Light Speed Engine - Elon & NASA Go Hyper Drive!

Nasa has announced new research into light-speed engines but it is yet unknown if SpaceX will follow suit. (Creative Commons License) 

Elon Musk has often been associated with new technologies as a visionary inventor. One is the light-speed engine, which promises to revolutionize the space industry. What is the light-speed engine, and how is Musk's space company SpaceX involved? The rest of this article answers these questions.

When Musk started SpaceX, he intended to enable humans to become a space-faring species. He particularly has within his sight, Mars, for a future colonization effort. However, one of the problems of space exploration is distance. For example, Mars is millions of miles away from the earth and may take more than five months to reach, even in the powerful Spaceship that SpaceX is developing. Visiting even the nearest stars is out of the question with our current technology.

The amount of energy required to make such a warp drive engine work would be enormous, equivalent to a power source the mass of Jupiter to power it for one second. That would not be realistic for many reasons Musk pointed out.

Some scientists have looked into several possibilities to get around this distance and travel time problems. One of them is the light-speed engine.

The light speed engine's purpose is to allow humans to travel at a speed close to that of light. For it to function, we would have to disobey some laws of physics, which maintain nothing could move at or above the speed of light in the universe.

Musk has commented on the possibility of a warp drive like it is often depicted in sci-fi movies. He touched on how warp drive could work in a podcast session with Lex Fridman. The SpaceX boss said while it is technically impossible to travel at speeds above that of light, the universe itself can do so.

Nasa's recent work on light-speed engines will revolutionize the way we view space travel. Source: Voyager. (Creative Commons License) 

According to Musk, who is a fan of space fiction, even though he runs a company in the space industry, the amount of energy required to make such a warp drive engine work would be enormous, equivalent to a power source the mass of Jupiter to power it for one second. That would not be realistic for many reasons Musk pointed out.

However, he hinted that dark matter, which makes up most of the universe, might be the answer to the power question. Even this is not feasible with the current technology that we have.

While some NASA engineers actually announced research work into light-speed engines, SpaceX has not confirmed whether it is looking into this type of propulsion. It concentrates on completing its Spaceship. But a light-speed engine remains a tantalizing concept for enabling long-distance space travel.