It is still a distant dream, but it is getting unprecedented financial support.
The Limitless Space Institute was founded in 2020 by former NASA warp drive researcher Harold White and retired astronauts Brian Kelly and Sonny White.
The Institute, whose mission statement is to inspire and educate the next generation to travel beyond our solar system and support the research and development of enabling technologies, has picked up some increasingly mainstream support. The chief operations officer and second-in-command of SpaceX joined as an independent advisor in April, joining several retired astronauts involved with the venture.
The group has a wide range of funding ranging from theoretical focus grants under $100,000 to two-year postdoctoral fellowships of over $90,000 a year.
The ability to send human beings to every destination in the Solar System would change the concept of scarcity. Diamond is rare, but if you have a whole Solar System at your disposal, maybe that changes the definition of what that is.
Break the speed of light is firmly within the realm of science fiction.
While White and his team have made strides in exploring the theoretical limitations of a warp drive, distorting space and time to allow a spacecraft to move at ludicrous speeds would still requires exotic matter or negative mass, neither of which you can buy at the local gas station.
It is a fascinating idea that has inspired some of the greatest works of science fiction. It might be possible with sufficient funding and support.
It has been updated to correctly identify Shotwell's relationship to Limitless Space.
The Dream of Faster-than-Light is a book by Dr. Harold.
A scientist proposes using the entire planet as a spaceship.
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