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Honorverse "wedge" drive and hyperdrive principles to be tested by USAF

The Scotsman reports that a new gravity-causing electromagnetic drive is to be developed, which if pushed far enough flips the driven vessel into a kind of hyperspace, allowing — in theory, of course — an 80-day trip to Proxima Centauri.

The whole concept sounds uncannily like the “wedge” space-drive used in SciFi author David Weber’s “Honorverse” series, complete with a hyperspace mode. The only obvious difference is that Weber’s hyper-drive leaves you in hyper if it shuts down, but this one (in theory, remember?) kicks you back into normal space. Also, I imagine we’ll be a fair while working up to building eight-megatonne warships which can hit an evading opponent with a beam at a million kilometers even if all of this does work out anything like the theory predicts.

honorverse superdreadnought

Some reference material: scientist wins 2004 AIIA “best paper” here, pictured here, based on this bloke’s theories. The paper in question is here [PDF] as a part of this collection. Enjoy! (-:

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