the intellectual half of PETA might have gotten upset.
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 gravity’s 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 haven’t 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 Earth’s 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, didn’t work at very low temperatures.
It’s worth trying again with an improved setup, said the NASA paper, whose lead author was Glen A. Robertson, research scientist at the agency’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. It was at least the second time the agency has tried but failed to replicate Podkletnov’s results.
The researchers didn’t 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 can’t 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: Podkletnov’s 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.
Michelson's negative result was unexpected, unintuitive, and (at that time) unexplainable. The negative result in the gravity shield experiment is what almost anyone who'd heard of the idea did expect.
Try using Science Citations for more recent publications of which there are many.
More refs here:
References
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FAQ, more refs
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===========================
An apology is owed to the researchers of this field
whose existence will minimize how much the US must rely on oil.
What we need is a legislative, not scientific, approach to the problem. An illustrative story, the source of which excapes me, follows:
Once upon a time, in a Kingdom far-far-away (or something like that) there was a King who felt the pain of his people having to carry the burdens of themselves and their possessions about. He asked his science adviser: "Why do the people suffer so?" The adviser replied: "It is due to the Law of Gravity, Your Immenseness."
And so the King was inspired to obtain the consent of the his parliament for a Proclamation to Repeal the Law of Gravity. And having obtained said consent, the King declared a great Holiday throughout his Kingdom, on which he would sign the Proclamation into law, repealing the Law of Gravity, and forever more relieving the burden of his subjects from having to bear the weight of objects or their bodies. And all the loyal subjects gathered around the Royal Castle as the King prepared to sign the proclamation into law. As the Royal Clock chimed high noon, the King affixed his signature to the proclamation, and a shout of joy went up from the throng.....
..... whereupon everyone and everything not attached firmly to the earth was instantly flung off into space, including the King, his subjects, cows, horses, and even the air, for in his zeal to alleviate the burdens of his people, the King had overlooked the necessity of Repealing the Law of Inertia along with the Law of Gravity.
I fully expect NASA's experiments to be just about as successful as a legislative approach would be to the anti-gravity problem.
should have checked this out yourself, rather than rely on
those who apparently dont know anything about it.
That's not to say The Result may not match The Expected Result - they may very well be at odds with one-another. But The Result is still just The Result.
Hence, EVERY experiment is worthwhile as long as the outcome is not known q.e.d.
Don't be baggin on our boys at NASA - they've advanced the world more with their failures than virtually all the Democrats have... ;)
We're ragging on the institute not the personnel. It's nearly criminal to keep all that excellent ability and talent chained to a dead-end space station support mission. Exciting things could be happening if they could be let off their leash. Progress there has been; progress is unavoidable with such a level of expertise. But the progress there should have been in the past 30 years is nowhere in evidence. Where is the moon base? Where is the Mars base? Where is the interplanetary shuttle? Should have all that up and running by now.
Then triple NASA's budget; build the moon base, go to Mars and build the Mars orbiting base. With that kind of career beacon you will get more young people going for technical degrees; you will get more science taught in school. Economic effects won't be trickledown, they will be a deluge. It will make the medieval terrorists all the more envious, maybe envious enough to give up their quixotic missions and join civilization.
B5 fan?
Masterful. I couldn't have said it better myself. Welcome to FreeRepublic!
Bedrosian...that name sounds familiar. Sci.physics, perhaps?
I hate to say I told you so, but...no, scratch that. I have no problem with saying I told you so. I told you so!
Yep, fusion in a bottle ain't be happenin'.
Do you remember the claim- I think by a south eatern university- that they achieved "Cold Fusion"? It made the covers of "science" publications before the frenzy to reproduce the results...
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