Hyperspace Travel, A Possibility?

January 9, 2006 | Justin

According to the magazine New Scientist, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) reciently awarded a paper detailing the possibility of hyperspace travel as thier winner in the nuclear and future flight category.

The paper, built largely on the works of an apparent genius named Burkhard Heim, explains that the universe is built of eight dimensions — those of traditional dimensions, time, anti-gravity, electromagnetism, etc — and that by energizing an electromagnetic field with enough power, fuel-less flight can be achieved. The theory is as yet untested due to the current lack of technology to do so and the initial skepticism that the physics world, save the AIAA, has regarding the idea. According to the New Scientist article, the theories laid out in the paper are rather complicated and hard to follow, but should eventual tests turn positive, the possibilities for the future of space travel are endless.

Dröscher is hazy about the details, but he suggests that a spacecraft fitted with a coil and ring could be propelled into a multidimensional hyperspace. Here the constants of nature could be different, and even the speed of light could be several times faster than we experience. If this happens, it would be possible to reach Mars in less than 3 hours and a star 11 light years away in only 80 days, Dröscher and Häuser say.

Burkhard Heim, a Germen born in 1925, is a physics phenom in his own right. After a lab accident around World War II Heim was left without his forearms, sight or sense of hearing. Though he went on to become a renowned celebrity in his field. In 1957 he first released the concept of rotating the the magnetic field of a spacecraft such that the gravitational hold of the ship eased enough for it to leave the ground. Despite the novel concept, funding was never presented and the idea was placed aside — only to be looked at again by the wining AIAA paper.

So are we that much closer to being able to take a manned flight to our neighboring planets, or perhaps even the stars beyond our own solar system? Time, and the physics community, will only tell. Though how cool is it to think that 50 years ago a scientist came up with the idea of reversing the gravitational pull on a spacecraft and today scientists are using that idea to model the possibility of hyperspace travel. Perhaps some day in the near future a starship commander will say to his commanding offers “Engage!” history will be made.

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