starship-design: FTL and time travel

["Kyle R. Mcallister" <stk@sunherald.infi.net>]

Greetings:

I think its safe to say this:

1) FTL probably won't be possible within the next 200 years. As far as
the distant future, I'm convinced that we will someday find a way to do
it right. Right now, we can't even speculate on the tech necessary
though.

2) FTL may one day be performed in such a way that the time travel part
is nullified. Since we don't know what happens at FTL (we've never been
there) we can't make any assumtions. There may be some obscure phenomena
(like Hawking's time protection system) that would allow FTL, but cancel
timetravel.

3) We may find a way of generating gravity fields without matter, so
that we can build alcubierre type ships, that have no causal problems.

4) Maybe we can make hyper-jumps across space to avoid FTL, but avoid
traversing the space between points. (bring two sides of a paper
together, cross the edge, and unfold. No causal problems.

A few other things:

Wouldn't wormholes be causality violating?
What is a preffered reference frame, and why would it maybe allow FTL?
Why can't light (as in the light clock) be carried with you at FTL
speed? FTL+C may work at FTL.
Unanswered question: If I travel 1600 light years in 2 years earth time,
how far back in time do I travel upon return?

Kyle Mcallister

"The secrets of flight will not be mastered within our lifetime...not
within a thousand years." 
		-Wilbur Wright (1901)