The energy and material science needs to catch up with theory before we can start real-world experiments however.
On 4th December 2020, China fired up its nuclear fusion reactor at HL-2M Tokamak East and formed an 'artificial sun'. It is capable of generating heat to over 150 million celsius - 10 times the temperature of our own sun's core. The energy this one reactor alone can produce is just staggering.
Since 2002, scientists at the CERN facility have been producing antimatter in the form of antihydrogen. In 2010, they discovered how to safely trap and store the antimatter being produced. In 2015, scientists found a way to increase the production of antihydrogen and in 2018, they made it transportable. In 2020, it was announced that Fermilab was able to produce 2 nanograms of antimatter per year, but a new NASA NIAC plan could increase this by 10 billion times to 20 grams per year with a $670 million per year energy cost antimatter factory, leading the way to looking at a positron propulsion system for spacecraft.
Scientific advancement is moving forward
really fast. We now have a quantum network emerging which is capable of sending enormous amounts of data over vast distances, not just faster than the current internet, but faster than the speed of light. The Neu-ChiP project is currently growing brain cells within a microchip to push even further the boundaries of AI and is the latest venture in an emerging field known as neuromorphic computing.
Things that we considered science fiction only 20 years ago are now science fact. With NASA and the US Military already looking at how they can use antimatter for space travel and future weaponry, and neuromorphic computing for robotics and defence systems (let's just hope they don't call it Skynet.....
), I honestly believe that there may be some sort of early warp-drive prototype within the next few decades as opposed to generations in the future.......
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