Posted on 02/11/2006 4:31:06 PM PST by PatrickHenry
On Tuesday, Feb. 14, noted physicist Dr. Franklin Felber will present his new exact solution of Einstein's 90-year-old gravitational field equation to the Space Technology and Applications International Forum (STAIF) in Albuquerque. The solution is the first that accounts for masses moving near the speed of light.
New antigravity solution will enable space travel near speed of light by the end of this century, he predicts.
Felber's antigravity discovery solves the two greatest engineering challenges to space travel near the speed of light: identifying an energy source capable of producing the acceleration; and limiting stresses on humans and equipment during rapid acceleration.
"Dr. Felber's research will revolutionize space flight mechanics by offering an entirely new way to send spacecraft into flight," said Dr. Eric Davis, Institute for Advanced Studies at Austin and STAIF peer reviewer of Felber's work. "His rigorously tested and truly unique thinking has taken us a huge step forward in making near-speed-of-light space travel safe, possible, and much less costly."
The field equation of Einstein's General Theory of Relativity has never before been solved to calculate the gravitational field of a mass moving close to the speed of light. Felber's research shows that any mass moving faster than 57.7 percent of the speed of light will gravitationally repel other masses lying within a narrow 'antigravity beam' in front of it. The closer a mass gets to the speed of light, the stronger its 'antigravity beam' becomes.
Felber's calculations show how to use the repulsion of a body speeding through space to provide the enormous energy needed to accelerate massive payloads quickly with negligible stress. The new solution of Einstein's field equation shows that the payload would 'fall weightlessly' in an antigravity beam even as it was accelerated close to the speed of light.
Accelerating a 1-ton payload to 90 percent of the speed of light requires an energy of at least 30 billion tons of TNT. In the 'antigravity beam' of a speeding star, a payload would draw its energy from the antigravity force of the much more massive star. In effect, the payload would be hitching a ride on a star.
"Based on this research, I expect a mission to accelerate a massive payload to a 'good fraction of light speed' will be launched before the end of this century," said Dr. Felber. "These antigravity solutions of Einstein's theory can change our view of our ability to travel to the far reaches of our universe."
More immediately, Felber's new solution can be used to test Einstein's theory of gravity at low cost in a storage-ring laboratory facility by detecting antigravity in the unexplored regime of near-speed-of-light velocities.
During his 30-year career, Dr. Felber has led physics research and development programs for the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, the Department of Energy and Department of Transportation, the National Institute of Justice, National Institutes of Health, and national laboratories. Dr. Felber is Vice President and Co-founder of Starmark.
Source: Starmark [Felber's own firm, apparently]
To get the energy required, it's not just the acceleration of what you're tossing out the rear of your rocket, it's also the mass. I doubt that you're going to get anywhere shooting a stream of particles out the back, no matter how fast they're going. But I defer to Physicist's opinion.
Well, it does sound kinda puny, but you can have multiple thrusters, and one advantage is the multiplier effect of actually increasing the mass of your propellant.
It may not suffice to get us up to an appreciable fraction of the speed of light, but it may give us the efficiency of propellant-to-payload that gets us to another star.
Simple. You decelerate to <.57C. That's how you slow down.
Simple. You decelerate to <.57C. That's how you slow down.
Yes.
Presumably fusion power will be the manner of our acquiring and using this energy.
IIRC, fusion isn't nearly good enough. The mass of the starship still ends up being almost entirely fuel. The only way to do it is to have an external fuel or power source. A Bussard ramjet is one possible solution; an external laser driver is another.
Do you see a problem with using synchrotrons to accelerate our propellant to maximize our thrust?
The quantity you're trying to maximize is known as "specific impulse", which is the right approach, but synchrotrons are too inefficient. Very little of the power in the RF cavities goes into the particle beam itself.
"Let's not forget, Einstein also rejected the cosmological constant and the expansion of the universe...I think he felt it didn't feel right either."
One of Einstein's many mistakes.
Much of his work is being reformulated.
I don't think engine inefficiency would be a particular problem if we're simply trying to maximize the thrust ratio. The real problem of course is how much fuel can you carry, how much propellant mass, and with those two givens, how long does it take?
"If this guy is right, though, then clearly they could get here, so where are they?"
If Felder is right is not indicative that they can get here. As a minimum, they must know of Felder's equation. Like you said in your post, life may be out there but they don't know how to get here.
Yes, I noted the change in frames at the turn around. If the spaceship, looks at the Earth as moving and considers itself staitonary, the guy on the spaceship will see the Earth switch frames. The question is regarding which one is older/younger, still remains.
I'm not looking for a prefered frame here. The only way I can see to fix which one will be younger is to note some 2nd event to break the symmetry. The 2nd event would have to be something like, noting the spaceship's initial rocket fire, the acceleration at the turn around, or which person has to signal something going the other way, frame changes. Without the 2nd event, symmetry won't tell you which one is younger when they get back to the same frame.
The way the problem is set up, one of the participants stays in the same inertial frame the whole time, and the other does not. That's the only qualitative fact you have to know.
Thanks.
Well, but if we can figure it out, then the assumption is that there are others out there, more advanced than us, who could also figure it out.
Obviously one or more of the assumptions are wrong. Personally, I think it's the assumption that you can move interstellar distances. People just do not comprehend the distance we're talking about.
Although the counter to that is that even if you can't travel those distances, you still should be able to send a radio signal over those distances, and so far, we haven't detected one.
...in a galaxy far, far away.
NASCAR has been doing this for years. It's called "drafting"...........
That was going to by my question. 57.7 faster compared to what? I thought the idea of an "aether" was dispelled long ago.
Here's an update from my physicist friend after he searched a bit more:
"OK, here is what he has done. Picture a small mass ("payload") floating at rest in space. Heading toward the small mass is a *rotating* BLACK HOLE. It is known (the "Kerr effect") that such a mass will cause the test particle to rotate about the hole ("frame dragging"). What this guy has discovered is that if the hole is moving toward the payload fast enought (1/sqrt(3) C) then the payload can be "pushed" to speeds near that of light. This is NOT anti-gravity, but is the same effect that our own space capsules get when whipping about Jupiter; they gain energy during the "collision" with Jupiters gravitational field: Jupiter is slowed somewhat, and the capsule is accelerated somewhat. That will happen here too: the black hole loses some energy, the payload gains some, but since the payload is so small it moves quickly, ie. a collision has occurred with the hole.
So, want to acclerate something near light speed, get yourself a rotating black hole with 10^5 solar masses ..."
Makes sense. Thanks to your friend, and thanks to you for posting his views.
Lense-Thirring effect, I believe, but that's just me being captious. As for the rest, I must defer to anyone who's actually read up on this paper.
So what we're seeing, from our frame-reference, is the payload squished on the windshield of the event horizon? Not the sort of Anti-Gravity propulsion I had in mind for space travel, thank you!
Ingrediants for high-speed land travel:
1) Bungee cord
2) Speeding locomotive
3) Insane good luck
Hmm. I don't think so ...
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