First and foremost to accepting the Star Wars saga is the fundamental belief in The Force. Darth Vader, Obi-wan Kenobi, Luke Skywalker, Emperor Palpatine, Yoda, etc. are the fascinating characters they are because of The Force and its mysterious and divine nature. We debate endlessly about who is the most powerful, how is the Chosen One created, and hey, just how does Sith Lightning really work? However, as science fiction/fantasy fans, there is an equally important concept that we seem to readily accept really without any hesitation. This is, of course, the notion of interstellar travel. It is so common, from Star Trek to Stargate, and has been around for so long that we sci-fi fans don't even talk about it much anymore. But, hang on a moment there folks, ain't nothin' ordinary 'bout hurtling a ship from one galaxy to the next! Just ask the boys and girls over at NASA, who are battling logistical and mathematical conundrums trying to figure out how to get a person from Earth to Mars and then back to Earth. A puny travel distance of mere hundreds of millions of miles, or about 0.0001 of one Lightyear.

NASA launched the Voyager II Explorer in the summer of 1977, and it currently travels at a velocity of about 10 miles per second - and it is not even close to leaving our Solar System. It currently approaches the orbits of Neptune and Pluto. Beyond that, the ultimate boundry of our Solar System is considered by many astronomers to be the Oort Cloud, where our Sun's gravity is no longer a considerable influence. For the Voyager, the Oort Cloud is only about 40,000 years away.

Well, we might not be around for that.

It seems that at one point or another, a science fiction story must address the point of how do we get our characters from one star system to another, and stay within the "believable" rules of our (Earthly) physical laws. Star Wars accomplishes the concept of interstellar travel by introducing the alter-dimension known as Hyperspace. In this dimensional plane, it is possible to travel faster than the speed of light and, in effect, cover astronomical distances in a remarkably short time.

**Warning** A little bit of geek speak lies ahead. I tend to look at space travel this way. We are balancing Time vs Energy. If we want to travel a long, long distance, we have a spectrum of options. At the more traditional end of the spectrum, we can expend Energy in low levels, but our travel Time goes thru the roof - which could be bad since we would like to arrive at our destination within our passengers' lifetimes (or maybe we gotta freeze 'em and then thaw 'em out?) 2001: A Space Odyssey explored this end of the spectrum for a journey to Jupiter. At the more theoretical end of the spectrum, we could expend Energy in near infinite levels, and our travel Time becomes very short. Star Trek took this approach. The relatively new concept out there is the presence of "wormholes", which allow us to cheat the Time and Energy constraints by using a "short-cut". Contact is a good example of a movie that explored the wormhole theory.

Okay, now I've gotten that out of my system. So Hyperspace is the dimension where we boogie from one galaxy to the next at velocities greater than the speed of light, but it is the fantastical Hyperdrive that gets us into that dimension. Now I'm not clear on the nuts and bolts of a Hyperdrive, but one thing is certain - that baby can crank out some serious power when it has to!

"We don't have enough power to get to Coruscant. The Hyperdrive is leaking."

Say WHAT?!! Man, get some stop-gap or fix-a-flat or something in that thing!! Whatever is leaking out of a Hyperdrive, you most definitely would not want that stuff floating around in the environmental parts of your starship.

Lastly, there is one more concept that enthusiastic Star Wars fans have come to embrace, and it is right where you're at now. Of course, I am speaking of this wonderful realm of fandom that also goes by the name of Hyperspace. The polls, the blogs, the message boards, etc. where we can all come together and share ideas and opinions and even some laughs. It has been very cool sharing thoughts and theories about Star Wars with people throughout the U.S. as well as those from far away places like Australia and Europe. And there are some very cool and interesting blogs out there, from thoughts by a DarkLordZor to some poodoo laid down by a Dark Moose to the writings of a Star Wars Uncle. I just feel that instead of complaining about the blogs we don't like, we should really just stop and enjoy the cool blogs that are out there.

The Star Wars stories are about exploring possibilities, always have been, and for this engineer (whose daily employment is most certainly bound by the laws of physics) the SW movies have always provided a great escape for my imagination to run wild.

(**) Space exploration, both real and science fiction, has always been a fun subject for me. For those that are interested, the NASA project mission site can be found here:

NASA Mission Highlights