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[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

Welcome to Mars express: only a three hour trip

AN EXTRAORDINARY "hyperspace" engine that could make interstellar space travel a reality by flying into other dimensions is being investigated by the United States government.

The hypothetical device, which has been outlined in principle but is based on a controversial theory about the fabric of the universe, could potentially allow a spacecraft to travel to Mars in three hours and journey to a star 11 light years away in just 80 days, according to a report in today's New Scientist magazine.

The theoretical engine works by creating an intense magnetic field that, according to ideas first developed by the late scientist Burkhard Heim in the 1950s, would produce a gravitational field and result in thrust for a spacecraft.

Also, if a large enough magnetic field was created, the craft would slip into a different dimension, where the speed of light is faster, allowing incredible speeds to be reached. Switching off the magnetic field would result in the engine reappearing in our current dimension.

Full story here: news.scotsman.com/scitech.cfm?id=16902006

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But...they didn't talk about the Lithium Crystals...

[Maddad]

I threw a B.S. flag on this story in a different forum. The science behind it is long on amazing claims and short of reproducibility.

[Maddad]

By the way, it's the di-lithium crystals that make all the power.

[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

Dang!

No wonder it wouldn't go!

[OscarH]

If I remember correctly - the di-lithium crystals were used to control the power released when matter-antimatter were combined - so the actual power came from that not from the crystals.
Oscar

[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

You are so right Oscar....

Dilithium Crystals -

As the key element in all Federation warp engine designs, the dilithium crystal mediates the reaction between the matter and anti-matter in a starship's main engine core.

Dilithium is the only material known to be non-reactive with antimatter when subjected to a high frequency electromagnetic (EM) field, rendering it "porous" to antihydrogen.

Dilithium permits antimatter to pass directly through it's crystalline structure without actually coming into contact with it, due to a field dynamo effect.

Once found only in nature, the technology of the 24th Century antieutectics enables the formation of pure, synthesized dilithium and dilithium matrix re-crystallization through the use of high energy photon injection.

A rare mineral substance used to channel energy through the matter and anti-matter warp drive engines of the starship USS Enterprise on the sci-fi series STAR TREK/NBC/1966-69 and sequel series. Dilithium was worth 300 times its weight in diamonds and sources of this much-prized element were coveted by other alien races who needed the mineral to power their own space crafts with warp capabilities (travel faster than light). Dilithium crystals were also used to power phasers - futuristic weapons - that could stun or disintegrate their targets.

Mr. Spock (Leonard Nimoy) discovered the formula for creating synthetic Dilithium in 2286 in the motion picture Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986). During the first few episodes of the original series, the Enterprise engines used Lithium Crystals.

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I have a couple of Lithium batteries laying around...