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The Halo Drive

Cool Worlds3 HN recommenders · 2019–2023
526K views · explainer · evergreen · Uploaded 2019-03-01

Astrophysicist David Kipping presents the halo drive, a proposed way to propel a starship to a good fraction of light speed by gaining energy from a black hole. The video is based on his peer-reviewed paper and explains why energy is the main obstacle to interstellar flight.

HN readers point to it as a clear explanation of a theoretical fuel-free propulsion concept from a channel they respect.

Cosmology & astrophysicsSpace exploration & spaceflight

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4 comments from Hacker News

@_Microft2019 · in “Black Hole Propulsion as Technosignature”

If you have the technology to reach the nearest binary blackhole ( "you just have to pay the one-time fee of the cost to reach the nearest binary black hole system" , at 16:12 min in this video: [VIDEO] ), you can most likely deal with the mirror/energy harvesting problem as well.

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@jp5552019 · in “Ways to travel at nearly the speed of light”

The halo drive concept is interesting. It uses a beam of light to extract gravity energy from a black hole and use to to maintain acceleration of your ship. Almost no fuel needed because its really just a kind of extreme gravity assist that we’ve been doing since what, the 1970s? [VIDEO]

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@chii2021 · in “A Dyson sphere around a black hole”

also, you can use light, instead of matter. Termed the "halo drive", it's a very nice theoretical concept: [VIDEO]

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@mperham2023 · in “The Halo Drive: Fuel-Free Relativistic Propulsion (2019)”

Prof. Kipping is well known for his Cool Worlds youtube channel, which is fantastic. He created a video on his Halo Drive idea: [VIDEO]

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