Warp Speed

by Travis S. Taylor

  "I was expecting someone to ask that." Tabitha nodded. "This directive came from way above me and NASA HQ. Rumor is it comes from the Joint Chiefs, though I'm not sure why. So don't kill the messenger. The good news is that all contracts in place now will be continued throughout this fiscal year. As of FY 12 the funding will be reduced to half on currently funded projects and then phased out completely in FY 13."

  "That's not very long," I muttered to myself. I was close. I could taste it. I only had ten months of full funding left and then a year at half that. Without other funding sources I would lose the company for certain. I said "Shit!" under my breath and hung my head. The only thing that I could think of at the time was, "Screw y'all. I'm going the hell home." I gathered up my toys and left.

  It felt good to get home even if I did have bad news. Of course, Friday was the only one home and she didn't care. I opened the door and damn near stepped on her. She is a lazy and stubborn cat. I tried dogs when I was younger, but I could never figure out how to keep them from jumping on me with muddy paws just when I was wearing a white shirt. No matter how much pepper spray I would put on the flowers, they still dug them up and slept in the flowerbeds. Besides, I like cats: old man Farnham, Maureen Johnson, and Lazarus Long liked cats, 'nuff said!

  I tapped the machine as I came in. Beeeep! You have seven new messages. Message one. "Hi Anson, this is Jim. I got something you ought to see as soon as you get back. You said something about the Casimir effect in your drunken stupor between the hospital and the hotel Sunday night. When I got back in Monday I went straight to the lab. I think I've got an answer to the energy problem! Call me when you get in. Oh yeah, hope you're feeling all right. Bye." End of message one.

  Message two. "Neil Anson Clemons this is your mother! Where were you Saturday? I called and called and you never answered! You missed your brother. He came to town for a surprise visit. Oh well, call us when you get in. We love you, bye." End of message two.

  Message three. "Yes Mr. Clemons, this is Angela Landry with the credit union. We noticed a lot of traffic on your debit card in St. Louis and then in Maryland over the past week and we just wanted to make sure it was authorized. Please contact us at your earliest convenience." End of message three.

  Message four. "Hi, Dr. Clemons. This is Colonel Ames from the BPP Workshop. You left before we got to talk further. Could you please contact me? My contact info is on the BPP website and in the agenda for the meeting. It was nice meeting you. Okay, bye." End of message four.

  Message five. "Hey Anson. Do you believe that crap about cutting the BPP? You bugged out of Goddard pretty quick man. I wanted to know what you thought. Didn't you tell me that you thought it would be good to get an astronaut as the BPP director? Boy, were you wrong. Oh well, call me. By the way, this is Matt Lake." End of message five.

  Message six. "Son, this is your mother again. Where are you? Do you just not return your calls anymore? It wouldn't hurt you to come see us every now and then you know! Oh well bye for now. Call us when you get home." End of message six.

  Message seven. "Anson, have you gotten home yet? This is Rebecca. Jim is about to die to show you what he thinks we've done. He told me about your ribs. Hope you're okay. Call us when you get in. B'bye." End of message seven.

  Mom always did that when I was gone. I told her I would be out of town, but she still acts like I never told her about it. She does that every time. For a while I thought she might have Alzheimer's, but then I realized she just likes stirring things up.

  Matt Lake is a colleague of mine from New Mexico State University. We had collaborated on some papers before and were presently working on one. I was supposed to meet Matt for dinner after the meeting at Goddard. "I should get in touch with him and explain why I left," I thought out loud. Friday looked up as if I were talking to her. I just smiled back at her and reassured her that she was the prettiest cat in the whole universe. You have to do that. Cats are pretentious and need constant ego stroking.

  I didn't know which message to respond to first. So, I replayed the fourth one six times more. Just to be sure.

  CHAPTER 3

  I picked up the phone. Then I put it back down. "Where is that damn agenda?" I said to myself. "Didn't she give me her business card on the plane?" After some scrambling through my bags and nearly knocking my copy of "MTW" (or Gravitation as it is so titled) off the coffee table and onto Friday, I found it. Friday looked at me like I was an idiot and then rolled over onto her other side. Once again, I reassured her that she was queen of all felines.

  I started to pick up the phone again. It rang. I nearly jumped out of my skin. My ribs were getting better, but they still didn't like sudden moves. It rang again. Composing myself, I answered the phone.

  "Uh, hello?"

  "Anson, it's Jim."

  "Yeah what's up? I just got yours and Rebecca's messages by the way."

  "After you said something Sunday about having to suck the energy right out of spacetime itself for the warp field, I got to thinking. I went straight to the lab and haven't gone home since. I designed a couple of nanodevices that Rebecca is depositing in the vacuum chamber right now. It should be done and ready to test by the time you get here."

  I wasn't sure what the hell Jim was talking about. I barely remember the hospital, much less a conversation about vacuum energy physics.

  "Jim, slow down. What does this device do? And what conversation are you talking about?"

  Jim gulped, or at least it sounded like he did over the phone.

  "Anson, are you okay? It does just what you said it should do. Don't you remember talking about miniature pistons and such in the cab on the way from the hospital to the hotel?"

  "No I do not!"

  "Oh, well, you did and I paid close attention. Thank goodness. Anyway, it's a microscopic well to trap vacuum energy as an electric charge generated by a nanosized two-cycle piston system." I still wasn't sure what all this was about.

  "Are you telling me that you have a design that will actually let you acquire energy from the vacuum using the Casimir effect?"

  "Yes, uh, well, I think so. I calculate that it will capture about a microjoule per second."

  I ran some numbers in my head real quick. "Let's see, a microwatt--and we need ten to the twentieth watts. That's ten to the twenty-sixth of these nano things. How small can you make them, Jim?"

  "The prototype is about ten nanometers on a side."

  "That's a cube one hundred meters per side!" I cried, excitedly. I calmed slightly and continued, "That's way too big! You couldn't get it in the Shuttle. It would have to be constructed in space. If it really works, we will have to either make them about twenty times smaller or figure out how to make them capture more energy. I will be there in about forty-five minutes. I want to take a shower first. I've been flying all day." I hung up the phone and turned toward the bedroom.

  "Oh yeah, bye," I yelled over my shoulder at the already hung up receiver.

  The twenty-minute drive to the lab gave me some time to think. The Casimir effect: an interesting phenomenon named after the guy who thought of it. The idea is that there is this vacuum energy all around us all the time at every possible wavelength. It behaves like normal electromagnetic radiation except that we don't notice it. It is kind of like a fish in water. The fish probably never notices the water around him, but he sees the things in it. We never notice the spacetime around us, but we see planets and stars and people and fish all around us. We pay no attention to the spacetime just like the fish pays no attention to the water.

  Anyway, this spacetime around us consists of all this electromagnetic energy at all different wavelengths. This bright guy Casimir suggested that if somehow we could get two conducting plates and put them very close together, say, less than some of these wavelengths, then the area between the two plates would shield out any energy that had wavelengths longer than the distance between the two plates. But, outside the plates, all of the energy at all of the bands would remain. In other wor
ds, there would be more energy outside the two plates than between them. Because of this, Casimir suggested that the two plates would be pushed together. The force pushing them would come straight out of the vacuum of spacetime itself! Cool, huh?

  As micromachining became more developed over the past fifteen years or so, people started noticing that their machine parts (if they were made small enough) would stick together for some reason. Most of these guys attributed this "stiction" to static electricity; the same way a white sock sticks to your dress pants in a place that you don't notice until you see people pointing at you as you are walking down the street with a sock stuck to your butt or hanging out your pants leg. Jim and I had long thought that the "stiction" might be due to the Casimir effect instead of static electricity. So had a few of the other BPP scientists.

  As I pulled into the parking lot of our lab at Research Park, I realized that I never returned Tabitha's call. "Oh well, wasn't sure what she wanted anyway," I muttered. When I got to the lab Rebecca was pacing outside the door to the lab. "Did you finish?" I asked.

  "It's done. Did Jim tell you this is the fourth one I've sputtered today? No, he didn't, did he? Did he tell you neither one of us has been home in thirty-six hours? No, he didn't, did he?!"

  "Uh, no, I, I don't know. Maybe he mentioned it. Look, if you are tired, just go home."

  "Are you kidding? And miss seeing if this thing works or not? You gotta be nuts. What, are you trying to get rid of me? Do you want me to go home?"

  I will never understand women. I guess Rebecca just needed to complain about something. She is like that. She shook her long black hair and rolled it back up under her paper hair hat. "Well?"

  I replied, "Skip it. Let's just go have a look, shall we."

  She led me through the rat maze to the clean room and vacuum chamber area. Jim came through the airlock with a blue paper outfit on. I never could get used to those damn things, but I began putting on a similar garment. As I was putting on my paper slippers I asked, "Jim, is it ready?"

  "You're not going to believe what's in there. I think we've done it," he replied.

  "If you two have, then we're going to stop and make sure you both graduate by May. That only gives us about two to three months to finish writing your dissertations and defend them and fill out all the paperwork."

  "Neither Jim or I have enough credits yet. We're both two classes short. How could we?" Rebecca objected.

  "Well let's worry about one thing at a time. Okay, Jim, let's have a look."

  I could spend a while talking about what I saw here, but it would be technical and not real exciting to you. Or maybe it would if you are the techie geeky sort like me. Let's just say that the damn thing worked. There was a little box ten nanometers long on a side (one nanometer is one billionth of a meter by the way) and inside it were two moving pistons. One of them was attached to the other in such a way that the Casimir effect pushed on one and pulled on the other, then vice versa. This way the plates were never allowed to be pushed all the way together. Attached to the outer side of the box was probably the tiniest generator the human race had ever built. From the generator was a wire so small you could only see it with an electron microscope that was attached to a larger wire, which led to a microvolt meter. The resistance in the larger wire loaded the generator, allowing us to measure the power dissipated by it. We measured more than twenty times just to be sure. Each time we got one microwatt of power constantly coming from the generator. Energy for free right out of the spacetime! Now, mind you, this is in no way violating the law of conservation of energy. The nanodevices simply transfer from the vacuum energy via the Casimir effect to the nanogenerators. What an amazing concept. This could put OPEC right out of business. About time!

  Of course, this was only one microwatt. The first step was to scale the thing up. Also, we had spent about two and half million dollars just to get this one little box. Of course, now that we knew how to build one, we could do it for say fifty bucks or so. A full up version would require 10 of them. Yikes! Way too expensive. But Jim reassured me that it would cost no more to sputter a hundred thousand of these things than it would to sputter one. After some arguing and a lot of cursing, I agreed with him. Rebecca backed him up. So, with some tweaking, we had the energy for a warp drive.

  All I need to do now is figure out how to actually do the warp! I thought. So close! So close.

  CHAPTER 4

  We discussed the next step for at least two more hours. At one point I reached across the table to grab a pencil and something in my side moved too much, making a popping noise. I grimaced and winced and cursed as I decided the pencil could be damned and stay right where it was.

  Rebecca looked at me. "Are you all right? Maybe you ought to go home."

  "Don't worry about me," I said through clenched teeth.

  "I think she's right, Anson." Jim looked concerned.

  "Okay, who am I to argue with the likes of you two? Let's all go home. Sleep in tomorrow and we'll get together Friday night. I'll call tomorrow and have the two of you retroactively registered in two special topics classes. We will talk Friday about our next step. How's that?"

  Rebecca looked over at Jim and frowned. "Could we just wait and talk about it at the grad student cookout Saturday, instead? I already have plans."

  "Oh crap! I forgot about that. Can you two come over Saturday morning and help out with that?"

  "You already asked us once," Jim and Rebecca simultaneously chimed in.

  "Oh yeah, I forgot." I paused. "What did you say?"

  They laughed. "Your mother was right about you. You would forget your head if it wasn't attached to you."

  "Yeah," I said. "So, Saturday then?"

  "Suits me." Jim shrugged.

  "Hey, I'm just along for the ride. Whatever you say." Rebecca smiled cute as a button. That is the only way to describe her. Not that she is a supermodel, just cute--the kind of cute that makes the human race go round.

  "Great. You two go home and get some sleep."

  Ring. I rolled over and looked at the phone. Ring. "The machine can get it. I ain't movin'," I said. Ring. "Hello, this is Anson. I can't come to the phone right now, but if you will leave a name a number and a message I will get back to you. Beeeep!"

  "Hello, Dr. Clemons this is Colonel Ames . . ."

  You have never seen a man with busted ribs move so fast. I grabbed my side with my left hand, rolled hard to the right, sat up on the side of the bed, and grabbed the phone.

  "Hello, uh, hang on a minute, let me turn this thing off." I slapped the machine hard. Composing myself, "Hello Tabitha, how are you?"

  "Fine thanks."

  "What can I do you for?" I said thinking I was being cool. I'm sure I wasn't and I'm sure she didn't think I was either.

  "Uh, well. I wanted to talk to you about the meeting at Goddard. You left early. I hope you're okay?"

  "What me, never better," I lied. Rolling over so fast really hurt.

  "Well, good. I was hoping to come see you and talk for a while about what you can do with the funds we have left for your project. I'd also like to catch up on what you've been doing."

  "Okay, sounds cool. When are you coming down?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "When will you be in Huntsville?"

  "I'm sorry. I am in Huntsville. We talked about this on the plane, don't you remember?"

  "Uh, no."

  "Oh."

  "How long are you here?"

  "My plane leaves Tuesday next week. I have some things to do with Space Camp on Monday so I'm staying over the weekend. Could we meet sometime between now and Tuesday?"

  "I'm open all day Friday."

  "Are you okay?"

  "I think so. Why?" She sounded confused.

  "Today is Friday."

  I looked at my watch. Sure enough it was Friday. I'd been asleep for nearly two days; no wonder I was so thirsty. I shook my head to clear it. "Maybe these painkillers are wearing me down."

  "We co
uld do this some other time. You can call me when you feel better."

  "Hold on!" I pleaded. "Listen, do you like hamburgers and hot dogs?"

  "I guess. Why?"

  "Well, I'm hosting the spring semester graduate student cookout at my house Saturday evening. You're here anyway. Why don't you come over and join us? I'm sure the students would love to meet a big famous astronaut like you. We could talk then. What do you say?" It took a little more conniving and goading but I finally convinced her to come to the cookout--for the students, of course. I had a lot to do to get ready. I was now a whole day behind schedule.

  First, I had to take care of Jim and Rebecca's classes. I called up Jan. She really runs the graduate school, not the dean. All he does is sign stuff when she tells him to. After a few minutes we decided that if both of them took Physics 804: Topics in General Relativity and Physics 798: Special Topics in Vacuum Energy Physics that they would be able to graduate. If they defended their dissertations on time, that is. By the way, there is no such class as Physics 804 or 798. Oops! Guess I will just have to teach it myself then and make up a curriculum for them. The Graduate Handbook allows for such things. The students then just have to write papers or take exams or something. I can do that no problem.

  Jan and I also figured out all the final details for the cookout. When I told her who would be the special guest there, she said that we had better buy more hamburgers and hot dogs. I guessed that meant more beer, too!

  The cookout was going quite well I thought. My "Kiss the Physicist" apron and chef's hat went over pretty well. Thanks, Mom. That reminded me. Damn! Before I let everyone dig in, I had them join us in Alan Shepard's Prayer.

  "Everyone, attention please." I banged on the grill top with the spatula until it reached a resonance just flat of a B.

  Nothing happened until Jan yelled, "Shut up!" Everyone shut up.

  I picked up my beer and held it high.