Warp Speed Will Kill You?! Oh No!

When I read this article in Space.com, I became very interested in what the scientist William Edelstein presented about warp speed using Star Trek and the Enterprise as his example. From the article:

The original crew of "Star Trek" featured as unfortunate examples at a presentation by William Edelstein, a physicist at Johns Hopkins University, at the American Physical Society conference in Washington, D.C. on Feb. 13. The physicist showed a video clip of Kirk telling engineer Scotty to go to warp speed.
"Well, they're all dead," Edelstein recalled saying. His words caused a stir among the audience.
Some audience members at the American Physical Society event protested that Kirk, Spock and the "Star Trek" crew would all still live because of the starship Enterprise having shields. But Edelstein noted some of the existing difficulties with creating an electromagnetic shield with any resemblance to "Star Trek" technology.
I like how the audience wanted something to work, that it is possible to create or design a ship that can travel great distances in a short time!

The physicist concluded by suggesting that extraterrestrials might not have visited Earth because of all the problems in traveling at near-light speeds, including how to deal with deadly hydrogen space mines. But for the record, he does believe that alien life exists.

"Getting between stars is a huge problem unless we think of something really, really different," Edelstein said. "I'm not saying that we know everything and that it's impossible. I'm saying it's kind of impossible based on what we know right now."

I guess we need to get out our shovels and start looking for a Stargate unless... it has already been found and in use!

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• Warp Speed Will Kill You (space.com)