I didn’t know that NASA scientists were thinking about how they might design a faster-than-light ship, but it’s pretty cool that people are giving concrete thought to the topic. Even cooler is the artist’s illustration, above, of what such a spacecraft would look like — from the warp core to the Star Trek-like command bridge.
We all have to pay attention to the realities of the world — but it’s nice to take a moment now and then to dream. I firmly believe that our future ultimately lies in the stars, and sometimes I wish we did more to make that future come to pass. Aspirational projects like the one described in the article linked above might help to spur us in that direction.