Meet The Man Behind NASA and DARPA’s Warp Drive Programs
by Christopher Plain | The Debrief
When Star Trek premiered on American television in 1966, the world was exposed to the idea of a spaceship traveling faster than the speed of light. That concept of a Warp Drive remained in the world of fiction until 1994 when Mexican Mathematician Miguel Alcubierre presented a mathematical model under which a human-piloted craft could theoretically exceed the speed of light.
A decade passed, but quietly in the background, NASA brought in scientist Dr. Harold G. “Sonny” White in the mid-2000s to continue developing the Warp Drive. White made refinements to the original model, and in 2003 and 2011, significant leaps were made in Warp Drive theory, seemingly making the impossible a little more possible. Even more revisions have been, and today, the leading model for faster-than-light travel is dubbed the Alcubierre/White Warp Drive.
In the decade since, Dr. White has worked with NASA, DARPA, and even Lockheed Martin Skunkworks, all while continuing to refine his concept of the Warp Drive.
In 2018, White left NASA and took his work on advanced propulsion with him. He joined the nascent Limitless Space Institute, a group of scientists and engineers driven by the goal of deep space travel.