Warp speed space travel may be possible: Aus scientist

Star Trek-style Warp speed space travel - high speed travel between galaxies - is theoretically possible, an astrophysicist in Australia has claimed.
Professor Geraint Lewis, from the University of Sydney, said the futuristic concept was actually part of Albert Einstein's theory of relativity.
"If you look at the equation that Einstein gave us, it shows you can bend and warp space so you can travel at any speed you like in the universe," Lewis said.
"It's theoretically possible, but can we ever build a warp drive? We have hints that the kind of materials that we would need exist in the universe, but whether or not we could get them together and build a warp drive, we still don't know," Lewis told 'ABC News'.

"The big problem we have, the speed of light, while fast - 300,000 kilometres per second - the distances involved are immense, so even travelling at the speed of light, it would take four years to go to the nearest star and 2 million years to go to the nearest large galaxy," he said.
"[These distances] would stop you colonising the universe... So you would need some sort of way to beat that speed limit, and Einstein's theory of relativity gives it to you," he added.

In order to build a warp drive, scientists need to find a material that has a "negative density energy".

"It is not a material that we actually have in our hands, but there are signs that there are aspects of the universe that actually have this kind of property," Lewis said.
"Empty space itself has a negative energy density. The big question is if we could mine it and shape it, we would basically have a warp drive there and then, but we just don't know if that's possible," he added.
Lewis admitted the concept was theoretical, but said there was "plenty of science that started off as speculative ideas and became real in the future".
"I think in the next 100 or 1,000 years we will reveal a lot more about the universe and maybe this hyper-fast travel will be realisable," Lewis said.

NASA physicist Dr Harold White is already working on a faster-than-light ship at NASA's Johnson Space Center.
Last year he collaborated with artist Mark Rademaker to unveil designs of what such a warp drive spacecraft might actually look like.