Science The US military released a study on time travel and warp drives — here’s what a theoretical physicis

• The US Department of Defense funded a series of studies on advanced aerospace technologies, including warp drives.
• The studies came out of a program that also funded research into UFO sightings.
• One report describes the possibility of using dark energy to warp space and effectively travel faster than light.
• However, a theoretical physicist says there's "zero chance that anyone within our lifetimes or the next 1,000 years" will see it happen.

Sometime after August 2008, the US Department of Defense contracted dozens of researchers to look into some very, very out-there aerospace technologies, including never-before-seen methods of propulsion, lift, and stealth.

Two researchers came back with a 34-page report for the "propulsion" category titled, "Warp Drive, Dark Energy and the Manipulation of Extra Dimensions".

The document is dated April 2, 2010, though it was only recently released by the Defense Intelligence Agency. (Business Insider first learned about in a post by Paul Szoldra at Task & Purpose.) The authors suggest we may not be too far away from cracking the mysteries of higher, unseen dimensions and negative or "dark energy" — a repulsive force that physicists believe is pushing the universe apart at ever-faster speeds.

"Control of this higher dimensional space may bе а source of technological control оvеr the dark energy density and could ultimately play а role in the development of exotic propulsion technologies; specifically, а warp drive," the authors write. "[T]rips to the planets within our own solar system would take hours rather than years, and journeys to local star system would be measured in weeks rather than hundreds of thousands of years."

However, Sean Carroll, a theoretical physicist at Caltech who studies and follows the topics covered by the report, had a lot of cold water to pour on the report's optimism.

"It's bits and pieces of theoretical physics dressed up as if it has something to do with potentially real-world applications, which it doesn't." Carroll said. "This is not crackpot. This is not the Maharajah saying we're going to use spirit energy to fly off the ground — this is real physics. But this is not something that's going to connect with engineering anytime soon, probably anytime ever."

James Т. Lacatski, a Defense Intelligence Agency official listed as a contact on the report, did not immediately to respond a query from Business Insider.

Where the warp-drive study came from

The nature of this study is still making its way to the public.

What is known is that it's an "acquisition threat support" reference document, which helps the US military anticipate or describe new enemy technologies — apparently including (very, very) notional ones. It was also one work in "а series of advanced technology reports" for something called the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program, or AAWSAP.

This was a larger program that included Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program — an effort to investigate alleged UFO sightings by military personnel, according a recent story by KLAS-TV in Las Vegas.

The New York Times and Politico revealed AATIP's existence in December. The outlets said former Nevada senator Harry Reid helped organize it and secure millions in secret government funding (sometimes called "black money") for the effort.

A large share of this money reportedly went to Robert Bigelow — a real-estate mogul who's working to build private space stations through Bigelow Aerospace, is a friend of Reid's, and someone who has funded his own UFO research for years. The billionaire reportedly formed a separate entity, called Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies, to secure the government funding and use it to hire 46 researchers and "dozens of other support personnel," KLAS-TV said.

An anonymous senior intelligence official told Politico that AATIP began mostly to root out the existence of unknown Chinese and Russian military technologies. But after a couple of years, "the consensus was we really couldn't find anything of substance," the official said. "They produced reams of paperwork. After all of that there was really nothing there that we could find."



Scientists are also skeptical of UFOs, even after viewing spooky videos obtained by AATIP, one of which shows an undated encounter with "an aircraft surrounded by some kind of glowing aura traveling at high speed and rotating as it moves," the Times wrote.

Seth Shostak, a senior astronomer at the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Institute previously told Business Insider that, after 50 years of reported alien visits, "the really good evidence that we're being visited still has failed to surface." He added: "It is a little odd that aliens would come hundreds and hundreds of light-years to do nothing."

The larger program that looked into the feasibility of warp drives, wormholes, and stargates is meeting similar scrutiny from established experts.

 

Read the rest here - https://www.businessinsider.com/warp-drive-study-department-defense-real-fake-2018-5?r=US&IR=T

 

.

 

@TBpup would like this story.