Bubble Ship

The six or seven of you who may have seen The Fountain probably wondered why Hugh Jackman was floating around space in a bubble-shaped terrarium. You'll probably still be wondering after reading this story, but the bubble shape might make a little more sense. Physicist Gerald Cleaver at Baylor University (with the help of a graduate monkey) has come up with a model for faster-than-light space travel. Current theory suggests that the universe expanded faster than the speed of light for a brief period after the Big Bang. This was due to dark energy screwing with space-time directly ahead of the universe's edge. Cleaver's idea is to build a spaceship which would manipulate dark energy in order to shrink space-time in front of the ship while expanding it behind. In essence, this would create a protective bubble in which the ship could travel faster than light without contradicting the Theory of Relativity. Of course, the amount of energy required would limit the size of the spaceship to bubble-like proportions itself--about 10 meters in diameter. I'd still be willing to sign up, though. I'm not claustrophobic, and I'd love to zip around the galaxy in my bubble ship. More details here.