Is Star Trek's Impulse Drive Possible?

Star Trek, a science fiction mainstay, has millions of fans, fondly called Trekkies. They are very interested in the many innovative, but fictional technologies featured in the long-running franchise, many of which have become a reality(like the Communicator or the Floppy Disc).

The fictional Star Trek universe, called the Trekiverse, has spaceships flying at ‘warp’ speeds, many times faster than the speed of light. The sub-light speed cruise modes of spaceships are called Impulse Drive.

Impulse engines use nuclear-powered propulsion technology, and though the speed is not faster than light, it is faster than what we have today. All this is still in the fictional realm, though the theory is sound and we can have such engines in the future.

Impulse drives have a theoretical problem of time dilation, in which ‘near-light’ speeds cause anomalies in time. They also can behave unpredictably in different atmospheres, as they are designed to work in a vacuum.