AAWSAP DIRD, Cockpits in the Era of Breakthrough Flight, November 2010

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experience. If the gravitational environment outside the craft is 1 g, that same 1 g is
expected inside as well. Similarly for accelerations, the entire mass of the vehicle,
including its occupants, will experience the same inertial reactions as the vehicle
accelerates.
Upon the advent of breakthrough propulsion, mastery over gravitational and inertial
forces will have been achieved. This implies, for example, that it is possible for a vehicle
to accelerate at extreme g's while its crew remains within survivable limits or that,
while cruising in deep space (absent of any acceleration or gravitational field), the crew
can enjoy the familiar, constant 1 g upward.
Because such possibilities run so contrary to established experience, it is difficult to
comprehend how such things can be achieved and then contemplate the consequences
that these advances impose onto other systems of the vehicle-in this case, how they
affect cockpit designs. Not all known approaches to propulsion physics evoke the need
for a double hull. 2 Versions that simply suggest a new thrusting mechanism and
reaction mass would only need the double hull if also addressing how to provide a safe
acceleration environment for the crew. As stated earlier, however, the most significant
possible impacts are considered for this study. Therefore, two examples are described
next for how breakthrough propulsion would require this provisional double-hull
configuration.
Why Double-Hull Needed: Example 1 (Warp Drive)
The Alcubierre warp drive, which uses the physics from the Riemannian geometry of
Einstein's general relativity, creates a "warp bubble" around the cralt, and then this
bubble of space-time is moved through the surrounding space-time. This effect is
created (in theory) by expanding space-time behind the vehicle and contracting space­
time in front. The vehicle within the bubble feels no acceleration forces. As illustrated
in Figure 4, 3 the high peaks represent expanding space-time, while the low peaks
represent contracting space-time. Note that the inner region is flat (meaning that the
vehicle does not experience any acceleration forces), that the region far from the
propulsion effect is also flat, and that these two regions are separate.
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