Well, see, regrettably, the minimum time for any stasis field to be established is fifty years. This is socially awkward.
Anyway, I agree, this is not where you were going, but speaking of time games, I can't resist mentioning one of the more unusual FTL drives I've read about: The Kalmakov drive.
See, it's like this: Every relativistic starship is faster than light by its own frame of reference. If you span 300 lightyears in two years subjective time, hey, you've gone 150c! Right? Well, of course that depends on whom you ask. To the universe at large, the flight took three hundred years. Oops…
But 4=2+2, and 4-2=2, all same-same, so six of one equals half a dozen of the other so long as somebody pays the bill, so the Kalmakov drive simply inverts the frames of reference. Certainly, you arrive at your destination two years later! After a voyage which lasted three hundred years! Spoo… You best have a very durable starship! Not to mention serious suspended animation technology… But hey, you went 150c!
I have the feeling that if we ever DO develop FTL, it'll be this - gaming the system, instead of rewriting the rules.
Re: Time in Thy Flight
Well, see, regrettably, the minimum time for any stasis field to be established is fifty years. This is socially awkward.
Anyway, I agree, this is not where you were going, but speaking of time games, I can't resist mentioning one of the more unusual FTL drives I've read about: The Kalmakov drive.
See, it's like this: Every relativistic starship is faster than light by its own frame of reference. If you span 300 lightyears in two years subjective time, hey, you've gone 150c! Right? Well, of course that depends on whom you ask. To the universe at large, the flight took three hundred years. Oops…
But 4=2+2, and 4-2=2, all same-same, so six of one equals half a dozen of the other so long as somebody pays the bill, so the Kalmakov drive simply inverts the frames of reference. Certainly, you arrive at your destination two years later! After a voyage which lasted three hundred years! Spoo… You best have a very durable starship! Not to mention serious suspended animation technology… But hey, you went 150c!
I have the feeling that if we ever DO develop FTL, it'll be this - gaming the system, instead of rewriting the rules.