large fractions of global output—specifically, tens of trillions of dollars, and energy measured on the scale of what many large countries use annually,” he says.

Still, he adds, “the finest minds of the 15th century could not have predicted the technological wonders of the 21st century. Similarly, who are we to say what technology the humans of the 27th century will have mastered.”

Andrew Fazekas, the Night Sky Guy, is the author of Star Trek: The Official Guide to Our Universe and host of NG Live! " Mankind to Mars " presentations. Follow him on Twitter , Facebook , and his website .

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Warp Drive Is Theoretically Possible

Very, very theoretically. But still!

• In 1994, a theoretical physicist proposed a workaround: creating a bubble within space-time that would twist distances, allowing anything within the bubble to travel long distances. Many think it makes theoretical sense, but is practically unworkable.
• An undergrad at the University of Alabama wants to restart the conversation , and he's focused on how much energy such a bubble would need.

Star Trek 's science fiction has been intermingled with real-life science for decades. The franchise has inspired technologies that people use and study every day, and now a mechanical engineering student at the University of Alabama in Huntsville wants to bring forth another one: warp drive.

Warp drive is fundamental to the world of Star Trek, as it's the crucial component to superluminal starships. Without these super-fast ships that run on warp drive, we can't become a space-faring species. Thus, warp drive is tremendously important to humanity's evolution.

But Einstein's Theory of Relativity kind of throws a wrench into the whole thing, since nothing can travel faster than the speed of light.

"As objects travel faster and faster, they get heavier and heavier—the heavier they get, the harder it is to achieve acceleration, so you never get to the speed of light," Roger Rassool, a physicist at the University of Melbourne, Australia, once told the BBC. Only things with no mass, like photons, can travel at those tremendous speeds. That certainly rules out massive ships like the Enterprise .

In 1994, the theoretical physicist Miguel Alcubierre developed a theoretical workaround, which has come to be known as the Alcubierre drive. "By a purely local expansion of spacetime behind the spaceship and an opposite contraction in front of it," Alcubierre wrote in his paper's abstract , "motion faster than the speed of light as seen by observers outside the disturbed region is possible." Essentially, an Alcubierre drive would expend a tremendous amount of energy to contract and twist space-time in front of it and create a bubble. Inside that bubble would be a inertial reference frame where explorers would feel no proper acceleration. The rules of physics would still apply within the bubble, but the ship would be localized outside of space.

The engineering student, Joseph Agnew, wants to explore the idea. "Mathematically, if you fulfill all the energy requirements, they can’t prove that it doesn’t work," he recently said at a standing-room only talk on the subject.

"Suppose you have a craft that’s in the bubble," he continues, quoted in a university press release on the talk. "What you would do is, you’d compress space-time ahead of the craft and expand space-time behind it."

The energy required to create an Alcubierre bubble would be immense. Some scientists believe it would require more energy than available within the universe, although others maintain the energy levels would be physically attainable . Agnew believes it can go down further.

"People used to say, ‘You’re dealing in something that would be great, but it takes the mass of the entire universe to do it,’" Agnew said. "Now, we’re down to where it is still an immense amount of energy and exotic matter is still a problem, but if we had that energy, we could do it."

After five to eight years of theoretical work, Agnew said, "it’s been reduced by many, many orders of magnitude."

To remove the fictional element of the bubbles, Agnew would want to start small. "Some people have approached it on a spacecraft-size scale, like what will it take to do this at that really large range, and some have approached it from a ‘Can we create this effect in a lab and then scale it up?’ perspective," he said. Even the smallest bubble would be a tremendous scientific breakthrough.

Of course, there's more to travel than just being able to generate enough energy to create a road. There's also the not-insignificant matter of surviving the trip.

"On one side, an observer located at the center of a superluminal warp-drive bubble would generically experience a thermal flux of Hawking particles," reads the abstract to a study from 2009 that discusses theorized Hawking radiation, a theoretical type of radiation released by black holes.

"On the other side, such Hawking flux will be generically extremely high if the exotic matter supporting the warp drive has its origin in a quantum field satisfying some form of Quantum Inequalities." The Hawking radiation would theoretically kill anyone who attempted to enter such a bubble.

So there's a long road ahead. But that's not deterring Agnew. He's curious about exploring the field further, on one condition: funding.

"The interest in doing something in this field is going to be there if someone has the money," he said. "This is just one of several areas I am interested in. If the opportunity is there to do it, I’ll pursue it."

David Grossman is a staff writer for PopularMechanics.com. He's previously written for The Verge, Rolling Stone, The New Republic and several other publications. He's based out of Brooklyn.

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Star Trek’s Warp Drive Technology, Explained

In this science fiction universe, anything is possible. Let's explore the technicalities of breaking the speed of light.

The universe created by the wonderful mind of Gene Roddenberry back in the late 1960s contains a myriad of wacky and wonderful things, from fabulous diverse alien races , to a dizzying array of futuristic technology. One such incredible piece of tech sits at the very heart of Star Trek. Without it, there wouldn’t be much of a show at all, and those such as Kirk and Picard would be extremely limited in exploring the miraculously empty Milky Way. The technology, of course, is the Warp Drive, and acts as an important cornerstone within the vast Star Trek history.

The Warp Drive's Role In The Star Trek Franchise

The Warp Drive is fundamental for two distinct reasons. One is that it acts as an important marker for First Contact between the Federation (or the Vulcans before the Federation was formed) and the developing culture . The reason behind this is rather simple: if a species is able to traverse the universe more easily, they will eventually run into alien species, so they may as well introduce themselves. It also acts as a significant marker for a culture being advanced enough to handle the wealth of technology and information shareable by the federation, without it skewing the culture's natural evolution.

RELATED: How Star Trek: The Next Generation Explored Blindness & Accessibility With Geordi LaForge

The second reason behind the importance of the warp drive even simpler: space is really, really big. Traversing it even with warp drive technology can take weeks to months — and that’s just from traveling between two fairly close star systems. The crew of the USS Voyager understand this all too well. Captain Kathryn Janeway 's journey to bring her crew home from the Delta Quadrant took an estimated 70 years, not including pit stops and detours along the way. The writers of Star Trek needed a solution so that each episode was not just a slow moving jaunt through space twiddling their thumbs in the holodeck , and to close the vast distances between star systems, and thus Warp Drive (or Hyperdrive as it was classed in the pilot episode) was born. Audiences may hear the term frequently, but how exactly does it work?

The Technology Behind Fictional Space Travel

Despite warp drive being purely fictional, a lot of thought had been put into explaining and exploring the science as to how it might work. Star Trek drew on various examples of previously written science fiction to create its own fusion of how this intergalactic space travel might work, and it has only been expanded over the years. The first example of such travel using such speeds was first mentioned in the 1915 - 1921 novel Skylark of Space , so the idea had been around for a while. The biggest problem with this kind of space traversal is that the speed in which an object would have to go to travel such distances would have to be faster than light. Overlooking this impossibility sewn by Einstein's theory of relativity, warp travel works by warping space-time like the folds in cloth, bending reality somewhat to allow for travel at such speeds.

To do this requires an immense amount of power. Of course, it would make sense that for a futuristic civilization they would also have a futuristic power source. In Star Trek, the main fuel is created by burning both matter (in this case deuterium, a type of hydrogen gas) and antimatter in a fusion reactor, controlled carefully through the mediation of dilithium crystals. This creates a warp bubble, or field, around the vessel, which would distorts the local space-time continuum and allows for travel that would not normally be permitted by the laws of physics.

These speeds are measured in warp factors, and go all the way up to warp 9.99. It is possible to go faster, as discovered by renegade pilot Tom Paris in the Voyager series , but speeds this great started to bend reality a little too much, and results in being absolutely everywhere all at once. As a result, it is highly unstable and not a plausible method of transportation. Warp factors in the Original Series were defined as the number cubed and then multiplied by the speed of light; for example, Warp 4 is defined as 64 times the speed of light. Things changed, however, as the writers introduced more and more into the universe. During The Next Generation, the specifics behind warp got a little relaxed, and the writers made these distances work for whatever was best for storytelling.

Warp drive technology is at the very heart of Star Trek , and is arguably one of the most important pillars for its storytelling. Not only is it fundamental to almost every single episode, as the necessary means their crew rely on more than anything else to simply get around, but there have been multiple entire episodes exploring the possibilities and problems surrounding it — including, in Discovery , what happens when it is severely limited. It is integral to the series, and will likely remain so throughout the franchise.

MORE: Star Trek: Deep Space 9's Most Heart Wrenching Moment

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In honor of 'Star Trek: Strange New Worlds' Season 2, a tour of the physics

Regina G. Barber

Berly McCoy

Rebecca Ramirez

Season 2 of the critically acclaimed Star Trek: Strange New Worlds premiered June 15 ( streaming on Paramount+ ). So today, Short Wave boldly goes where many, many nerds have gone before and explores the science — specifically the physics — and the science- fiction of Star Trek . Scientist in Residence Regina G. Barber chats with two Trekkie physicists about why they love the franchise. Astrophysicist Erin Macdonald is the science consultant for Star Trek , and Chanda Prescod-Weinstein is a theoretical physicist and author of the book The Disordered Cosmos .

This episode, the trio discusses the feasibility of warp drive, global cooperation and representation and how the transporters that beam crew members from the surface of a planet to the ship might be breaking fundamental laws of physics. They end at the galaxy's edge — and discuss why its portrayal in Star Trek might be problematic, scientifically.

Space is vast – it takes years for real spacecrafts to travel within our solar system! In Star Trek, characters zip around the galaxy in their starship vessels thanks to warp drive, which let spaceships travel faster than the speed of light. But physics puts a speed limit on anything with mass. These objects have to move slightly slower than the speed of light, which itself has a speed limit. So what's the loophole here?

According to Erin, good ol' suspension of disbelief isn't necessary because, "the math checks out." For that reason, it's one of Erin's favorite pieces of sci-fi in the series. Spacetime is the three dimensions we humans are used to living in, plus time. The universe is situated in the four dimensional fabric of spacetime, with heavier objects "pulling" that fabric down more than lighter — or, weightless, in the case of light — objects. So, spacetime itself could be a loophole to this speed limit. Erin says that to bypass the cosmological speed limit of light, you could simply, "build a bubble of space time around your ship, and then that pushes you faster than the speed of light. " This is the various warp speeds . One bubble for warp 1, another bubble around that first bubble for warp 2 and so on.

Of course, Erin and Chanda both point out that using spacetime in this way requires an extraordinary amount of energy — well beyond what humans are capable of at this moment in time.

'Star Trek: Strange New Worlds' season 2 is a classic sci-fi adventure

Transporters.

It would be great to teleport to work, as Star Trek characters do thanks to their transporters. Upside? No traffic. Downside? The fear that once you've been broken down into particles and beamed across the city, you might not be rearranged in the right order.

In order for a transporter to work, users would have to know both where a given particle is and its velocity. Unfortunately, this is not possible due to a well known physics conundrum, the Heisenberg Uncertainty principle . Star Trek plugs this plot hole with something they call a Heisenberg Compensator that is connected to their transporter mechanics. How it works is never explained. All we need to know is that, in the Star Trek universe ... it does!

So, transporters require a little more suspension of disbelief than warp drive — or good-humored humility if you're Chanda. "I don't think transporters will ever be a thing that we can do. But I always say that it's important for me as a scientist to be humble, and so it may be that there is some science beyond the uncertainty principle that we are just not aware of at this point," she quips.

Galactic Barrier

Warp drive can get ships to light speed and faster in the Star Trek world but space is still HUGE. The Milky Way galaxy is 100,000 light years across so, even at Warp 9, it would take the Star Trek crew years to travel the galaxy. It's pretty rare that any starship gets near the edge of our galaxy, but in the 1960s, Star Trek writers had the crew arrive at the " galactic barrier ." According to the show, this barrier doesn't let communication signals through, is dangerous and gives characters " strange energies ."

Chanda says that the impenetrability of signals is what winds her up most about this fake barrier. "But we see other galaxies all the time, and those are signals," she says. "We see radio observations. We see across the electromagnetic spectrum."

These three sci-fi concepts barely scratch the surface of what "science" — and science — Star Trek uses throughout the series . There's so much physics we didn't cover — and so there will be much more science to dissect in the future.

Listen to Short Wave on Spotify , Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts .

Questions about the "scientific" underpinnings of other pop culture? Email us at [email protected] . We'd love to hear from you!

This episode was produced by Berly McCoy, edited by Rebecca Ramirez and fact checked by Katie Daugert. Josh Newell engineered the audio. Johannes Doerge is our main legal duderino.

• Star Trek: Strange New Worlds

July 13, 2021

11 min read

Star Trek ’s Warp Drive Leads to New Physics

Researchers are taking a closer look at this science-fiction staple—and bringing the idea a little closer to reality

By Robert Gast & Spektrum

Warp one, engage!

Getty Images

For Erik Lentz, it all started with Star Trek . Every few episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation, Captain Jean-Luc Picard would raise his hand and order, “Warp one, engage!” Then stars became dashes, and light-years flashed by at impossible speed. And Lentz, still in elementary school, wondered whether warp drive might also work in real life.

“At some point, I realized that the technology didn’t exist,” Lentz says. He studied physics at the University of Washington, wrote his Ph.D. dissertation on dark matter and generally became far too busy to be concerned with science fiction. But then, at the start of the coronavirus pandemic, Lentz found himself alone in Göttingen, Germany, where he was doing postdoctoral work. He suddenly had plenty of free time on his hands—and childhood fancies in his head.

Lentz read everything he could find on warp drives in the scientific literature, which was not very much. Then he began to think about it for himself. After a few weeks, something occurred to him that everyone else seemed to have overlooked. Lentz put his idea on paper and discussed it with more experienced colleagues. A year later it was published in a physics journal .

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It quickly became clear that Lentz was not the only person dreaming about warp drives. Media outlets all over the world picked up the story , and a dozen journalists asked for interviews. A discussion on the online forum Reddit attracted 2,700 comments and 33,000 likes. One Internet user wrote, “Anyone else feel like they were born 300 years too soon?”

A Bubble in Space and Time

There is no doubt that the universe is still far too vast for humans to traverse. It takes more than four years for a beam of light to reach Earth’s nearest star Proxima Centauri. Even with the best available propulsion systems, it would take tens of thousands of years for a human to get there. One can always dream about establishing colonies in other star systems, but it is not a journey anyone is likely to undertake.

But perhaps one day it might be possible to reduce the travel time. There are many ideas about how to do that, from laser-accelerated solar sails to nuclear propulsion. But even with the aid of these technologies, you would not get too far in a human lifetime. The galaxy really is open only to those who travel as fast as light—or faster.

NASA artist’s 1998 rendition of warp drive travel. The ring around the spacecraft generates a negative-energy field. From today’s perspective, the negative-energy field would no longer be necessary. Credit:  NASA; Digital art by Les Bossinas (Cortez III Service Corp)

For that very reason, imaginative physicists have long been pondering the ultimate propulsion system: a bubble in space and time in which a spaceship could dash from sun to sun, just like the USS Enterprise did. This is research at the fringe of science: not necessarily wrong but spiced with a large pinch of optimism.

The fact that scientists are dealing with the idea at all today is thanks to a 1994 paper by Mexican theoretical physicist Miguel Alcubierre. At the time, Alcubierre was not just a passionate Star Trek devotee. In his doctoral thesis at the University of Wales College Cardiff (now Cardiff University), Alcubierre also worked on the theory of relativity. Strictly speaking, the theory states that nothing can travel faster than light. But by applying a little creativity, Alcubierre identified an apparent loophole.

For physicists, Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity consists of two parts: The “special” theory of relativity, which dates from 1905, deals with the uniform motion of fast-as-light objects. Ten years later Einstein generalized these ideas for accelerating bodies. According to “general” relativity, the three spatial dimensions we are familiar with (up-down, left-right, front-back) are inseparable from time. Every mass deforms this spacetime.

According to Albert Einstein’s epic discovery, we live in four-dimensional “spacetime.” Spacetime is not static. Like a tablecloth, it is deformed by massive objects. Everything that moves across the tablecloth (or through spacetime) can accelerate only up to the speed limit set by light. The tablecloth itself, on the other hand, can be deformed at any speed, as the universe itself shows in some situations.

At the instant of the big bang, for example, the original spacetime structure presumably expanded for a split second and did so much faster than any ray of light could travel. Even today, the expansion continues to drive extremely distant galaxies away at speeds faster than light, which means their light can no longer reach us.

Based on his discovery, Alcubierre surmised that it would only be a small step to a warp drive. If spacetime were contracted in front of a spaceship and expanded behind it to compensate, it would be possible to travel to one’s destination at a speed faster than light. The ship would remain encapsulated in a bubble, and the crew would not sense the magnitude of the interstellar journey. In a 2017 lecture, Alcubierre compared it to being on a passenger conveyor belt at the airport: “You can imagine that the floor behind you is being created out of nothing and in front of you it is being destroyed, so you move along.”

But formulating this idea in the language of general relativity immediately gives rise to major practical problems. First, to deform spacetime so radically, you would need to cram a huge mass into a bubble bounded by a wall thinner than an atomic nucleus. Then you would need two forms of matter to maintain the bubble. The gravity of ordinary mass would cause the space at the front of the bubble to contract, moving the whole structure forward. But at the same time, the space at the back of the bubble would need to expand like rising bread dough. To make that expansion happen, according to Alcubierre, you would need some form of negative energy radiating a kind of antigravity.

The Curse of Negative Energy

For most physicists, that was the end of the thought experiment. Energy—which according to Einstein’s formula E = mc2 is equivalent to unconstrained mass—seems like it must, by definition, be positive. But according to quantum theory, it can indeed have a negative value. This seems to occur only in rare special cases, however—on a tiny scale. In the so-called Casimir effect , for example, the quantities involved are so minuscule that any technological application seems absurd.

Alcubierre, now a professor of physics at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, concedes this point. In terms of a potential technology, warp drives “are greatly lacking,” he and one of his colleagues wrote in a recent preprint paper . He has now turned his attention to known phenomena, such as black holes. The warp drive concept, however, retains its fascination, especially for Trekkies—and for a few gravitational physicists, who occasionally publish variations on the idea.

Some of these papers have shown how to reduce the bubble’s mass requirements so that the total mass needed to deform spacetime would be less than that of our sun. But no one was able to get around the problem of negative energy—until Lentz took it up during the lockdown in Göttingen. In his enforced isolation, Lentz found a way to construct a warp bubble using only positive energy. In so doing, he may have overcome the greatest objection to warp drives.

What made it possible was a special feature of the geometry of spacetime that Lentz discovered buried in the general theory of relativity—more precisely, in Einstein’s field equations. These equations can calculate how a particular distribution of matter and energy deforms spacetime. Researchers can also use them, as Alcubierre did, to determine the mass and energy needed to produce a specific curvature of space.

Dealing with a dynamic, four-dimensional structure like spacetime is extremely complicated, however. Writing out Einstein’s formulas in full produces a jumble of nested differential equations with thousands of terms. Depending on the assumptions you make about a particular physical situation, you only take some of those terms into account. For theorists, it is an almost limitless playground.

Principle of the Alcubierre drive: Spacetime contracts at the front of the bubble (right), corresponding to a warp in spacetime. Behind the bubble (left), new space is created out of nothing, which is equivalent to stretching spacetime. Credit: AllenMcC Wikimedia  (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Lentz specifically examined the assumptions leading to the negative energy requirements in Alcubierre’s work. Like his colleague, Lentz began by analyzing spacetime, modeling the multidimensional substance as a stack of very thin layers. He found that Alcubierre had only considered comparatively simple “linear” relationships between the equations for shifting one layer onto the next. At this point, choosing more complex “hyperbolic” relations, which typically express rapidly changing quantities, results in a different warp bubble than the one obtained by Alcubierre. It still requires enormous amounts of mass and energy but, according to Lentz’s calculations, only positive amounts. “I was very surprised that no one had tried this before me,” Lentz says.

Lentz’s bubble looks different from the one Alcubierre worked out in 1994. It consists of diamond-shaped regions of altered spacetime that resemble a flock of birds. Creating such a spacetime geometry in reality would involve a complicated layering of rings and disks, not made of solid material but of an extremely dense fluid of charged particles, similar to the substance found in the interior of neutron stars, Lentz says.

That means near-light-speed travel is still very, very far away from applied technology. But now that no exotic negative energy densities are needed—at least according to Lentz’s latest work—the theoretical games are within the realm of established physics. Alcubierre describes Lentz’s paper as a “very important development.” Francisco Lobo, a researcher at the University of Lisbon and a colleague of Alcubierre’s, who has published a textbook on warp drives, cannot find any obvious errors either. “If correct, this has the potential of opening up new interest and novel avenues of research in warp drive physics,” he says.

Lentz’s idea has even aroused interest among researchers outside the small community of warp drive enthusiasts, including Lavinia Heisenberg, a professor of cosmology at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich. Heisenberg and her student Shaun Fell found Lentz’s paper so exciting that they built on it by designing their own positive-energy warp bubbles that would require as little as a thousandth of the mass of our sun.

“The whole thing is much less mysterious than most people assume,” says Alexey Bobrick , an astrophysicist at Lund University in Sweden. Collaborating with New York City–based entrepreneur Gianni Martire, Bobrick came up with some promising solutions to Einstein’s field equations in 2020. According to Bobrick, all that is needed for a warp bubble is an appropriately shaped shell made of dense material that bends spacetime in its immediate vicinity while the universe through which the bubble moves and the space within the shell remain comparatively undisturbed.

Time Goes by So Slowly

“Comparatively” is the key. Alcubierre and later warp architects assumed an abrupt transition between the contorted spacetime in the wall of the bubble and the smooth interior and exterior. But Bobrick and Martire found this “truncation” of the gravitational field to be the reason why large amounts of negative energy are required to stabilize the contortion of space and time.

Abandoning the cartoonish image of a soap bubble, however, makes it possible to build warp drives based on ordinary matter, they claim. The gravitational field would not simply disappear when one moved away from the wall of the shell. Instead it would gradually decay. Spacetime would therefore also be curved inside the bubble. To travelers in a spaceship right in the middle of the bubble, this phenomenon would be most obvious in the passage of time: their watches would go slower than in the rest of space because, according to the theory of relativity, time is affected by gravity.

The slower passage of time on a spaceship might be something interstellar travelers appreciate. Still, Bobrick and Martire describe other obstacles. So far, they argue, there is no known way to actually accelerate a warp bubble. All previous ideas about the subject simply assume that the curvature of spacetime is already moving at high speed.

A beam of light travels 299,000 kilometers per second. According to Einstein’s special theory of relativity, this is a physical constant. The speed of light is the maximum speed any particle may reach, and a particle can only do so if it has no mass. Consequently, today’s physics offers no possibility of accelerating objects beyond the speed of light. On closer inspection, however, this limit only applies within the four-dimensional spacetime comprising the universe. Outside of that, even greater speeds appear to be possible.

“None of the physically conceivable warp drives can accelerate to speeds faster than light,” Bobrick says. That is because you would require matter capable of being ejected at speeds faster than light—but no known particles can travel that fast. Furthermore, the bubble could not be controlled by occupants of the spaceship itself because they would lose contact with the outside world, owing to the extremely strong curvature of space around them.

Lentz sees these objections as a problem, too, but he believes a solution can be found. Bobrick, meanwhile, points out that it is also possible to travel to distant stars at a third or half the speed of light, especially if time passes more slowly for the people in the warp bubble. Just do not think about the fact that all your relatives left behind on Earth will probably have died of old age before you get back. “But at least the idea is no longer completely crazy,” Bobrick says.

From Theory to Practice

There is still some debate about whether warp bubbles really can do without negative energy. Recently, three theoreticians suggested that this claim was only true for observers moving next to the bubble. Plus, not everything that seems possible according to the theory of relativity actually exists—or is technologically feasible. For example, Einstein’s field equations can also be used to justify “white” holes (the antithesis of their black hole counterparts), Einstein-Rosen bridges (frequently called wormholes) and other exotic alterations in spacetime that no one has ever observed. That could be because laws of nature, as yet unknown, preclude such phenomena.

Some researchers therefore caution against going overboard with the fantasies. Space propulsion expert Martin Tajmar of the Technical University of Dresden, for example, sees no practical relevance for the current work on warp drives. The huge masses involved simply exceed anything that can be tested on Earth, he says.

Most veteran warp drive researchers would undoubtedly agree. They see their work less as preparation for real-world experiments and more as a way of exploring the limits of relativity. In this endeavor, even speculative “thought experiments” are useful, Lobo says.

Lentz, on the other hand, is actively working toward a practical application of his idea. After his research in Göttingen, he took a job at an IT company. But in his spare time, he still thinks about how to accelerate a bend in spacetime to speeds faster than light and how to reduce the energy required to do so.

Lentz also advocates looking closely at the surroundings of neutron stars. It could be that these ultracompact stellar remnants eject bubbles like those that he describes in his paper. “As long as one doesn’t let personal biases get in the way and accepts what evidence tells you, it’s a field of research that is as worthy of being pursued as any other,” he says.

Jean-Luc Picard would probably see it similarly. “Things are only impossible until they are not,” the character noted in an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation . But that’s also easier to say when you live 300 years in the future.

This article originally appeared in Spektrum der Wissenschaft and was reproduced with permission

Transphasic warp drive

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A transphasic warp drive was a fictional form of environmentally-friendly warp propulsion, supposedly decades ahead of Federation technology, invented by The Doctor to dissuade Commander Chakotay from attempting to circumvent the defenses of the, also fictional, R'Kaal . ( VOY : " Renaissance Man ")

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Why Warp Drives Are About To Get Better

The mathematics of warp drives is fiendishly difficult. now a specialist software package is set to change the way physicists model star trek-like travel..

“Warp speed, Mr. Sulu!” With these words, Captain Kirk of the Starship Enterprise prepared his ship for faster-than-light travel while inspiring a generation of aspiring physicists who watched Star Trek from their sofas.

So it’s no surprise that in 1994, the theoretical physicist, Miguel Alcubierre, worked out how a warp drive might work in the real universe. The key feature of a warp drive is that it can propel a spaceship at superluminal speeds without the occupants experiencing huge acceleration.

Alcubierre’s idea was to create a flat region of spacetime inside a highly distorted bubble of spacetime that moves across the universe. The passengers sit in the flat region where the acceleration is zero, while the bubble as a whole, travels at superluminal speed, or at least exceedingly high velocity.

The big question, of course, was whether the Alcubierre drive was physically possible. The answer turned out to be probably not, because it required negative energy, which is not allowed by our current understanding of physics, and unfeasibly large energy densities.

Bubble Physics

Nevertheless, Alcubierre’s work inspired others to look for alternative warp drives that might be physically possible. In 2021, physicists worked out how to make a warp drive using positive energy, although with unfeasibly high energy density. Indeed, there is a whole class of warp drives.

But evaluating these models is hard because of the fiendishly difficult mathematics behind them. The mathematics involves two stages.

Having come up with a structure for spacetime that might allow warp speed, the first is to solve Einstein’s field equations to determine the flux of energy and momentum. This flux is given by mathematical entities called stress-energy tensors.

Once these have been found, the second stage is to work out whether the stress-energy tensors are physically realistic. In other words, whether they violate the laws of physics or require impractical resources, like infinite energy density.

These calculations are so complex that physicists often revert to simple solutions that make the equations involved more manageable, such as assuming spherical symmetry. However, this inevitably ignores potentially interesting spacetimes with more complex geometries.

Now Christopher Helmerich at the University of Alabama in Huntsville and colleagues have developed a software package called Warp Factory, that takes on the mathematical heavy lifting. “Warp Factory is a specialized toolkit designed for analyzing spacetimes related to warp drives,” say Helmerich and co.

They put it through its paces by characterizing the stress-energy tensors of a range of known warp drive geometries, such as Alcubierre’s, and evaluating their physical plausibility.

None of these models are close to being anything other than mathematical curiosities but the Warp Factory provides new ways to understand them and leads to new insights into their nature. In particular, it allows physicists to study subluminal warp drives in more detail, which may turn out to be the ones of most interest.

“This comprehensive toolkit provides insightful visualizations in both 2D and 3D, offering a deeper understanding of metrics and their corresponding stress-energy tensors,” say Helmerich and co.

Factory Download

The team have made the Warp Factory available for download so anybody can study their design for a revolutionary warp drive. That’s no guarantee that physically plausible warp drives will emerge. But it provides a tool that will surely kickstart research in this area. “We aim to further warp drive research and hopefully bring us closer to realizing physically achievable warp drives,” say the researchers.

So don’t be surprised if more plausible warp drives emerge in the coming weeks and months. Indeed, Helmerich and co hint at as much in their paper. “In a separate paper, currently in preparation, a new constant velocity warp drive solution has been found without energy condition violations,” they say. Just how physically plausible this will be, is not yet clear.

Nevertheless, Mr. Sulu would surely be impressed.

Ref: Analyzing Warp Drive Spacetimes with Warp Factory : arxiv.org/abs/2404.03095

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‘Warp Factory’ Simulator from Physics Think Tank to Aid Creation of Star Trek-Style Warp Drives

International Thinktank Applied Physics (AP) has released its “Warp Factory” simulator and toolkit to help scientists and engineers move closer to building a real-world Star Trek-style warp drive. Having already established itself in the nascent field of warp mechanics with the previous release of its “ physical warp drive ” design in 2021, AP is now offering its expertise to the broader community to advance the development of existing and future warp drive concepts.

The Public Benefit Corporation is also putting its money where its mouth is by offering warp field theorists a chance at $500,000 worth of grant money, a commitment the organization describes as an example of its “firm grounding in humanitarian and commercial scientific solutions.”

“Warp Factory serves as a reality check for warp drive designs,” explained AP’s Dr. Christopher Helmerich in an email to The Debrief . “By analyzing designs in a comprehensive and automated manner, we can identify unphysical characteristics more efficiently than ever before. This means we can steer the development of warp drive technology toward designs that can, hopefully, be built and operated in the future.”

Warp Factory Approach Allows Researchers to Explore Complex Structure of Warp Drives

Alongside a detailed paper published in the journal Classical and Quantum Gravity , AP has made all of the Warp Factory papers, documents, simulators, and software tools available on their website. The Warp Factory toolkit is also available directly on GitHub .

In a phone call with The Debrief , AP’s CEO, founder, and co-author of both the original physical warp drive design and the recent Warp Factory paper, Gianni Martire, explained that his group is painfully aware of how small the community of scientists and researchers currently exploring warp drive metrics and their possible solutions currently is. However, he says his international group of physicists and scientists believes that tools like this will not only aid those already in the community but also encourage new minds to take on the challenge of making science fiction-style spaced travel a reality.

“It’s only a handful of groups right now,” Martire told The Debrief . “But we think a tool like Warp Factory could not only help those already exploring this field but also attract fresh minds since they will now have a whole new set of powerful tools not previously available.”

Among the core components of Warp Factory that will make that mission possible is a 2D and 3D visual warp simulator. According to its inventors, this visualization tool can display “spacetime metrics and their related stress-energy tensors” in a way engineers can easily interpret and understand. AP says their simulator will also help facilitate “the study and comprehension of these intricate spacetimes.”

“Using the numerical approach of Warp Factory enables us to see the complex structure of warp drives that are rarely explored in detail,” explained AP’s Dr. Jared Fuchs in an email to The Debrief. “ This has given us new insights into how they can be constructed and, hopefully, improved upon.”

Aside from the simulator, Warp Factory also includes a software toolkit that lets users “explore Einstein’s field equations, assess the energy conditions, and calculate metric scalars” that underlie the physics of theoretical warp drive models.

“Exploring warp drives is a fun way to push the bounds of our theories of physics and see what strange and interesting solutions might (or might not) be possible in our universe,” Fuchs told The Debrief .

Applied Physics Offering Grants to Help Humanity Usher in the Warp Age

In an effort to encourage more scientists and engineers to join their mission, AP is offering a chance to partner with them at AP’s Advanced Propulsion Laboratory . This includes a chance to receive financial support in the form of the $500,000 Warp Grants program.

Given the scarcity of funds in most fields of theoretical research, the group believes that this grant program can prop up current and future researchers alike to push the boundaries of physics, thereby moving the entire mission of a working war drive closer to reality.

Personal Flying Saucer Makes 1st Successful Flights

“APL is proud to provide the scientific community with $500,000 USD in Phase I warp grants,” the company explains. “The first phase is dedicated to achieving incremental steps that will further our understanding of warp bubbles and their potential advancements in propulsion as humanity enters the Warp Age.”

Although the handful of researchers in this nascent field all acknowledge that actually building a working warp drive is still far off in the future, the folks at AP say they are confident that it is doable. They also say that their new Warp Factory is one of the most significant advances in warp field research to date since it offers researchers a virtual simulation suite like those enjoyed by engineers in advanced aerospace and automotive design.

“Physicists can now generate and refine an array of warp drive designs with just a few clicks, allowing us to advance science at warp speed,” said Martire. “Warp Factory serves as a virtual wind tunnel, enabling us to test and evaluate different warp designs.”

“Science fiction is now inching closer to science fact,” he added.

  Christopher Plain is a Science Fiction and Fantasy novelist and Head Science Writer at The Debrief. Follow and connect with him on X , learn about his books at plainfiction.com , or email him directly at [email protected] .

Scientists Get Serious in the Search for a Working Warp Drive

• If humanity wants to be a spacefaring species, it needs to figure out how to travel faster than the speed of light.
• Now, a new online toolkit — backed up by a $500,000 grant — will help engineers kickstart how humanity can achieve its faster-than-light dreams in reality.
• This toolkit was created by Applied Physics, an international group of scientists, which hopes to also provide a "reality check" on warp drive concepts that rely on exotic physics.

The galaxy—let alone the universe—is a stunningly huge place. Containing anywhere from 100 billion to 400 billion stars (and by extension trillions of planets), the Milky Way is a stunning 100,000 light years across. That means a trans-galactic photon that just exited the Milky Way today likely began its journey when Homo sapiens had yet to migrate out of Africa, and that’s traveling at roughly 670 million miles per hour. Considering the velocity limitations of our rockets, it takes roughly half a human lifetime just to exit our solar system.

Simply put, if humans want to be a spacefaring species, we’re going to need something better than chemical — or even nuclear — rockets, and for decades, it’s science fiction that has held the answer. The most famous example is Star Trek , which relies on the power of its warp drive to traverse the galaxy in a fraction of the time. Galactic journeys that once took centuries could now be wrapped up in a couple of hours.

Scientists have longed for some sort of technology that can propel humans faster than what physics says is possible, and now a new online tool is helping engineers make a warp drive the sole property of Starfleet. Last week, Applied Physics, which is an international group of scientists and engineers, announced that they’d created an online toolkit for “analyzing warp drive spacetimes” called the “Warp Factory.”

This comes only a few years after a flurry of papers reported that constructing warp drives — built on the idea of spacetime-folding warp bubbles — could be theoretically possible. Warp Factory provides an online playground for researchers to test warp engine ideas.

“Physicists can now generate and refine an array of warp drive designs with just a few clicks, allowing us to advance science at warp speed," Gianni Martire, CEO of Applied Physics, said in a press statement . “Warp Factory serves as a virtual wind tunnel, enabling us to test and evaluate different warp designs. Science fiction is now inching closer to science fact.”

As Public Benefit Company, Applied Physics is ponying up $500,000 in potential grants for aspiring warp drive theorists. However, those grants come with a few caveats, mainly that the idea is to produce a physical warp drive based in classical relativity, which means not relying on “negative energy or superluminal matter” to make your time-bending engine work.

AP’s Christopher Helmerich, in an interview with The Debrief , also compared the Warp Factory as a “reality check” for warp drives as concepts can be analyzed in a comprehensive way and hopefully weed out ideas that have no chance of operating in the real world.

While a fully working warp drives has many hurdles to overcome, it’s a technology worth taking seriously. Because if humans have any hope of one day exploring distant stars, it’ll need the help of space-bending tech that the newly-minted Warp Factory hopes to nurture.

What Is Star Trek: Discovery's Spore Drive and How Does It Work?

The spore drive on Star Trek: Discovery is the universe's most fantastical technology that works in the show but should never replace warp engines.

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How does the spore drive work in star trek, why the uss discovery is the only starfleet ship with a spore drive, is the spore drive faster than warp speed, why star trek should probably stop using the spore drive.

With Season 5, Star Trek: Discovery embarks on the final mission for its dynamic crew and one-of-a-kind starship. There are many things about this series that diverged from past series or films in the universe created by Gene Roddenberry six decades ago. How the spore drive that powers the USS Discovery works is perhaps the most fanciful concept in Star Trek . When piloted by Ripper the "space tardigrade," Lieutenant Paul Stamets or Kewijan empath Cleveland Booker, this organic propulsion system is one of the most powerful technologies in all science fiction and fantasy.Despite the universe's reputation for somewhat grounded science-fiction, the displacement-activated spore hub drive is squarely in the realm of fantasy. This is not new territory for Star Trek , however.

Vulcan mind-melds, the concept of "subspace" and Star Trek's ubiquitous transporters are all, to varying degrees, magical nonsense. What helps sell these far-out technologies to skeptical audiences is the (lovingly named) technobabble that accompanies them. Vulcans use innate psychic abilities to connect to another consciousness like file-sharing over wifi. Transporters break people down into atoms and beam them to another physical location, where they are reassembled just as they were. Subspace allows communications to travel faster than speed of light, as well as any number of anomalies that create workarounds to the immutable laws of physics. USS Discovery's spore drive is equally able to break the laws of physics and travel on a "mycelial network" that exists outside of regular spacetime .

'Bittersweet and Shocking': Star Trek: Discovery Star Addresses the Series Getting Canceled

Former Star Trek: Voyager producer Bryan Fuller was tapped to bring the universe back to television, and he co-created the series with Alex Kurtzman. He left early in pre-production, but many of the concepts he introduced remained, such as the controversial Klingon redesign . The spore drive was one such concept, which drew from the research and philosophy of real-world mycologist Paul Stamets. This is why Anthony Rapp's character has that name, after all.

Next to engineering, the USS Discovery has a room where Lieutenant Stamets grows the spores needed to power the drive. He created it with his friend Straal, and Starfleet "co-opted" the technology once the Klingon-Federation War broke out. It was Straal who figured out the spore drive needed a pilot with compatible DNA to pilot the ship. He used a creature which Michael Burnham called a "tardigrade." Eventually, Stamets injected himself with tardigrade DNA which made him the only person capable of successfully using the spore drive. Later, Cleveland Booker was also able to serve as a navigator because of his natural empathic abilities.

Through their connection to the spores, the navigator is able to pilot the ship using invisible connections on a galactic mycelial network. In Star Trek: Discovery this network is represented much like the Quantum Realm in the Marvel Cinematic Universe . Like the Avengers, the ship is able to travel through this lower dimension and emerge in real space anywhere. However, the network the ship can travel on is limited to the Milky Way galaxy. Put another way, the spore drive allows the USS Discovery to teleport anywhere in the galaxy in an instant.

Star Trek: Discovery's Mary Wiseman, Wilson Cruz and Blu del Barrio Hype Finale

Despite existing a decade before the time of Star Trek: The Original Series , the USS Discovery was a bleeding-edge scientific vessel before the war. Once the USS Glenn and Straal were killed in their accident, Lieutenant Stamets became the only person in the universe to understand how the spore drive worked. While he sent his designs to Starfleet, none of their scientists could get it to work. Once the ship time-traveled to the 32nd Century, Starfleet was able to build a working prototype, but it was destroyed when it was stolen by Booker in Season 4 .

Even if Starfleet's scientists and engineers were able to replicate the machinery that made the spore drive function, they still lacked a crucial element: a navigator. Without the tardigrade or a compatible human, the spore drive could only safely travel a few hundred kilometers. Stamets can only serve as the navigator because of the tardigrade DNA he injected into himself. Since the creatures are sentient, difficult to catch and the Federation is against genetic modification, no one else can use his method. Booker's natural empathic abilities allowed him to serve as navigator, but his gifts are unique to Kwejian, which was destroyed in Season 4 .

In the first episode of Star Trek: Discovery Season 5 , Stamets is depressed because Starfleet has abandoned its efforts to recreate his technology. He wanted the spore drive to be his legacy. Instead, Starfleet and the Federation committed to a technology called the "pathway drive," an unknown method of faster-than-light travel that doesn't require dilithium crystals like warp engines. This means that the USS Discovery will be the only serviceable Starfleet vessel capable of traveling via the mycelial network, at least so long as Stamets or Booker are willing to serve as navigator.

How Star Trek: Discovery Season 5 Connects to TNG's Biggest Open Mystery

While it's natural to compare the spore drive to Star Trek 's famous warp drive, the USS Discovery isn't traveling at speed when it jumps. In fact, it's closer to Star Wars ' hyperspace , a dimension that exists underneath spacetime. Yet, unlike the Millennium Falcon, the USS Discovery is able to enter and exist the mycelial network in mere seconds. Ships traveling through hyperspace still take time to get from one point to another. The USS Discovery's spore drive flies through the network far faster than warp drive, but it's a completely different method of travel .

Of all the sci-fi Star Trek inventions, warp drive is one of the more plausible ones. Einstein's Theory of General Relativity established that the speed of light is as fast as anything can go through space, but not how fast spacetime itself can go. Thus, while Starfleet vessels travel faster than light, they do it by slipping through a loophole in the laws of physics. Warp engines create a bubble that bends spacetime itself. The ships ride it like a wave and are able to go faster than Einstein's universal speed limit. However, with the spore drive, the USS Discovery is able to just pop out of reality and emerge at a different physical location in the galaxy.

While there are some actual scientific concepts behind both the spore and warp drives, the latter is far more sound . Physical travel via the mycelial network is as plausible as trying to use tree roots as a subway. Still, even though the math works for warp drive, there are countless other effects that would make traveling at those speeds unsurvivable. This is why bridge and engineering officers in Star Trek are always talking about "inertial dampers." Similarly, travel via the mycelial network is not without risk, specifically from "Hawking radiation." This theoretical energy somehow turned the crew of the USS Glenn inside out after a test jump in Season 1, Episode 3, "Context is for Kings."

Star Trek: Discovery Wasn't Originally Going to End With Season 5, Reveals EP

All science fiction requires some level of suspension of disbelief, and there are many technologies in Star Trek that are just as magical as the spore drive. Still, the concept was met with a lot of criticism from fans that goes beyond the typical reluctance to embrace new iterations of this universe. "Although physically implausible, warp drive isn't laughably ridiculous. The [spore] drive is, " scientist Steven Sazlberg wrote for Forbes . Of course, Star Trek is full of ridiculous concepts like Thomas Riker, Will Riker's "transporter clone. " The fantastical nature of the spore drive isn't why it should stay on the USS Discovery.

The USS Voyager-J was revealed to be the first ship set to test the new pathway drive, whatever it is. However, if the spore drive existed and worked in the 24th Century, the original USS Voyager could've used it to get back from the Delta Quadrant before Captain Janeway's coffee got cold . Everything about the USS Discovery was classified at the end of the show's second season, which explains why the spore drive was never even considered as a means to rescue the USS Voyager. They also lacked a compatible navigator. But more importantly, the spore drive would have made the seven seasons of Star Trek: Voyager unnecessary.

The spore drive is a fun conceit for Star Trek: Discovery , but in truth it is simply too powerful a technology. The purpose of Starfleet is, after all, to explore the unknown. If every vessel in every Star Trek universe had a spore drive, at least 500 of its 900 total episodes wouldn't have happened. That Stamets is the only person truly able to crack this technology also speaks to the unique nature of humanity. Even with all of Starfleet's brilliance, there is an irreplaceable human contribution to make its most magical technology work.

Star Trek: Discovery debuts new episodes Thursdays on Paramount+.

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Published Apr 16, 2024

WARP FIVE: Callum Keith Rennie on Discovery's Gruff First Officer

The Star Trek: Discovery actor talks Rayner's second chance, command style, and more!

SPOILER WARNING: This article contains story details and plot points for the fifth season of Star Trek: Discovery.

Getty Images / StarTrek.com

Welcome to Warp Five, StarTrek.com's five question post-mortem with your favorite featured talent from the latest Star Trek episodes.

We're only three episodes into Star Trek: Discovery 's final season, but the stakes could not be higher. Not long after saving the entire galaxy from the Dark Matter Anomaly, Captain Michael Burnham and the crew of the U.S.S. Discovery is handed a Red Directive mission from Dr. Kovich.

An 800-year-old science vessel was found on the edge of the Beta Quadrant. Aboard that ship is "something vital to the security of the Federation." They are to retrieve that artifact; however, they're not the only ones on the hunt for the artifact's ancient power. While chasing two criminals in the fifth season opener, " Red Directive ," Burnham comes across Captain Rayner and the U.S.S. Antares who is also hot on their trail and unwilling to let Moll and L'ak go as easily as the Discovery captain.

StarTrek.com had the opportunity to speak with actor Callum Keith Rennie on making first contact with Star Trek , demotions and second chances, his approach to Discovery 's newest distinguished yet gruff first officer, and more.

Point of First Contact

"Under the Twin Moons"

StarTrek.com

Like many others, Rennie was first introduced to the franchise with The Original Series in his youth.

"My first contact with Star Trek was watching it on TV with the original," remembers Rennie. "That's the one that I always reference. If it comes on, I watch it still. For me, I did see all of those other variations as they came out, but I held onto my Spock and my Jim Kirk."

For the Love of the Federation

"Red Directive"

In "Red Directive," as Burnham and Discovery is in hot pursuit of this season's main antagonists, Moll and L'ak, they soon learn that the Antares captain has been pursuing them for quite some time, and he refuses to let the slippery pair go each time they're within grasp.

When asked how big of a threat Moll and L'ak, as well as the Progenitor tech, pose to the Federation? Rennie teases that more will be revealed in time, "He has a history [with them] that will be explained later."

Speaking on the choices we've seen Rayner make in response to the two criminals, he shares, "That's Rayner's style of command. His is, 'We're to get those people; we're not to make concessions.' There's no other way outside of what he wants to do. His drive is to succeed; 'Pick a thing, I'll go do it.' That's what he knows how to do."

The distinction is clear; Rayner is a gruff, smart Starfleet captain who holds a clear line between commander and crew — he leads, they follow. His approach is, you get the job done and apologize later.

In an earlier discussion with StarTrek.com , executive producer and co-showrunner Michelle Paradise noted, "What's interesting about [Captain Rayner] is that he is going to be a bit of an antagonist, but not in a bad guy way. He's going to push Burnham, and we'll get to see new sides of Burnham and new growth in Burnham because of her interactions with him."

He has a storied track record of wartime success. In " Under the Twin Moons ," Federation president Rillak has to remind him that times have changed and they're no longer at war. However, the Antares captain sees threats everywhere, arguing that the Breens are in-fighting, the Orions are regrouping, and war is always a possibility. Not only that, Moll and L'ak now have a head start at retrieving a piece of technology with unbelievable power. He wants everyone to stop living in a "candy-colored holo fantasy."

The Fallout of Q'Mau

During Burnham and Rayner's first run-in, while Discovery 's captain sabotages the fleeing thieves' ship while on the hull of their ship, she tells the Antares captain to release its tractor beam hold as the enemy vessel's warp bubble is starting to collapse and her ship can't beam her out to safety while she's in the diminishing bubble. Then, while on Q'Mau together, Rayner continues to pursue Moll and L'ak on his own leaving Burnham and Cleveland 'Book' Booker behind; stating he doesn't have time for their "strategic advantages." Rayner plans to thwart their getaway by detonating the explosive charges hidden in a mountain's entrance, risking the potential of harming those living on the settlement of Q'Mau. Burnham reminds him they're on a non-Federation planet undertaking a highly sensitive and classified mission. When the detonation spirals into a fast-moving avalanche that would decimate the local inhabitants, Discovery requests Antares aid them in creating a shield to block the avalanche as there is not enough time to evacuate. However, Rayner holds off on letting Antares leave orbit at the risk of allowing the two thieves to evade them again.

When Rayner is held accountable for his actions as Federation Headquarters holds an inquiry to the events on Q'Mau. Despite his commendable 30 years of service to Starfleet, and his longstanding friendship with Admiral Vance, the Antares captain was forced to take an early retirement.

"Here's a guy who's been in command for 30 years," Rennie distills. "He goes in to help Burnham and her crew, and then the next thing you know, he's dismissed. So, all of that is bad. If he didn't show up to participate in any of that, he would still just be running his own crew and doing his own thing. He'd be happy on the Antares until the end of time. But he went to help, he made a decision that caused a problem, and then he was fired, sent out to pasture, and he has to make a decision to go, 'Am I done or am I not done?'"

Second Chances and Second Contacts

"Jinaal"

Valuing Rayner's aid he provided her crew while she was on Lyrek, Captain Burnham tells Rayner she'd like for him to be part of her crew — her first officer position has opened up — and she knows he's not ready to end his Starfleet career here. After all, no one understands the value of a second chance more than Burnham herself.

Reflecting on the opportunity presented to his character Rayner, Rennie notes, "He wants to try to be a better person. He's looking at his stuff going, acknowledging at times that he's been too impulsive and doing the the thing that he shouldn't have done, and but doing it anyway."

On his second chance, Rennie adds, "Does he want to be retired or does he still want to be part of the Federation and Starfleet? And he makes that choice, believing, 'What's the worst that can happen? They'll fire me again.'"

An important component of modern Star Trek has been to show the many facets of Starfleet and the Federation. It's not a monolithic institution incapable of faults.

"You do the best job you can at the given moment, and sometimes that works out and sometimes that doesn't," reflects Rennie. "You have to be, 'Well, let's take that risk.' From a commander standpoint, nothing's infallible. There's certain missions that only certain people will be assigned to because of their style. He's the man for the job," before teasing, "You'll soon discover why he's a little harsh at times."

In " Jinaal ," while Burnham heads to the surface of Trill to unlock their latest crew, Rayner is tasked with getting to know the senior crew better. While his first impression wasn't great, he now has the opportunity to make a second first impression. Unfortunately for him, his second contact isn't off to a great start when he offers the crew 20 words to provide him insight into them.

It's not going to be an overnight scenario for Rayner to change his ways. "He doesn't want to participate with the Discovery crew the way Burnham wants him to be a team player," he explains. "He's not in that space yet. He's not good at, 'Let's all be friends.' It's not his style."

Joining the Discovery Family

Rennie's experience joining a series in its final season mirrors Rayner's experience joining a tight-knit crew.

"Coming into a show, you're a new kid in school, you don't know who you're going to be friends with," states Rennie. "You don't know if you're going to get along with anybody. Much like Rayner is there to do his work, I'm there to do my work. But, my [personal] experience was fun. Episode to episode, time spent with everyone, you warm up. There's a warmth that just grows as you move along [with Sonequa Martin-Green and this cast], and you've become part of something."

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Christine Dinh (she/her) is the managing editor for StarTrek.com. She’s traded the Multiverse for helming this Federation Starship.

Star Trek: Discovery Seasons 1-4 are streaming exclusively on Paramount+ in the U.S., the UK, Canada, Switzerland, South Korea, Latin America, Germany, France, Italy, Australia and Austria. Seasons 2 and 3 also are available on the Pluto TV “Star Trek” channel in Switzerland, Germany and Austria. The series streams on Super Drama in Japan, TVNZ in New Zealand, and SkyShowtime in Spain, Portugal, Poland, The Nordics, The Netherlands, and Central and Eastern Europe and also airs on Cosmote TV in Greece. The series is distributed by Paramount Global Content Distribution.