Posted on 07/31/2002 4:38:50 PM PDT by ProbableCause
Anti-gravity propulsion comes out of the closet By Nick Cook, JDW Aerospace Consultant.
LondonBoeing, the worlds largest aircraft manufacturer, has admitted it is working on experimental anti-gravity projects that could overturn a century of conventional aerospace propulsion technology if the science underpinning them can be engineered into hardware.As part of the effort, which is being run out of Boeings Phantom Works advanced research and development facility in Seattle, the company is trying to solicit the services of a Russian scientist who claims he has developed anti-gravity devices in Russia and Finland. The approach, however, has been thwarted by Russian officialdom.The Boeing drive to develop a collaborative relationship with the scientist in question, Dr Evgeny Podkletnov, has its own internal project name: GRASP Gravity Research for Advanced Space Propulsion. A GRASP briefing document obtained by JDW sets out what Boeing believes to be at stake. "If gravity modification is real," it says, "it will alter the entire aerospace business." GRASPs objective is to explore propellentless propulsion (the aerospace worlds more formal term for anti-gravity), determine the validity of Podkletnovs work and "examine possible uses for such a technology". Applications, the company says, could include space launch systems, artificial gravity on spacecraft, aircraft propulsion and fuelless electricity generation so-called free energy.
But it is also apparent that Podkletnovs work could be engineered into a radical new weapon. The GRASP paper focuses on Podkletnovs claims that his high-power experiments, using a device called an impulse gravity generator, are capable of producing a beam of gravity-like energy that can exert an instantaneous force of 1,000g on any object enough, in principle, to vaporise it, especially if the object is moving at high speed.Podkletnov maintains that a laboratory installation in Russia has already demonstrated the 4in (10cm) wide beams ability to repel objects a kilometre away and that it exhibits negligible power loss at distances of up to 200km. Such a device, observers say, could be adapted for use as an anti-satellite weapon or a ballistic missile shield. Podkletnov declared that any object placed above his rapidly spinning superconducting apparatus lost up to 2% of its weight. Although he was vilified by traditionalists who claimed that gravity-shielding was impossible under the known laws of physics, the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) attempted to replicate his work in the mid-1990s. Because NASA lacked Podkletnovs unique formula for the work, the attempt failed. NASAs Marshall Space
Flight Center in Alabama will shortly conduct a second set of experiments using apparatus built to Podkletnovs specifications.Boeing recently approached Podkletnov directly, but promptly fell foul of Russian technology transfer controls (Moscow wants to stem the exodus of Russian high technology to the West). The GRASP briefing document reveals that BAE Systems and Lockheed Martin have also contacted Podkletnov "and have some activity in this area". It is also possible, Boeing admits, that "classified activities in gravity modification may exist". The paper points out that Podkletnov is strongly anti-military and will only provide assistance if the research is carried out in the white world of open development.
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Same Russian who claimed to have steel eating terminites?
I wonder if this an attempt to discredit Boeing.
So maybe they were earlier? It's very typical that a company will use a little of it's own money to investigate something then use the results to attempt to get further funding from the government. Note that he did not say that Boeing is not working on such technology, just that they aren't paying for it. Maybe they have an ex Clinton speachwriter in their PR department. :)
Boeing simply doesn't know. I'll bet they would like to have Podkletnov perform a demonstration for them, but the Russian technology transfer authorities are getting involved. On the other hand, Boeing might like to perform the experiments themselves, but may not have the complete "blueprints" to be sucessful, requiring Podkletnov to become involved, again under the authority of the Russians.
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