Impulse Drive?

 Star Trek never quite explains how the impulse drive on a starship works. Some kind of rocket, but clearly one much more efficient than we have.

A woman named Dr. Fatima Ebrahimi may have cracked the problem. Plasma drives are already being used to propel spacecraft, using electric fields...

...but using magnetic fields is much better. How much better? We're talking 10 times faster.

Right now it takes about seven months to get to Mars. Call it 210 days.

So, this new rocket design, if it works, would get us to Mars in 21 days, comparable to a transatlantic sailing trip. That's much more feasible for human astronauts.

Of course, right now it's still on the digital drawing board, but the design seems solid...we'll have to see what happens when and if somebody builds a prototype.