Going Up!!!
Posted on 08/16/2002 8:51:32 PM PDT by mjp
Gravity control investigation raises hopes
10:20 18 August 02
Exclusive from New Scientist Print Edition
Controlling gravity will probably never help us launch a spacecraft, but that does not mean we should give up on the idea, says the European Space Agency. It is calling for missions that might one day enable us to harness gravity, however weakly, for the benefits we will reap back on Earth.
ESA has never got involved in gravity-control research before. But NASA's highly theoretical Breakthrough Propulsion Physics project in Cleveland, as well as recent announcements of unusual experimental findings in major science journals, have convinced the agency to take the field seriously, according to ESA adviser Clovis de Matos.
Since September 2001, investigators Orfeu Bertolami and Martin Tajmar have been combing through more than a dozen different gravity-control schemes for ESA. They conclude that most are not worth wasting money on.
Some schemes, such as certain notions based on superstring theory, promise gravity-reducing effects so weak they would provide a "push" only a billion-billionth as strong as the Earth's pull. Others simply contradict well-tested science.
But while Bertolami and Tajmar conclude that antigravity is still out of reach, they propose three simple missions that might lead to it in the future.
Falling antimatter
One is a Sputnik 5 spacecraft to investigate strange gravitational effects felt by the Pioneer 10 and 11 probes. In a second mission, experiments on the International Space Station could test whether antimatter falls any differently from normal matter.
Finally, they propose studies of superconductors and of superfluids - supercooled gases that flow without any friction - to investigate whether spinning them can create "gravitomagnetic" fields, much as rotating a magnet creates an electromagnetic field.
But even if we do work out how to control gravity, it will not help launch spacecraft, the researchers say. If a ship could be made lighter, any propellant it ejected would be lighter too, so it would not accelerate any faster.
Marc Millis, founder of NASA's Breakthrough Propulsion Physics project, says it could be easier to launch a lighter ship if it was propelled by something outside its low-gravity force field, such as bombs exploded behind it.
Remarkable qualities
Related Stories
Anti-gravity research on the rise 30 July 2002
For more related stories search the print edition Archive
Weblinks
Bertolami and Tajmar's report
European Space Agency
Breakthrough Propulsion Physics, NASA
Pioneer 10, Pioneer 11 (NASA)
The Podkletnov effect
But even so, gravity is just one of the problems a spacecraft has to contend with. To launch a satellite into low-Earth orbit, for instance, it has to reach a speed of 8.9 kilometres per second. Even completely shielding it from gravity, it would still have to reach 7.5 kilometres per second just to stay in orbit.
But gravity control would be valuable here on Earth. Metals, ceramics and organic crystals made in microgravity show remarkable qualities. Alloys made in microgravity can be far stronger than normal because they lack the defects caused when gravity swirls the molten metal.
Microgravity also means objects can be suspended in mid-air, avoiding containers that could contaminate a pharmaceutical reaction, say. And certain superconductors can only be grown in microgravity.
Doing all that in space would be hugely expensive, but antigravity would mean it could be done on Earth, says Tajmar.
I suppose that means that a few ARE worth wasting money on.
Going Up!!!
The claims are intellectually stimulating both scientifically and politically. Most of the area 51 material is easily defrocked, and debunked, and compartmentalized as scientific fantasy and ufo disinformation, and conspiracy theory.
Similar to the early days of atomic energy, before the notion of nuclear war was a reality, there was a lot of speculation, and disinformation. The Manhattan project was done secretely but scientists everywhere were asking questions about nuclear power fission and fusion. We live in a similar time.
NASA is a public administrative body. They make rules and red tape, and give public demonstrations of scientific. They normally don't offer comentary to public inquiry regarding the science experiments at Los Alamos, or Sandia Laboratories. Those projects are highly advanced and for the most part done secretly.
If a NASA spoksperson were to confirm the success of anti-matter experiments it would mark a New Age in scientific administration, and would open the field to Universities throughout the world.
Until then people will draw their own conclusions based on what the hear and read on the internet. The internet has liberated much of scientific information from the elite, and put it into the hands of the common fellow.
If you are willing to spend the time on the internet and you know where to look you are sure to get your quetions answered, and will likely raise more questions in the process.
Don't wait for public administrators to give legitimacy to your inquiry. We live in the information age and we are protected by the FOIA (freedom of information act). If you really want to know, you can find out anything you want.
Close, though it was said by Wilbur, not Orville.
Still, the results of 1901 were discouraging. Wilbur wrote:
"When we left Kitty Hawk at the end of 1901, we doubted that we would ever resume our experiments. Although we had broken the record for distance in gliding, and although Mr. Chanute, who was present at that time, assured us that our results were better than had ever before been attained, yet when we looked at the time and money which we had expended, and considered the progress made and the distance yet to go, we considered our experiments a failure. At this time I made the prediction that men would sometime fly, but that it would not be within our lifetime."
Wright Brothers History
Falling Antimatter
From 2002.
I don't think we can find anything we want.
We might get clues to some things few people imagined.
But some things are successfully kept extremely secret.
- - - -
Having said that, I once read a convincing report of the author's visit to a highly secret site in the deserts of Texas to a NASA installation wherein there was a training building. I forget the dimensions. But within--I think a large circular--maybe enlarged silo sort of space . . . there was no gravity.
I don't recall if it could be turned on and off at will, for sure, or not. But I think it could as well as some gradients.
If you haven't already, you might let Las Vegas Dave & Kevin Davis know if you want on the UFO ping list.
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