Jack, a bit of thread drift.

Some of the recent writings of theoretical physicists such as Michio Kaku (Hyperspace and Parallel Worlds) keep science fiction aficionados such as myself panting after the notion that some manner of faster-than-light interstellar travel might not be totally impossible.

Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, in books like The Mote in God's Eye and sequels, had a pretty interesting method of FTL travel with their "Alderson points." Find the Alderson point near a massive body such as a star, and with the proper gizmo in your engine compartment, you could punch the button and transfer instantaneously to the Alderson point near another star (the transition left you a feeling a bit sick, dizzy, and disoriented for a few minutes, but you recovered with no apparent ill-effects).

But within a given planetary system, you'd have to slog along with hydrogen ramjets, light sails, or other "conventional" propulsion systems. They even justified aerodynamic space ship design by positing that most main-sequence stars would have a planetary gas giant (lots of hydrogen in its atmosphere) in their proximity, and they could use it as a refueling station, skimming through its atmosphere with the jet intakes agape.

You'd be in deep doo-doo though if the Alderson point were inside the corona of the star, such as a red giant or blue giant.

Of course, all of this takes place a couple thousand years in the future. . . .

Jerry and Larry hatched this up over a large supply of beer with a physicist friend of theirs name Alderson, who said he had the figures to at least indicate that there may be some such point near a massive body, but Jerry (an old drinking buddy of mine from back in the 60s) was a bit fuzzy about whether or not he thought there might be anything to it. Good story gimmick, though.

Don Firth