Speaking after being awarded the Copley medal in England last week Prof. Steven Hawking spoke out about the need for mankind to extend its footprint outside the Sol system. His proposed method for making this happen: matter/antimatter annihilation to propel a craft to near-light speeds. This is the method popularized in the television (and movie) series’ Star Trek.
The key difference between Hawking’s proposal and the Warp Drive technology used in the Star Trek universe is the degree of speed. Star Trek uses matter/antimatter annihilation to move a craft at many times the speed of light, something which Hawking and most other theoretical physicists consider to be impossible based on the physical universe as we understand it. In Hawking’s proposal this technology would be used to reach sublight speeds which are very close to the speed of light.
His estimate is that with the ability to travel just below the speed of light, a craft could reach the next nearest star in about 6 years. A vast improvement from the 50,000 years it would have taken the Apollo rocket series (assuming it could ever carry enough fuel). As far as organizations like NASA are concerned, faster-than-light travel is speculative at best.
Maybe this is yet another one of Gene Roddenberry’s visions coming one step closer to reality.
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