"The Peregrine slid from Nerthus and its star until she was in a sufficiently weak gravitational field, then the alarm bells warned crewmen to their posts. The indescribable twisting sensation of hyperdrive fields building up went through human bodies and faded, and the steady thrum of energy pulses filled the ship. Her pseudo-velocity grew rapidly toward maximum, and Carsten's Star dwindled in the rear-view screens and was lost among the constellations."
-Poul Anderson. The Peregrine (New York, 1979), Chapter VIII, p. 57.
(i) Often in sf, a ship has to get out of a deep gravity well before it can go FTL. See Two Novels. I think that Larry Niven questioned the basis of this idea later in the Known Space future history.
(ii) Sometimes, hyperdrive causes bodily sensations. Why would this happen?
(iii) If the Peregrine really is leaving Carsten's Star much faster than light, then why is its speed described as a mere "pseudo-velocity"? Because the convention is that the ship does not contradict Einstein by traversing ordinary relativistic space at a super-liminal speed. It has to be in some other mode/state/kind of space etc. Poul Anderson devises half a dozen ingenious rationales for FTL instead of always falling back on the unexplained cliche of "hyperspace."
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
Regarding your point (i), we won't know till we get an actual FTL drive if a space ship will need to get out of a strong gravitational field before the FTL drive can be safely used. Till then, it's reasonable to speculate such ships will need to move some distance from a planet. And I would speculate similarly for your point (ii).
Yes, Poul Anderson gave careful, informed thought to how a FTL drive might actually work. And some scientists don't totally dismiss that idea. I hope so much we will soon get a real FTL drive!
Sean
I have read a few SF stories in which a FTL spaceship needs to get *into* a high gravity field ie: close to a star, to get into hyperspace. So FTL ships need a *highly* reflective mirror between the main part of the ship & the star to survive this maneuver.
Given the implausibility of FTL either assumption is no more implausible than the other.
Kaor, Jim!
But, assuming FTL is discovered, I think it's more likely than not that a spaceship will need to be some distance from a planet before the FTL drive can be safely used.
Ad astra! Sean
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