Posted on 10/10/2001 12:45:11 PM PDT by RightWhale
NASA's Controversial Gravity Shield Experiment Fails to Produce
By Jack Lucentini
Special to SPACE.com posted: 11:50 am ET
10 October 2001
After a second round of tests, NASA researchers have failed to detect signs that a machine can weaken gravitys pull.
But they plan to continue the research shocking some mainstream physicists, who call it junk science.
The researchers say a device that loosens the clutch of gravity, sometimes called a gravity shield, may be the only way to enable human spacecraft to blast off to other star systems.
But the research lies on the fringe of accepted science. Some of its own proponents admit it flies against virtually every established law of physics.
Other scientists go further.
"Good heavens. This is incredible," said Robert L. Park, director of the Washington, D.C. office of the American Physical Society, upon learning that the NASA researchers havent given up. "I mean, every physicist I know and they must have some on the staff there has told me how absurd this research was."
The space agency has spent about five years and at least $600,000 on the project.
In a paper presented at the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Joint Propulsion Research Conference in Salt Lake City in July, the researchers called their latest tests "inconclusive."
The experiments utilized a device made from a superconductor, a ceramic in which, at certain temperatures, electric current can flow utterly freely.
The study was inspired by the work in the early 1990s of a Russian scientist, Eugene Podkletnov. He claimed to have measured a weakening of Earths gravity by 2 percent near a specialized superconductor spinning in a magnetic field.
"Our objective was to design, construct and implement a discriminating experiment which would put these observations on a more firm footing," said the NASA paper. "No conclusion at this time can be made."
The researchers said several factors had hampered the experiment. One was that the balance, for measuring mass, didnt work at very low temperatures.
Its worth trying again with an improved setup, said the NASA paper, whose lead author was Glen A. Robertson, research scientist at the agencys Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. It was at least the second time the agency has tried but failed to replicate Podkletnovs results.
The researchers didnt return phone calls early this week. But Randall Peters, a consultant to the project and a physics professor with Mercer University, Macon, Ga., said in an interview that the effort is "worthwhile," despite the difficulties.
David Drachlis, a spokesman for the NASA center, added that the project continues.
What has dogged the research, experts say, is that Podkletnov failed to adequately document his findings. Podkletnov declined to comment for this article.
"Antigravity" research has provoked debate for years.
The idea violates a bedrock principle of physics conservation of energy that says you cant create energy from nothing. It defies this edict because it implies you could lift something without spending the necessary "price" in energy normally required. Then, by dropping it, you could give it an energy boost equaling the full "regular" price.
Yet several considerations make the concept intriguing to some.
First is a rather striking apparent coincidence: Podkletnovs findings appeared to match phenomena earlier predicted independently by a University of Alabama at Huntsville scientist, Ning Li.
Second, many renowned physicists believe nature has an underlying unity, by which all its forces are fundamentally connected.
This means electromagnetism and gravity are somehow linked. The "gravity shield" could conceivably operate at the bridge between the two forces, interacting with both.
The NASA group suggested the link is a recently discovered, exotic form of energy, "zero-point fluctuations." This consists of minute particles that flicker in and out of existence in what we normally think of as empty space.
Democrats have hats that do that.
The whole thing is in the math, and is well worth pursuing. In fact, the first nation to discover how to do it will dominate the Earth for a very, very long time. We have to get there first. One might imagine Osama Bin Laden having such a discovery at his disposal.
Human spacecraft. As opposed to the Vorlons, I suppose.
That was supposed to remain a secret, well don't be surprized if your neighbors cat gets vaporized!
The private sector will get us there much faster than NASA, however...
Next door neighbor a democrat?
Understand please, most "scientists" are anal-retentive
and trying to please daddy (e.g.- their thesis advisor
or their physics teacher or whatever) so the beginning
of progress is to go AGAINST the scientific establishment.
Hats off to NASA for trying to break out of the mold...
I just hope it works.
Don't get me wrong - the skepticism of the scientific
community is what prevents the really weird stuff -
HOWEVER - the eccentric Trofim Lysenko DID get the
Russians looking at things in a different way, which
yielded an number of interesting scientific advances...
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