Space travel via black holes

[Supersylox]

Today I was browsing the internet and looking at pictures of black holes, very unnerving things they are, and came across this article. For those who don't want to read it, it talked about how new research revealed that a controlled black hole engine inside of a starship could be used as a power source, and for making the ship move. In theory, it could finally bring us into the outer reaches of space.

I'm hoping this is really going to happen

/discuss

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[ThinkInvisible]

shlooooorp

sounds neat.

[Moppy]

Sounds like a great idea except for one thing:
It's a black hole.

[Alyx Vance]

Source and sounds awesome.

Then they can build a citadel and we can have Half Life 2 in Real Life.
SPOILER**** The citadel is ran by a giant black hole core.

[Mr.jacksaunt]

...and because in theory, particles can travel faster then light, we now have a very powerful instant traveling thing.

[Club559]

Okay, so all they have to do is put a black hole into an engine. Sounds easy.

[xxxxkill]

Wouldn't this
You know
Cause the ship to collapse in on itself
Because
You know
There's a black hole in there which has a super powerful gravitational field which would probably cause stuff to get sucked up

[Slicks555]

It would never happen. For a very big and obvious, glaring problem. It's a black hole. By definition it can't be stored inside a spaceship. It's an area of such condensed mass that it sucks everything, including light into it. You would need a big ass spaceship to even house one, and when I say "big ass" I mean bigger than Earth.

[Alyx Vance]

Imagine the day when blackholes are in all engines and energy crises is over then making car polution disapear.
Sounds awesome yes... *car gets crushed making black hole uncontrolled*
SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT

[Boink!]

Source and sounds awesome.

Then they can build a citadel and we can have Half Life 2 in Real Life.
SPOILER**** The citadel is ran by a giant black hole core.

Combine. Headcrabs. Striders. Hunters. Zombies. Fast zombies. Poison zombies. Striders. Manhacks. AND LAST, Striders.

[TheABELBOTO]

Imagine the day when blackholes are in all engines and energy crises is over then making car polution disapear.
Sounds awesome yes... *car gets crushed making black hole uncontrolled*
SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT

its to risky, and hell, if that happens, we'll have lovey droids by then!

[Supersylox]

It would never happen. For a very big and obvious, glaring problem. It's a black hole. By definition it can't be stored inside a spaceship. It's an area of such condensed mass that it sucks everything, including light into it. You would need a big ass spaceship to even house one, and when I say "big ass" I mean bigger than Earth.

According to the authors, a black hole to be used in space travel needs to meet five criteria:

1. has a long enough lifespan to be useful,
2. is powerful enough to accelerate itself up to a reasonable fraction of the speed of light in a reasonable amount of time,
3. is small enough that we can access the energy to make it,
4. is large enough that we can focus the energy to make it,
5. has mass comparable to a starship.

It's not exactly possible to contain a black hole yet

but if we could make a small enough one contained in some sort of field, which we will hopefully begin developing in like 20-50 years, then it should work

of course, it's not possible yet, but perhaps in the near future.

[Tomcat]

We should've used Project Orion.
Which was actually practical. You use surplus nuclear weapons and starship/human waste to propel the ship to 1/10 or 1/50 or something of the speed of light.

[xxxxkill]

A black hole that would survive the entire trip would have a radius of 0.9 attometers, would have a mass of 606,000 tonnes, and a power output of 160 petawatts.

I don't know about you, but it seems like trying to contain something like that inside a starship is a really stuff idea.

[Slicks555]

It's not exactly possible to contain a black hole yet

but if we could make a small enough one contained in some sort of field, which we will hopefully begin developing in like 20-50 years, then it should work

of course, it's not possible yet, but perhaps in the near future.

The issue is the size. Since so much mass is required to create a black hole, and mass takes up space, a lot of space must be taken up to make a black hole. You can't make a black hole the size of your fist.

EDIT: You have to remember, this came from Kansas State University, their theoretical physicists are about as intelligent as the average English major.