When it comes to space travel, Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity is a major inconvenience. With the laws of physics (currently) prohibiting faster-than-light travel, velocities are limited to a mere 300,000,000 ms-1. By any Earthbound measure that’s very quick indeed, but it’ll still take you 4.2 years to reach our sun’s nearest neighbor, Proxima Centauri.
That sort of timeframe clearly isn’t conducive to all-action space opera — imagine if the Millennium Falcon had taken a decade to travel from Tatooine to Alderaan in “Star Wars: A New Hope” — so sci-fi writers have come up with numerous ingenious ways to jet around the cosmos at quite ludicrous speeds.
We say this with a few caveats… Hollywood tends to assume that spacecraft have access to limitless sources of energy. And that — unless it’s integral to a story, as in “Flight of the Navigator”, “Planet of the Apes” and “Interstellar” — time dilation isn’t going to cause starship crews any bother. Nonetheless, there’s no doubt that a little bit of scientific flexibility leads to more exciting adventures. So, in that spirit of interstellar exploration, here are 13 of the most memorable ways to travel faster than light — or, failing that, cheat.
1. Warp Drives
Arguably the most famous of all the fictional methods for overtaking the light barrier, “Star Trek”‘s warp drive has propelled countless starships across the galaxy. It uses matter/antimatter reactions to generate the high energies it requires to envelop the ship in a warp bubble.
This bubble distorts space-time — effectively compressing the space ahead of the ship, while expanding the space behind it — to propel the Enterprise (other vessels are available) to its destination at super-fast speeds. Those characteristic Starfleet nacelles are kept well away from the ship to protect the crew from an unwanted warping.
In the “Star Trek” timeline, the first human warp flight took place in 2063, when Zefram Cochrane — the Federation’s answer to Chuck Yeager — flew the prototype Phoenix and attracted the attention of some passing Vulcans (“Star Trek: First Contact“).
2. Hyperspace
“The Phantom Menace”‘s widely mocked efforts to explain the Force with midi-chlorians proved it’s best if you don’t get too hung up on the science of a galaxy far, far away. Synonymous with “lightspeed” within the franchise — and, famously, not like dusting crops — traveling through hyperspace essentially uses the convenient physics of a parallel dimension to shrink the distances between two points in space.
Getting into, and staying in, hyperspace requires a functioning hyperdrive. Entry gives you access to a very pretty light show of swirling blue clouds and, if you’re lucky, you may even spot a pod of space whales (known as purrgil) “swimming” past your window.
3. Wormholes
- As seen in: “Interstellar”, “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine”
The Bajoran wormhole became the focus of “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine“, providing a permanent and instantaneous route to the distant Gamma Quadrant, while inadvertently paving the way for the Dominion War. The Einstein-Rosen bridge in orbit around Saturn in “Interstellar” is even more pivotal, seeing as – with Earth on its last legs — it may just offer a route to humanity’s salvation with Earth on its last legs.
Suddenly, a bunch of (borderline) habitable planets are on Earth’s proverbial doorstep, as the wormhole provides a permanent gateway to a distant region of the universe. It’s definitely not a natural occurrence, so it’s safe to assume it’s the handiwork of the multi-dimensional superbeings who allow Cooper and his daughter Murph to communicate across time and space.
Back in the real world, wormholes are still theoretical. We haven’t found one yet, and even if they do exist, we’re not sure that you’d actually be able to travel through one and survive the experience.
4. Stargate
Probably the simplest, most user-friendly form of faster-than-light travel, the Stargate network is like an interstellar mass-transportation system, allowing the user to literally step between worlds via a spectacular display of mid-’90s CG. The Stargates work by creating an artificial wormhole that connects two gates, allowing you to step through one and emerge from the other.
The Ancients spread these “Astria Porta” on key worlds through multiple galaxies, giving them — and later species such as the megalomaniac Goa’uld — the ability to traverse great distances in an instant. They’re also easy to operate — all you have to do is dial up your destination of choice — and, being millions of years old, extremely durable.
5. Jump gates
- As seen in: “Babylon 5”, “Mass Effect”
Effectively a cross between “Stargate”‘s Stargates and “Star Wars”‘ hyperspace, the jump gates function as a network of outer space motorway junctions. These artificial structures act as permanent entrances to hyperspace — in “Babylon 5” the dimension has a reddish hue — allowing spacecraft to travel interstellar distances in a manageable time frame.
Hyperspace is dotted with beacons to help travelers find their way in the maelstrom, while the jump engines fitted on larger ships allow them to enter hyperspace whenever, or wherever, they want.
Several major video game franchises use variations on jump gates, most famously “Mass Effect” and its Mass Relays. They’re not just great sci-fi here, they’re also a great way to disguise loading screens and split up the game world into manageable segments.
6. Folding space
Denis Villeneuve’s brilliant “Dune” movies don’t go into a huge amount of detail about the mechanics of space travel, but in Frank Herbert’s novels, spacecraft use the (fictional) Holtzman Effect to fold space at the quantum level, facilitating instantaneous travel across vast distances.
The mathematics involved is so mind-bogglingly complicated that you require a Spacing Guild-approved Navigator to guide you on your journey. These uniquely adapted individuals have consumed such large quantities of the narcotic “Spice” that they’ve developed a form of prescience that helps them find a path through folded space. ODing on Spice also causes them to mutate into bizarre, fish-like forms.
7. FTL Drive
- As seen in: “Battlestar Galactica”
In the gritty, realistic universe of “Battlestar Galactica“, FTL Drives are something of an anomaly. While the show’s spacecraft fire bullets instead of lasers and use thrusters to maneuver in the vacuum of space, FTL (Faster Than Light) Drives are weirdly akin to magic, teleporting the Galactica and its ragtag fugitive fleet over vast distances as if they’re powered by a job lot of Harry Potter’s floo powder.
In theory, these tylium-powered engines distort space to transport vessels to their destination, and — as implausible as they are — are totally essential to the story. Besides, the Galactica jumping into New Caprica’s atmosphere in “Exodus, Part 2” is one of the coolest things ever to happen in a sci-fi TV show.
8. Spore Drive
- As seen in: “Star Trek: Discovery”
It’s quite literally powered by mushrooms. Yes, the experimental Spore Drive (or, to give it its full name, Displacement-Activated Spore Hub Drive) uses specially adapted spores to surf the so-called mycelial network, a giant system of fungus roots linking the entire multiverse (including the sinister Mirror Universe) together.
That’s an extremely long-winded way of saying that the Spore Drive allows a starship to miraculously materialize somewhere else light-years away. And if all that sounds too good to be true, that’s because it won’t work unless you also have a giant space tardigrade — or a spore-enhanced crewmate — to act as a fungal sat-nav.
9. Gravity Drive (aka going through hell)
- As seen in: “Event Horizon”
If only the crew of the Lewis & Clark had seen the movie’s “Infinite Space, Infinite Terror” tagline before they set out to recover the experimental Event Horizon, lost in space seven years earlier.
The ship’s Gravity Drive — which, appropriately, looks like an elaborate torture device from a horror movie — uses a black hole to fold space, creating a gateway between two distant locations. Unfortunately, it also unlocks a direct route to hell, which ends badly for everyone concerned.
10. Infinite Improbability Drive
- As seen in: “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”
Designed to avoid all that “tedious mucking about in hyperspace”, one of Douglas Adams’ greatest inventions allows the experimental Heart of Gold to exist in every conceivable point in every conceivable universe at the same time.
This comes with memorable side effects, however, as the Infinite Improbability Drive can also instigate some extremely unlikely events — where else would you see a pair of guided missiles transforming into a bowl of petunias and an extremely confused sperm whale?
As befits a very British sci-fi creation, a hot cup of tea (and the Brownian motion taking place within) was pivotal to the Drive’s creation — along with a Bambleweeny 57 Sub-Meson Brain, of course.
11. Ludicrous Speed
They’ve gone to Plaid! When you need to catch fugitive Winnebago and light speed isn’t quite enough, it’s time to hit the button marked Ludicrous Speed. Significantly faster than Ridiculous Speed, this never-before-used starship drive is so rapid that — in the name of safety — the animals in Spaceball One’s zoo must be secured before engaging.
Failure to buckle up for the ride is liable to cause a sensation akin to your brains relocating to your feet, while the high speeds involved make emergency stops prohibitively dangerous. On the plus side, Ludicrous Drive does leave pretty plaid trails in its wake.
12. Increase the speed of light
Given the animated show’s long history of ingenious science gags, it’s probably not surprising that “Futurama” should come up with one of the smartest ways to get where you want to go quicker, without violating the laws of physics.
In short, if you accept that there’s no way to travel faster than light, the best alternative is to increase the speed of light, a feat scientists first achieved in 2208. It can’t hurt that Professor Farnsworth’s Planet Express engines also run at a thermodynamically improbable 200% efficiency.
13. Don’t bother
James Cameron chose to ditch the faster-than-light travel when humanity set out to plunder an entire moon’s worth of unobtanium. The 70% of light speed achieved by the Venture Star on the way to Pandora is undeniably impressive, but the duration of travel to the Alpha Centauri system is still an epic five or seven years — depending (thank you, relativity) on whether you’re on board the ship or back home on Earth.
The journey is made much easier for the crew by the opportunity to pass the time in cryosleep. The “Alien” franchise also famously puts its crews to sleep for long journeys, but the travel times and distances involved in reaching the likes of LV-426 suggest that Weyland-Yutani ships are capable of breaking the light barrier.
