A NASA scientist and a renowned graphic artist have teamed up to produce designs for a vessel that may someday allow human beings to travel the universe and beyond in a first-of-its-kind warp drive spacecraft faster than light.

Impressive illustrations of the work-in-progress NASAs New Design for a Warp Drive Ship made their way to the web this week while NASA researcher Harold White and Dutch artist Mark Rademaker continue to fine-tune the concept behind a type of craft that may actually be able to travel faster than the speed of light.

White, a physicist for the aeronautics administration that has been studying a faster-than-light propulsion concept for years, has previously gone public with his research concerning a craft capable of that sort of travel. As far back as 2011, in fact, he attracted the attention of other scientists by publishing a report that set out to prove the feasibility of the F-T-L propulsion concept. Now for the first time, his cohort has come up with designs that begin to show the sort of spacecraft theyre striving to create.

Speaking to io9, Rademaker said his latest design includes a sleek ship nestled at the center of two enormous rings, which create the warp bubble that would, in theory, make Whites F-T-L propulsion plan possible.