One of the most iconic abilities of the USS Enterprise is its ability to zip from one end of the galaxy to the other in mere moments using its fictitious warp drive. Human technology is currently nowhere near advanced enough to replicate the Enterprise’s warp drive. However, the theory behind building one has been around since the early 1990s. To achieve speeds faster than the speed of light, physics’ natural speed limit, theoretical physicist Miguel Alcubierre proposed that we must bend the fabric of space-time.

Space-time can be imagined as a sheet of rubber on which all matter sits,