Hey All,
We got a dusting of snow last night, but a dusting is still snow, and still cold. Winter's moved in, and the Holidays are upon us. That could mean some delays or even interruptions to the newsletter and/or podcast publishing schedules. I don't have expectations of that right now, but it could happen. If you don't hear from me for a while, assume I'm making merry.
I probably won't be, but it's a nice image.
Artificial Gravity and Space Travel
The combined research efforts of theoretical and applied physicists, engineers, and specialists throughout the Sol star system in the year 2191 -- yep, only a few decades from now -- resulted in the discovery and generation of a new elementary particle, one which had only ever theorized in the past: namely, the graviton. In the years that followed this, machinery was developed for the production and control of synthesized gravitons, eventually resulting in induced gravity fields over relatively large areas. With even more time, fine-grained control over this effect was achieved, allowing it to be applied in a startling number of ways.
The kind of artificial gravity (or AG) described so casually in the stories, wherein people walk through the companionways and cabins of vessels ion space as easily as they would hallways and rooms on the surface of Earth, is actually a fairly recent invention within the Stardrifter timeline. It's only been two hundred fifty years or so since miniaturization allowed AG equipment to fit under the decking of space vessels. Until that time, AG was purely a scientific and manufacturing technology.
Nonetheless, AG was still a fundamental aspect of human exploration and colonization in the early days of human expansion into the Orion Arm of the galaxy. Induced gravity fields playing upon matter allowed for the easy creation of micro-singularities, the quantum and macro-scale effects of which were harnessed to form small pockets, or "bubbles", of tailored space/time. These lasted only as long as power was applied to the machinery, whereupon the singularities evaporated from Hawking radiation bleed-out.
These bubbles proved to be tiny universes all their own, which could be used for the movement of matter and energy to some physically-distant point in the real universe, without traveling through the space in between, or experiencing the time required to get there. In the normal universe, a starjumping vessel does not exceed the speed of light (indeed, it doesn't really travel at all, in the literal sense) so Einsteinian physics remains unchallenged on that front.
The micro-singularity is formed by a specialized fusion reactor, and is maintained by feeding it gravitons. Its effects upon localized space/time are harnessed by an accompanying starjump emitter that shapes, inflates, and fills the immediate area with the desired effects. The effects are then further amplified and expanded upon by propagator devices in and around the vessel. A ship, therefore, creates a new, empty universe, and moves through it according to the power and efficiency of its starjump engine. If you define traveling as moving from one place to another, then the vessel doesn't travel anywhere at all, and no time whatsoever is required to do it.
That's it for this one. Just a taste. I gotta leave some of this stuff for the next episode of “Voice From The Void”!
Take care,
-David