Isn’t the biggest problem that it takes too long to get anywhere? The closest solar system is 4.36 light-years away.
What i would ask is why would you need to travel to another galaxy?
If we became so populated that we filled a whole galaxy it would seem there would be a ridiculous number of social issues, wars, and it would probably take a very long time for any truly new idea to be accepted…
If you want to move through water really, really quickly, remove the water from the stern and replace it to the bow.
In space, a similar concept can theoretically be used by reducing the affectance density (that permittivity concern, ε0) in front of the ship and replacing it to the back of the ship. The total energy expenditure would be nil although it would require a hell of a lot on hand. The resultant speed would be near the speed of light limited only by the tendency for the ship stern to disintegrate due to the void of affectance in front of it and the alteration of material properties due to the speed itself.
Come to think of it, you might even exceed the speed of light for the same reason that underwater missiles now exceed the speed of sonar (by that same process). They have missiles that not only travel faster than sonar such as to be undetectable by sonar until it is too late, but also coated with radio stealth sheathing so as to be nearly undetectable by radio as well. Thus if you’re in the water, your ass is owned by the US Navy. 
The speed of light is dependent upon the permittivity, ε0 such that if changed, the speed of light “in a vacuum” changes because the degree of vacuum has changed (the effective mass of space has been removed).
Yes, that was also my line of thought regarding luminal and transluminal velocities. This actualy equates to a warp drive, bending of space… How would you accomplish this? A system of EM emitters that project a massive ball on the stern?
It is. But the primary reason I want this issue raised is because there is no other way. The stars are waiting. And if we don’t start working on the problem, waiting on some magical solution to drop from the sky (double meaning) - they will keep waiting for Godot… I think that before we run we must first master crawling - start developing sub-luminal drives to acquaint our selves with the whole thing. All we have are theories, but no one has yet experienced near light speeds, so no one really knows what problems need to be addressed…
Well currently I am a bit stuck at one point in my theorizing so I can only speculate, but so far, it seems that it could be as simple as creating one unimaginably enormous negative field at the stern while doing the opposite at the bow. There might be a way to basically turn the entire ship into almost nothing but a huge dipole. Of course there would be quite a number of problems associated with keeping the separation, perhaps sufficient dielectrics and magnetic barriers. There might be additional problems relating to the disintegration of matter at the stern due to the extreme reduction of permittivity. Matter can’t exist below a certain level of affectance (EM base). Also, I haven’t looked into the actual affects on time that would come into play. It might be that the crew would have to stay at the bow so as to not age normally.
And then there is the potential of the entire ship not being able to sustain its material existence once too far from “normal space”. But I suspect interstellar would be okay. I’m not so certain of intergalactic though. In too great of a spacial vacuum (subspace field), matter disintegrates into the subspace.
Why? You have a hobby in your back yard? 
With regards to considering the power necessary to do such and limits on size an what not…it is important to consider that for a trip across galaxies at the speed of light it would still take i think 75 years or more(been a while since i looked into that)…however long(even if a way to travel faster than light was found) you would need to take into consideration the size of the craft needed to support the population that would be traveling, given a large enough amount of time, population growth would need to be considered, limits to prevent population overgrowth, and then aspects of the ship sucha as to allow for comfort, such as gardens and a size such that one doesn’t feel cramped or find themselves going nuts…
Sounds like you would need a HUGE power source… I’m not really sure but i don’t think it would work - considering all the dipoles we have on Earth (which is also a dipole) still not going anywhere…
Just thought of something - what do you think about scalar waves and zero-point energy? I read a bit about it and their proponents have really high hopes on those two things…
Actually, I have an alien vessel in my back yard, and i’m slowly stealing it’s technology and selling it to the highest bidder - but don’t tell anyone… Shhh…
Looking at it long-term, it might be best to turn the whole planet into a huge vessel - if all attempts to break the light barrier fail, that will probably be the only reasonable thing: it eliminates the problem of relativity completely. Instead of having astronauts fly away and coming back millenniums later while the rest wait - we simply bring the planet with us… 
the problem with that idea is I think you would have to take the sun too… Or it would take a ridiculous amount of power just to sustain life on the planet…still 9and it may be easier then to do it otherwise, less costly on all biases)
And I don’t want you moving my planet 
I’m not a space explorer, that would be unfair…
I said you would need a huge power source. But the power is not being expended. And Man has never even seen the scale of dipole that I am talking about, perhaps a 10 ton compressed plasma bottle at the bow and its counterpart at the stern.
Oh, those are my babies.
I deal in subspace affectance which is all about what they are calling zero-point energy and scalar fields (and vector fields).
But a common misunderstanding is that the affectance field offers a huge amount of energy. It doesn’t. It only provides endless energy, but extremely small amounts. If one were to establish a subspace field, he could then use it to do a variety of things including disintegrating matter and thereby obtain a portion of the energy released. But the energy that emerges from subspace is infinitesimal.
Your kidding? 
Mine was stolen some time back. Your not selling MY PARTS are you?!?! 
Surely it would expend energy…just really really really really slowly…?
Well initial propulsion isn’t so much the issue as obtaining near light speed, especially if you can arrange for higher speed without having to compensate for the inertia (which is what such a dipole would be doing if it did turn out to be that simple). Once acceleration has been accomplished, there is little need of more power other than to compensate for losses or to get back up to speed after a short roadside restroom break.
in other words most of the energy would be spent in gaining momentum?
right.
…well and initially producing the field.
And btw, space is necessarily describable as an infinite matrix of infinite series’, much like an infinite matrix of Fourier series except unlike a Fourier series, there must be a single scalar followed by an infinite series of vectors.
Each point in space can be (for practical modeling), expressed as [p, v, m], the first 3 of the series.
This sparked a question…could space be filled infinitely, or is there a limit to the degree of filling by volume or something…?
Space is caused by the “energy” that fills it. In a sense, it is the space that fills energy, not energy that fills space.
It is impossible for energy to not exist everywhere - infinitely. Without energy, there is no “where” for anything to exist.
Since space is a near void (we don’t exactly know that) and since Einstein has told us that only light can achieve the speed of light, I’d say the only answer is in Dylithium Crystals. But you’d have to first discover the properties of dylithium crystals to determine if they would, in fact, give you the propulsion needed and then you’d have to find a source for them–hopefully on a planet that doesn’t rely on slave labor.
Also needed would be navigational skills to make constant corrections between your velocity and the velocity of the ever-expanding universe. Then there’s the question of, if you get to your goal in space-time, can you come back to your original departure point without reversing time. That may be another navigational problem.
but then could there be an infinite amount of energy in one point relative to more energy still being elsewhere…?
[size=150]James[/size] sorry about what i said in that other thread if it offended you deeply…