Posted on 01/11/2025 2:42:31 PM PST by Beowulf9
Space travel has always hit a wall with slow speeds and massive fuel needs. Gravitic propulsion systems offer a game-changing solution by using gravity itself as a driving force. This blog breaks down 10 major advances in gravity-based space tech, from T.
Townsend Brown's early work to today's cutting-edge research at aerospace labs. Ready to explore how we might zip through space without burning tons of rocket fuel?
Scientists started exploring gravitic propulsion back in the 1920s through wild experiments with high-voltage capacitors and electromagnetic fields. T. Townsend Brown's work at the Gravity Research Foundation sparked major interest when he showed how electric charges could create thrust without moving parts.
(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...
Great. Go at the speed of light and it only takes 4.5 years to get to the nearest star. I don’t know how far to the 2nd nearest star.
Any article on the topic not mentioning the Eldridge, Lazar or Die Glocke must be propaganda or AI.
Besides, the article mentions ‘anti-gravity’ only twice and not in context to the science which ought govern the topic.
The real problem, as explained in Poul Anderson’s Tau Zero, is not the acceleration. It’s the slowing down. You can’t carry enough reaction mass to slow down. And if you travel at 1% of the speed of light, the spaceship has to still work 420 years later. We already know that work and 420 are not a good combination. And as a hill person, I can tell you that still and work are also problematic.
Assuming current science, electric/ion propulsion seems the best bet, but somewhere in the math of ‘dark matter’ and ‘dark energy’, there may be something useful. I put the ‘darks’ in quotes, as what those terms really translate to, using older vernacular, is ‘Here be Dragons’. At least ‘dark matter’ often has a computable physical location. It could be strings, it could be rocks, it could be rocs’ eggs.
Consider this; I have long thought that FEDGOV puts out stories like this to mislead, confuse and outright lie to us. I also have thought that, on the rare occasion they do want to pass along some truth that they use stories like this to prepare us for something utterly unbelievable. You pick which this could be.
“Go at the speed of light and it only takes 4.5 years to get to the nearest star.”
Based on our current understanding of physics a physical object can’t reach light speed because the force used to accelerate gets converted to mass and less to velocity the closer you get to light speed.
There are other problems such as energy storage and G-force.
If you accelerate a spaceship at 1 G, it will take about 6 months to reach 1/2 the speed of light. You will need to decelerate for another six months before arriving at your destination. So, that’s 1 year in an Earth gravity environment, with an average speed during that year of 1/4 the speed of light.
This means it would take about 9 years to reach Proxima Centauri. During this time the ship would lose all contact with Earth using modern communications. If it successfully reached its destination, the message back to Earth would not be received until more than 13 years after departure. And if the ship returned right away, it would be 18 years from the original launch before the ship made it back to Earth.
During the year of accelerating and decelerating in a linear path, the inside of the ship would be indistinguishable from an Earth gravity environment.
I do not know how to calculate the effect of continued acceleration, but at least some of this would be converted to mass rather than velocity up to the midpoint of the trip there. But continued thrust throughout the journey would reduce the time of the trip more.
There might be some unpredictable consequences of traveling at such speeds in that the materials that the ship is comprised of might not hold together in the same way as mass begins to be added.
A manned ship would require artificial gravity if the ship is not accelerating or decelerating which could be simulated without energy consumption by spinning the ship. But this non-linear acceleration only approximates gravity due to the Correalis effect. It is assumedly much better for human health than extended time in zero gravity though.
Carrying an energy source capable of accelerating itself and the weight of the ship for sustained periods would be an entirely separate challenge.
If we assumed that the technology that allows for “gravitic propulsion” bends spacetime in such a way as to negate the effect of thrust being converted to mass at velocities approaching lightspeed, human travelers would still require a sustainable G-force that limits how quickly light speed could be reached. Negating time dilation, it would take about a year at 1 G. Anything beyond lightspeed is time travel, so we would assume the journey will take one year of accelerating and one year of decelerating. The average speed during these legs of the trip will be 1/2 the speed of light (approximately). So those two years get you 1 light year of travel. The remaining 3.25 light years would take 3.25 years, for a total of 5.25 years there and the equivalent back to Earth. This is the absolute best-case scenario unless time travel is achieved.
In my opinion, gravitic propulsion that relies on gravity waves or anti-gravity would bend space-time and would be a type of time travel. If that turns out to be possible, all bets are off. I don’t think there is any publicly known scientific expirimentation that supports this yet. But my gut instinct is to believe that it is possible.
I knew a master electrician that crossed phases with both hands by accident. Sadly, there was no acceleration.
You get an idea of the size of the universe when you realize 50,000mph is way too slow to be useful.
Hutchington effect
Wow! What happened to your friend?
Instant death.
There are devices called lock out tags. When ever working on high voltage systems the breakers or master switches must be off and properly tagged prior to working on this stuff. For some odd reason he worked on it hot.
If you are interested, read this book and the second volume that followed:
Thanks for the info. I’m 74 and I doubt I’m going to see any of this in my lifetime.
My thoughts too. Lots of SciFi catch phrases no hard facts.
Yeah, that's a clue that it isn't a real article. Made me look at the date to see if it was April 1rst.
Yup. Came across more as a sales pitch than a well researched article.
What’s black, crispy, and hangs from the ceiling???
An amateur electrician 😂
Want to know how much I know about electricity???
Don’t mess with it.
Pipe fitter for 40 years
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