SETI, the Velocity-of-Light Limitation, and the Alcubierre Warp Drive: An Integrating Overview

In SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) conventional wisdom has it that the probability of direct contact by interstellar travel is vanishingly small due to the enormous distances involved, coupled with the velocity-oflight limitation. Alcubierre's recent "warp drive" analysis [Class. Quantum Grav. 11, L 73 (1994)] within the context of general relativistic dynamics, however, indicates the naivete of this assumption. We show here that Alcubierre's result is a particular case of a broad, general approach that might loosely be called "metric engineering," the details of which provide yet further support for the concept that reduced-time interstellar travel, either by advanced extraterrestrial civilizations at present or ourselves in the future, is not, as naive consideration might hold, fundamentally constrained by physical principles.