How Do Hyperdrives Work and CAN WE BUILD ONE?

You ever wonder how the Millennium Falcon's hyperdrive works? How does Han travel several hundred light years in the span of a day? I know Star Wars isn't usually as technical as Star Trek when it comes to how their technology works, as a matter of fact its usually just space magic, but this time around we're going to take a deep dive and try to figure how a hyperdrive works.

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[majinjason]

I imagine the hyperdrive motivator to be a machine that yells encouraging catch phrases to the hyperdrive. "Come on! You can do it! One more jump!"

[jayburn]

I actually know someone who works on the NASA warp drive project at Eagleworks in Johnson Space Center. Also, one of the scientists who got the nobel prize mentioned is Kyp Thorne, a major contributor to the movie Interstellar (movie was originally based on his ideas and they used his equations to model black holes and worm holes using CGI, inadvertently causing new discoveries to be made about black holes; the production of a movie caused major astrophysics breakthroughs!)

[tombarnes]

Hyperspace in theory is a higher dimension that we cannot even comprehend, it being a sort of condensed version of realspace. The signatures of large objects in realspace are mass shadows. These are essentially highly dense areas in Hyperspace that can crush a ship or even hurl it rapidly off course, think of the opposite of gravity.

[metroidhunter]

This “ripping of space” theory is one of the two most popular theories of FTL travel. I personally believe that the _Halo_ route of opening a wormhole in front of the object and plotting an exit seems to be closer to reality.

[cleansingnight]

I also read something in Legends that said that once you're in Hyperspace and decide to stare out at Hyperspace itself for extended periods of time you may suffer what is known as "Hyperspace Sickness".

Hyperspace Sickness is essentially a condition that leads to a mentally breakdown of your mind, as your brain cells struggle to interpret the universe at many times the Speed Of Light and essentially "commit suicide".

PS: Great video as always, can't wait to see more :)

[StarStrider]

The great thing is, even if we develop a warp drive technology that carries us at just a small fraction of the speed of light, it would still enable us to travel around within our own star system quite easily! You could make it from Earth to Mars in just a couple of days, instead of months!

[jaygon]

Hyperdrives are dependent on hyperspace existing. Warp drive is the more likely method of eventual FTL in real life

[MrAncientDave]

You guys always make such awesome content, I'm glad I discovered this channel :)

[rikwisselink-bijker]

4:54 the Nobel peace prize in physics?

[Comrade]

This was an interesting vid. Thanks for it. Big fan of your channel.

[thebendalorianbricks]

First Order: thinks it’s so cool because it can track ships through hyperspace.
Empire: yeah WE CAN PULL SHIPS OUT OF HYPERSPACE!

[danielduncan]

Well, if the fabric of space really works the way I have seen it depicted, which is by taking a cloth sheet and pulling it taught, then you most certainly can fold space. _All_ you need is something with enough mass, as to sink far enough into the fabric of space, if it is big enough it will sink so far into the fabric of space that, at some point, would create a small gap that you could more easily travel over. Then you uncreate the mass and the fabric of space will snap back into place.


But the problem with this is you would need to create a blackhole to make the fabric of space dip down far enough, as blackholes are about the only thing that has enough mass to warp the fabric of space by an adequate amount, enough to make a trip shorter. The other problem is that we would get sucked into the blackhole as well during the travel. And, personally, I do not like the idea of being speghettified(that is an actual word). Speghettification is when one part of your body is going in order of magnitude faster than the rest of your body, effectively pulling your legs into very long strings, with the rest of you following suit in short order. This is what would happen to you if you were pulled into a blackhole.


Anyway, Earth is causing a warp in the fabric of space as it is. So is the sun. So is Jupiter. But the warps in the fabric of space they are making is obviously not big enough. They are more like dents, or little dimples. We would need more mass than all three, Jupiter, the sun and Earth, combined.


And there is also the danger of ripping the fabric space. Is this a thing that can happen? We don't really know. If it were a fabric sheet like the kind we manufacture on Earth, made of cotton or polyester, then yes, for sure it would rip at some point. But the fabric sheet is really just an analogue that makes the fabric of space easier to comprehend. We don't actually know what the fabric of space is made of yet. It certainly is not made of cotton or polyester.

[jakeg]

The Homeworld series has a really cool take on this. It's implied that they figured out how to make a macroscopic object like a ship behave like a subatomic particle. Subatomic particles can cheat in the right circumstances, and thus hyperspace travel was discovered

[josephthompson]

Been waitin for this one! Awesome video!

[mickmick]

Really great marriage of worlds for this video! This direction for your subjects is great.

[AnimeOtakuDrew]

A very interesting video. Now I want to see you do one about the faster than light communications in Star Wars.

[DualDesertEagle]

I sure hope the warp drive is possible and will be created in the near future. I'd love to hear about a spacecraft reaching alpha centauri within my lifetime.

[Megamind_of_MetroCity]

You know, I'm very surprised you don't have more subscribers... You guys really deserve them!

[ThomasBaileynpc]

This is awesome. Please do more sci-fi tech vs real world tech!

[tralfamadorian]

Great vid with the exception of the video clips shown during explanation using the Falcon (~2:30). It was distracting from you excellent explanation of that part.