Posted on 07/30/2002 8:22:27 AM PDT by Fitzcarraldo
Boeing, the world’s 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 Boeing’s 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."
GRASP’s objective is to explore propellentless propulsion (the aerospace world’s more formal term for anti-gravity), determine the validity of Podkletnov’s 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’.
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 Podkletnov’s unique formula for the work, the attempt failed. NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama will shortly conduct a second set of experiments using apparatus built to Podkletnov’s 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.
Let's see with antigravity machine, I can lose weight and with time travel, I can turn back the clock. Soon to be retirees won't need IRA pensions. (Enron is behind the crop circles);-)
Actually, standard gravity does have a repulsive phase. (Note that this has nothing whatsoever to do with these antigravity claims, for which there is neither theoretical support nor verified experimental evidence.) If we postulate a scalar field (such as electric potential, but with a fixed global energy minimum at some value of the field), and further postulate that it is possible to place a region of vacuum stably into a higher potential state (that is, that there would exist a deep local energy minimum at some different value of the field), then gravity becomes repulsive. This causes the region of space to inflate--a new Big Bang!
I've heard that some theorists now believe that such a metastable "false vacuum" is not necessary for inflation. If a region of vacuum can be kicked unstably into a higher potential, it can "surf" along at the higher potential as the space inflates, just as a surfer maintains his elevation on a wave while falling down its slope the whole time.
You're JOKING .....
.... right?
.... REARRANGE THE UNIVERSE"!!!
Taking all bets from those with the "belief gene" who _feel_ that the "useful idiots" --- or even (like Karl Marx), the cynical opportunists --- in Congress have a clue.
Those with the "belief gene" engage in the futile process of "feeling outside the box". LOL
I propose a study of "How quirky little projects with no hope of success get funded", which would cost, say, $5 million.
Or decided (perhaps incorrectly) that the thing worked so she would sabotage it here to take it home and give it to momma.
I often wonder how many little discoveries are made by communist Chinese (and other nationalities) in American labs with American equipment and then quietly exported back to the motherland with said researchers?
To: Fitzcarraldo
I would like an anti-gravity belt.
Or boots.
# 55 by Lancey Howard
I would avoid the anti-gravity boots, Lancey Howard.
Imagine what would happen if your boots suddenly flew into the air.
Where would your head wind up, above or below your boots?
Just how good is your balance?
I can see major advantages to using an anti-gravity harness instead of boots or belts.
I believe you are mistaken. He received the Nobel Prize for describing Brownian motion.
You only have to look at Einstein's biography to see that while he had in fact grounded himself in all the theory of the day, he nevertheless made three "eureka" breakthroughs in a matter of a few years.
I base everything on historical trends, and the trends are that dramtic breakthroughs of all types have accelerated---only 100 years ago we didn't even have airplanes, computers, lasers, or microwaves. Just based on that, history tells me that barring a cataclysm, the next 100 years will bring proportionately great breakthroughs, including even cheaper, more abundant energy and some advanced travel---anti-gran? I don't know, but definitely far beyond what most people contemplate now.
But, if you read the speech, you'll see that they at least credited Einstein's description of Brownian Motion as a contributing factor leading to the award of the prize.
Well, you're undoubtedly a better judge of your own scholarship than I. I'll grant you, however, that Science has occasionally published some pretty far out stuff.
I take it you have some nodding acquaintance with electrochemistry. If so, you should look at Pons and Fleischmanns paper: M. Fleischmann, S. Pons, "Electrochemically Induced Nuclear Fusion of Deuterium", J. Electroanal. Chem., 261, 301-308, and erratum, 263, p187 (1989). (It's transcribed several places on the Web, but I can't vouch for accuracy. Here: Pons & Fleischmann, for example.) Point is, their work was solidly based in theory. That being said, about everything after that could have made a good Keystone Kops plot.
On the basis of their studies, Pons and Fleischmann applied for a DOE grant in the late 80s. The DOE forwarded the proposal for review to Stephen Jones, who was working somewhat similar lines at BYU. Jones contacted Pons suggesting that they "collaborate," i.e., he wanted to pick their brains. Pons and Fleischmann agreed because they wanted to pick back.
Shortly after, Pons and Fleischmann, fearing that Jones was about to scoop them, went public in advance of publication of their J. Electroanal. Chem. article. (The article itself was premature; again, because they were trying to beat Jones to the gate.) Jones was furious, and went whining to his sponsers at the DOE. Meanwhile, everybody with (and some without) access to palladium and heavy water was trying to reproduce the results whether or not he had an inkling of what was going on. The DOE sent some major bucks to their pet hot fusion physicists at MIT, again to the consternation of Jones, who by this time was grinding away on his ax.
The MIT folks, who figured they already knew everything there is to know about D-D fusion, were more dismissive than skeptical. After all, fusion is always attended by lots of high-speed neutrons, and what does an electron chemist know about nuclear reactions anyway. So they came up with a bunch of experiments designed to detect the same sorts of phenomena they had been monitoring in their Tokamaks.
Well, MIT didn't see any neutrons or tritium, so they concluded that cold fusion must be bovine droppings, but they already knew that. Oh, there was some odd excess energy in some of the experiments designed to detect it, but that was explained away (actually swept under the carpet) by redefining the goals of the experiments. Anyhow, it wasn't very much of an excess. MIT's chief science writer at the time, Eugene Mallove, was so offended about this breech of science ethics that he resigned in protest.
Since then, the DOE hasn't coughed up any more cold fusion money and MIT has continued with its hot fusion work. Elsewhere, notably in Japan and Italy, but also in the USA under private funding, cold fusion work has continued and does continue to produce intriguing and increasingly reproduceable results. Seems it may be a matter of technique, and the MIT crew, although superlative nuclear physicists, are rather mediochre chemists. Current wisdom is that the crux of the problem is how densely you can load the palladium (or titanium, or whatever) with deuterium. If you aren't skilled and meticulous, you won't see results.
MIT based most of their conclusions, or rather, preconceptions, on the fact that the reaction D + D -> He leaves He with a lot of energy. So much, in fact, that it almost always spits out an energetic neutron. No neutrons, no fusion, unless the He can somehow unload its energy to other atoms. That never happens in MIT's hot plasma because the time scale of the nuclear reaction is many orders of magnitude faster than the time scale of the atom-to-atom Coulomb interactions.
But, something else may be going on in Pons and Fleischmann's palladium crystal. The impetus for their work was an estimated 2ev chemical potential for deuterium in the palladium lattice. As they point out in their article, that corresponds to an "astronomically high" pressure -- some 10^24 atmospheres. That's high enough to drop Coulomb interaction times down to the required nuclear interaction times, thereby inducing D-D fusion and at the same time providing a means for the resulting He to unload its energy to the surrounding crystal lattice. The MIT physicists were thinking to much "in the box."
Sorry for the long post. It's just that I don't believe the last chapter has been written on cold fusion, and that there has been an awful lot of disinformation disseminated against it. Besides, if cold fusion's for real, it'll be raining soup! I'm just not ready to give it up.
Once.
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