Black holes can give spaceships incredible speeds, researcher proposes

Having enough fuel and attaining incredible speeds for spaceships still remain a problem today, but a new concept suggests that spaceships just might be able to gain enough speed by powering itself from black holes.

A new concept called a ‘halo drive’ could let future spaceships to gain exceptional speeds with the help of using lasers to steal energy from black holes themselves.

“It’s kind of like a highway system where you have to pay a one-time toll,” researcher David Kipping told New Scientist of the halo drive. “Once you pay the fee, you can ride the highway system as long as you want.”

Take a tour of supermassive black hole through virtual reality

The idea for halo drive is for a spacecraft to shoot a powerful laser into a black hole. The spaceship would then catch the supercharged beam as it curves around the intensely dense black hole for a mega speed boost, wrote Futurism.

However, few of other experts have criticized Kipping’s idea about halo drive that would require access to a black hole and also an extremely powerful laser. “The engineering parts are really difficult to deal with in any realistic way,” physicist Avi Loeb told New Scientist. “I wouldn’t say it’s practical.”

Meanwhile, according to Metro, it is also theorized that aliens out in the space somewhere could already be using black holes to power their spaceships. Though the idea might seem a bit of sci-fi, but scientists believe if it’s true, we can finally spot aliens by tracking the gamma rays from their spacecraft.

Scientist Louis Crane told Universe Today, “An advanced civilization would want to harness a microscopic black hole because it could throw in matter and get out energy. It would be the ultimate energy source. In particular it could propel a starship large enough to be shielded to relativistic velocities.”