As Dreams Are Made On...

Prospero:
Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp'd tow'rs, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on; and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.

William Shakespeare, The Tempest Act 4, scene 1, 148–158

HowStuffWorks - Warp Speed

You can blame it on my reading material.

Though "real Sci-Fi fans" would differ with me, I had to take a "Star Trek" break from my usual (and quite depressing) dystopian literary diet and read two from Old School Trek: "The Eugenics Wars: The Rise and Fall of Khan Noonien Singh," part 1 and part 2 by Greg Cox. Khan as a four-year-old was written just as arrogantly as Ricardo Montaban portrayed him in the original series. If you're familiar with the "Space Seed" episode, it fleshes out a probable history of the genetically engineered race of supermen juxtaposed in real-world events of the 70s and 90s quite well.

Hence, the posts this week have been somewhat targeted.

So, I was probably primed to find these items:

"Perhaps a Star Trek experience within our lifetime is not such a remote possibility." These are the words of Dr. Harold "Sonny" White, the Advanced Propulsion Theme Lead for the NASA Engineering Directorate. Dr. White and his colleagues don't just believe a real life warp drive is theoretically possible; they've already started the work to create one.

Yes. A real warp drive, Scotty.

Gizmodo: NASA Starts Work on Real Life Star Trek Warp Drive

Abstract Excerpt: NASA/JSC is implementing an advanced propulsion physics laboratory, informally known as "Eagleworks", to pursue propulsion technologies necessary to enable human exploration of the solar system over the next 50 years, and enabling interstellar spaceflight by the end of the century.

NASA Technical Reports Service:
Eagleworks Laboratories: Advanced Propulsion Physics Research (PDF embed)