On October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union launched the first artificial satellite in human history, Sputnik-1, which officially opened the human space age, and countries began to explore outer space, successively manned into space and set foot on the moon for 380,000 kilometers.
Later, with the continuous progress of space science and technology, mankind was eager to go further, and developed unmanned probes to go to the outer part of the solar system to explore Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. However, when we explore the outer solar system, we realize that even within our solar system alone, the distances between celestial bodies will increase dramatically, and it is almost impossible to cross even greater distances.
For example, the closest star to Earth is known to everyone is Proxima Centauri, which is a red dwarf star in the constellation Centauri, about 4.22 light-years away, if we use today's technology, do you know how long it will take?
At present, the farthest man-made probe is the Voyager 1 probe launched on September 5, 1977, which has accelerated to the third cosmic velocity through the planetary gravitational slingshot effect since its launch, and is flying away from the gravitational shackles of the sun and heading towards the outer solar system.
Voyager 1 has been flying for 47 years and is 23.5 billion kilometers away from Earth, but it will take at least 70,000 years to reach Proxima Centauri, 4.22 light-years away, at the speed of the Voyager 1 probe.
If we want to be faster, we need more advanced aircraft, but with current technology, we can't build more efficient thrust aircraft.
But we can imagine that if humans had conquered controlled nuclear fusion, then we could build a fusion-powered propulsion system capable of accelerating spacecraft to five percent of the speed of light, and we would only need six months to reach Saturn, and about 100 years or so to reach Proxima Centauri.
But if we want to get to Proxima Centauri in our lifetime, we need to even leave behind controlled fusion technology and move at an incredible speed that only exists in theory, and it's warp technology.
According to Einstein's general theory of relativity, gravity is actually a geometric phenomenon caused by the curvature of space-time, which means that space-time can be bent, and warp speed is a kind of propulsion system similar to the speed of light but not faster, it is completely different from the chemical power thruster known above, and his mode of motion is to use the change of space-time curvature, that is, to bend and fold space-time through the warp device, so as to shorten the distance.
To put it simply, in warp flight, the warp engine is used to compress and bend the space in front of it, and then expand the space behind it so that the spacecraft can achieve a similar superluminal flight, if we can build such a spacecraft with this technology, then we can effectively cross huge distances, about a few minutes from the Earth to Saturn, and in less than six months to reach Proxima Centauri, 4.22 light-years away.
It also means that when we master this technology, we can go anywhere we want, and even be able to find out if there is other life in the universe, knowing that we may not be alone in the universe.
However, the above is only a hypothesis, so far we are only theoretical, and we still have no idea what kind of technology will be used to change the structure of time and space.