Check this out...

http://interstellarjourney.blip.tv/

tnisbet,
your link led to a video that took a long time and never loaded. Do you have another link?

It did eventually download for me. For those who don't get to see it, what the presenter says is:

350+ exoplanets have been discovered, the nearest about 3 parsecs away. An estimated 10% of stars have planets, and some could be suitable for life. He goes on to say that since the sun will eventually become a red giant, we have good reason to study interstellar propulsion systems, and get out while the going is good.

He doesn't mention warp drive, nor any other specific propulsion system. He just says that it would be a good idea to have a means of migration at hand before Earth gets incinerated (in about 5 billion years time). Actually, due to the sun very gradually becoming hotter, Earth is likely to become unfit for life a few billion years before that. It's an almost inconceivably vast time-scale. It's my guess that if we haven't reached for the stars within the next few millennia, it's because we're already extinct. The threat of extinction of our earthbound population through various other causes (including the effects of over-population) is so great that colonisation of exoplanets would seem to be the only hope for survival of our species. The palaeontological record indicates that species extinction is the rule rather than the exception. In any case, the red giant event is irrelevant to survival.

Rede- Is it not the point that it would be necessary to have invented warp drive (or something similar) if the anticipated mass extinctions (for whatever reason) happen? Certainly mass extinction cannot be ruled out in the future, or even in the present the way things are going! It seems to be a default position for uppity species.

Perhaps that is the reason we are starting up the space programme again. Maybe?

In what seems to be increasingly just a gesture I am arranging for the replacement of my power-guzzling light bulbs (free!!!) but I feel like I am bailing out the sea water on the Titanic with an egg-spoon!

PS I did try to start up the video without success so I am not commenting on that.

Yes, it's certainly the point.

"Objectively, the desired breakthroughs might turn out to be impossible, but progress is not made by conceding defeat."

However...

"All NASA support to sustain cognizance on these possibilities has been withdrawn as of October 1, 2008."

http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/bpp/index.html

I see it as rather like Charles Babbage trying to figure out how to build a Blue Gene supercomputer. We need a whole range of new technology to support an interstellar colonisation mission. It's not even a 'simple' matter of inventing a suitable propulsion system.

This particular research could probably be carried out far, far more effectively and efficiently within another 50yrs, given the logarithmic acceleration of global technological progress. Who knows, by that time even a the fictional warp drive may appear more realistic.

10 cfl bulbs burning 10 hours a day @ 26 watts each = 2.6 kwh

10 incandessent bulbs burning 10 hours a day @ 100 watts each = 10 kwh

1 million people using the cfl bulbs = 2.6 million kwh
1 million people using incandessant bulbs = 10 million kwh

when you put numbers into the picture that egg spoon along with all the other egg spoons could have kept the titanic affloat.

..

and thanks for using the cfl bulbs.

Hey guys, more videos in the series have been posted on

http://interstellarjourney.blip.tv/

the other day a friend and i talking about space travel and the question about light speed came up. for about 3 days we have been talking about different methods of warp drive and how the star trek warp drive could work in real life. i kinda think that the plasma is used to power an engine that then take the hydrogen in space and shoot it through the nacells at speed dependent on how much power is diverted to the plasma coils.