Astrophysicist Kumar Singh and Quantum Mathematician Greta Schlotte's now famous space drive breakthrough came in the first year of the new century. Working to marginally improve the .43 lightyear limitation inherent in the Congruence Drive, they instead had one of those rare epiphanies that create a leap in scientific understanding.

The Singh-Schlotte drive allows for near-instantaneous jumps of between 23.4 and 25.2 lightyears, requiring only enough power in the jump engine matrix and a sizeable gravity source at each end of the jump.

It quickly became obvious that there are many nearby stars that cannot be reached by any combination of 24LY jumps. Doctors Singh and Schlotte spent the rest of their professional careers trying to overcome this limitation, but finally concluded that it was integral to the mathematics of the drive itself. Even with the 24LY limitation, the Singh-Schlotte Drive opened up vast new territories for exploration and eventual settlement.

The Singh-Schlotte Drive was almost immediately renamed the "Slingshot Drive" by the phonetically challenged and the jump routes created by the sequential 24LY jumps became known as "Slinglines".