Getting There: Speculation about FTL Travel, Alien Civilizations, Exploring the Solar System, and Why Rockets Just Won’t Work By Tim Ventura, February 20, 2005 [[email protected]]
The more that mankind learns about the Solar System, the more it reveals a true and profound need for human beings to undertake further exploration of other planets. At the very least, beginning a true exploration of the solar system will lead to unparalleled commercial opportunities for mining and zero-G manufacturing, in addition to a more profound understanding of how the fundamental forces of nature shape planetary environments under the unique conditions on other planets.
Another reason exists as well -- the notion that if an advanced intelligence had at one time visited our solar system, the markers that they may have left would likely be on other planets. Why? The reasons are plentiful -- hinted at by Sir Arthur C. Clarke in 2001, and boldly proclaimed more recently by Xeno- archeologists such as Richard C. Hoagland. In short, a footprint on the moon may last for 50,000 years, and off world alien structures, relics, or even garbage from a short stop by ET may be visible even millions of years after the visitors had left. Most of these relics wouldn't even last a decade on Earth -- and even if they could, it's likely that an advanced intelligence wouldn't leave them on our soil.
The science-fiction novel “2001: A Space Odyssey” was based on a short-story written earlier in Clarke's career named "The Sentinel". The plot of the story involves one of the earlier scenes from 2001 -- the discovery of an alien artifact (the "Monolith") on the moon. Clarke later told us what the Monolith actually was -- his conception of a "Von Neumann Probe", which was a concept Cydonia: An artist’s rendition of ‘the face’ for a self-replicating robot probe to seek Richard Hoagland suggests is waiting there.
American Antigravity.Com Page 1 of 13 out life on other planets and report the findings back to another star-system. The self-replicating nature of the monolith meant that the device's original creators wouldn't have to invest time, resources, and planning into deploying them -- instead, they would build a single monolith, which would populate nearby galaxies over a time period spanning millions or billions of years to do the job for them.
Clarke's vision suggested rules for the behavior of the Monolith; much like the code in an operating system defines how a computer functions. In "The Sentinel", the Monolith's position on the moon supports the idea that a space-faring race wouldn't want to meet with newly evolved neighbors until those neighboring planets had evolved to at least the minimum ability to travel beyond their own planet. This is a comparable 2001 Monolith: Stanley idea to "The Prime Directive" from the Star Trek Kubrick’s vision of an alien series, which presumes that in order to qualify for lunar artifact & dig-site. first-contact, the neighboring civilization must have achieved a specific level of advancement.
Hoagland and Clarke aren’t the only space visionaries talking about the possibility of finding alien artifacts in the solar system – another well-known example is James P. Hogan’s 1977 classic “Inherit the Stars”, in which Hogan suggests that the alien artifacts are in fact our own – relics abandoned on the Moon by an ancient space faring race of humanity wiped out in a massive global cataclysm. Hogan’s account is slightly less ambitious, however, as he doesn’t suggest a remote alien intelligence – at least not until the first sequel.
Critics of the vision that Clarke and Hoagland are conveying typically don't object to the idea that alien civilizations may exist -- the complaint is usually about the remote odds of a more advanced race finding our solar system, which is somewhere in the neighborhood of a trillion to one (for us at least). However, those odds are based "The Drake's Equation”, which makes a number of assumptions about the limits of space-travel and interstellar communication, including Einstein’s limit on the speed of light from Relativity Theory.
It's important to first note that the limit on the speed of light has been a mental- block for many people thinking about finding other civilizations -- or in Clarke's case, them finding us. Over the last decade, the assumption that the speed of light (186,000 miles per second) is the fastest that space travel can occur has come under serious attack -- both from competing theories in physics that threaten to displace Special and General Relativity, as well as simple loopholes in the laws of relativity that may allow us to "break the law" regarding the speed of light. As a final thought, Quantum Mechanics has also allowed us a loophole, in the form of
American Antigravity.Com Page 2 of 13 teleportation -- the instantaneous transport of particles of matter from one point in the universe to another.
Our own exploration of the solar-system depends heavily on our ability as a species to find a way to travel more effectively and efficiently through space than we're currently able to. The previous paragraph laid the groundwork for later speculation about FTL travel, but don't let that confuse you. For the time
Slow Speed: 2001’s being, human space-travel is precariously slow, so Discovery spacecraft used finding a means for traveling faster than light comes rockets for an 8-year trip to secondary to finding a means to travel at even a Jupiter – not fast enough! reasonable percentage of light-speed.
Let's assume for a second that there are incredible riches to be found on the other planets in our solar-system. These may include scientific finds, such as new knowledge about weather, geology, and climate, in addition to commercial opportunities that currently dwarf the combined riches of all the industries on Earth. Also, let's assume for just a second that Clarke and Hoagland are correct, and that there are markers on the other planets in our solar system that may just lead us into contact with another civilization. It should become rapidly clear that the largest obstacle to progressing towards these incredible goals is the rather mundane step of simply getting there.
Space-travel in the movies is a beautiful, elegant affair -- full of astronauts cavorting in a Zero-G environment on their way to the moon to plant the American flag. Nobody in Hollywood wants to mention the catheters that they wear inside the hot, sweaty spacesuits -- nor do they describe the conditions inside of contemporary space-craft, which are often more confining than a jail- cell. While our gallant astronauts suffer a number of complaints about "working conditions", they're willing to tolerate the annoyance for a period of a few days of transit to the moon, or even a few months aboard the International Space Station. However, with current technology, a trip to Mars -- our nearest neighboring planet may take as long as 2 years.
A two-year trip in each direction may sound long but achievable for the reward of visiting another planet, but keep in mind that the figure only pertains to our nearest planetary neighbor. Trips to the outer solar- system -- such as the one that Clarke described in 2001: A Space Odyssey will take considerably longer. Movie-goers will remember the white-coffins on Board 2001's "Discovery" spacecraft. The ‘coffins’ were actually Clarke's solution to the problem of running out of food, water, and consumables for the trip – a solution that came in the form of cryogenic CryoStasis: 2001’s white- suspended animation, which would be a useful tool coffins contained sleepers for space-travel, but appears to be not immediately for the long space voyage. achievable.
American Antigravity.Com Page 3 of 13 I was born in 1976, which made me just over a year old when NASA launched the "Voyager" probe in '77. The probe is now reaching the limits of the Solar-System, which has been a journey taking just over 29 years. Thus, if our deep-space telescopes found a rare-artifact sitting next to Pluto tomorrow, if we immediately launched a scientific research vessel for it, we'd reach the artifact sometime around 2035. We can trim this estimate down to account for the advances in rocket technology, but certainly not a rapid trip - and absolutely not a trip that we can send astronauts on.
The topic of space-artifacts raises another salient question: will one trip do the job, or do we need an infrastructure in place to support continuing operations on another planet. Even NASA seems to believe that an infrastructure is an absolute necessity -- after all, how much can a 3 person team achieve in a week on the Moon's surface? They can perform simple experiments, but they certainly aren't going to participate in advanced archeology, and they aren't going to make any attempt to perform complex or dangerous tasks, since the nearest help is days, months, or even years away. Real commercial, scientific, or archaeological work on other planets will require large teams, armed with the equipment and tools to correctly do the complex tasks that are sometimes difficult even here on Earth. It will also require very short transit times to and from Earth, Mars Mission: How much both for rescue operations as well as to deal with the can astronauts achieve annoyances of long-term space travel and whatever without an infrastructure? unforeseen needs occur.
NASA is currently in the planning stages for a manned trip to Mars -- they're going to use conventional rocket technology for propulsion, meaning that this upcoming endeavor will most likely be the farthest trip that a manned spaceflight will ever achieve with conventional technology. Additionally, the timeline for achieving this trip is already planned to be years in advance -- meaning that it already exceeds the Cydonia: The 1976 Viking expected lifespan of many of the people working on Orbiter photo, claimed to planning the trip today. depict the “face on Mars”.
There could be nothing worse than putting a NASA team on Mars for 2 years, and then realizing that Hoagland may in fact be correct: what if future satellite observations are somehow able to confirm that the face on Cydonia is artificial, but our landing team is located 500 miles away? On earth, that's an annoying transit time in a car -- on Mars, it would require another mission, which may take decades more to plan while a fully-staffed team sits helplessly only 500 miles from the destination. This is but one of several possibilities outlining the need for rapid transport with some flexibility in the mission parameters.
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Rocket technology
America’s space program in the 20th century is equivalent to the pioneering efforts of the Lewis & Clark expedition. On May 14th, 1804, the two pioneers undertook a remarkable effort to explore the American west, and to record their discoveries in journals and through maps they created to show the path of their journey. In the same way, the Apollo program set out to explore the moon in early 1960’s, resulting in the first historic moon landing on July 21st, 1969.
The parallel between the Lewis and Clark Expedition is both good and bad from the perspective of exploration – both groups were cut off from the rest of the world during the mission, which increased the risks in both cases that an otherwise minor mishap would have disastrous consequences. A more important parallel is that neither Lewis and Clark nor the Astronauts engaged in any real exploration during their trip. They certainly engaged in discovery – both teams arrived on a distant shore to find strange new sights, but in both cases they neither had the power nor the ability to stay long enough to engage in the type of in-depth exploration that leads to the more profound discoveries.
Rocket technology is limited – in Hollywood films, the perfection sequence of mechanical events is highlighted presumably to show the perfection behind the events, but in reality it is because rocket technology allows zero room for error. In fact, our Lewis and Clark comparison breaks down when we realize that they had the ability to live off the land for sustenance – which is a far cry from the Apollo Missions, where even a slight deviation from course could lead to irreversible consequences.
Rockets typically give you a boost window measured in minutes – not only must this boost be incredibly well timed, but it also requires expert calculation & precision trajectories by a team of pre-mission course planners in order to be correctly positioned. Rockets carry enough fuel during the mission to make minor course corrections, but at a million-dollars a pound for rocket fuel, NASA only gives enough course-correction fuel for “course-correction windows” – again, in Apollo 13 the astronauts couldn’t simply turn the craft around – they had to wait for the appropriate maneuvering window to change course and slingshot around the moon instead of carrying out their primary mission and landing.
The movie “Mission to Mars” illustrates the challenges of dealing with unforeseen circumstances that may occur with rocket technology – first, the craft is showered with micrometeorites (such as the annual Leonid showers that the Earth passes through) on its way to make the final course correction for orbital insertion. Having been disabled by an engine explosion and subsequent fuel-loss during the course-correction, the spacecraft’s occupants are narrowly able to avoid disaster by transferring via jet-pack through space to an orbital platform that randomly happens to be circling Mars as a leftover from a previous mission.
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Mission to Mars was science-fiction, however, in real life the odds of finding an orbital platform to transfer to through space are staggering to begin with – the odds of finding one traveling at a similar speed (so as not to crush the arriving astronauts) or simply being in a non-aligned orbit are even more remote. In reality, the near-miss portrayed in “Mission to Mars” is far from an accurate depiction of space-travel in rocket, which leaves unlucky travelers no second chances.
To revisit the Lewis and Clark parallel for one additional brief moment: while later pioneers on horse-drawn wagons traversed the Oregon trail to begin a slow trickle of immigrants to the west coast throughout the 1800’s, it was not until the advent of the railroad system in the latter part of the century that any real settlement began on the West Coast. Also, note that once the railroad had been properly established, what had once been a harrowing trek for pioneers across dangerous land rapidly turned into a routine journey for passenger travel, involving rapid delivery times, and allowing the transport of
Infrastructure: Making bulk-cargo with ease. Passengers could take a passive space travel rapid and role in rapidly arriving at their destination, allowing routine in the solar system. them to focus on the real job at hand, instead of merely getting there.
In the 20th century, rocket-technologies gave us the same symbolic conquest of space that Lewis and Clark achieved for the conquest of America’s untamed west. We traveled to the moon on a giant, heroic torch of liberty, to plant our flag in the moon’s soil and return unscathed to Earth – we were even fortunate enough to bring back a few rocks and lots of photos. However, while the Apollo-missions were a great harbinger for things to come, they were in themselves only a symbolic step forward. A new technology must be found to continue expanding into space, and to make the once dangerous trip to a far-away land into a routine task to allow the real off-planet exploration to begin.
Iapetus Rising
Richard C. Hoagland is in the process of conducting analysis of the unique geometry of Iapetus, one of Saturn’s moons. Without a doubt this is one of the more interesting finds to be revealed by remote space-probes, but it’s not the only one: there are unique discoveries waiting to be made throughout the solar system, and mankind needs to find some viable options for how actual human explorers can begin following up on the scientific finds being discovered as our probes drift further away from the sun.
Iapetus is a good example to use for exploration, because its far enough away from Earth that there’s no real chance that a rocket-based approach to traveling there would ever make it through even the planning stages. It could be suggested that solar-sail technology or advanced ion-drives might be another choice for
American Antigravity.Com Page 6 of 13 propulsion, but these options take a year or more to come up to speed – meaning that any space-travel powered by ions or the solar wind would have a high top speed, but a very slow accereration.
Let’s go back to the basics for a second: any space-drive worth the name should have two parts: first, a means of getting out of Earth’s atmosphere, and second, a means of providing high-speed propulsion to the destination. Again, rockets won’t cut it here – breaking the bonds of Earth’s gravity itself is a monumental task, and doesn’t leave
much leftover for accelerating up to a Iapetus: NASA Cassini photos show what high-enough speed to make it to Saturn looks like a wall running around the equator. within a human-sustainable timespan.
One additional point should be made – the reasoning behind why spacecraft need to be launched from Earth. The reason for this is that while mankind does currently have a fully-functional space-station in orbit around our planet, we do not have the resources to construct a spacecraft in an orbital facility. Simply put, as every Star Trek fan can tell you, the NCC-1701 Enterprise was built in a Space Dock, and that space-dock in turn requires more resources than our currently technology can muster to put in place.
It’s a painful thought, but mankind currently does not have the technological capability to transport loads of I-Beams into space simply to build a dock – an attempt to do so would probably bankrupt our space program before construction on the real spacecraft ever began. Thus, for any mission to take humans to the edge of the solar system in a present-day context, launching from an orbital facility is out of the question.
While our present-day lack of the technology to explore even the outer solar system is a bit depressing, there is a silver-lining at the edge of the cloud: it further outlines the need for real breakthrough propulsion technologies, as well as highlighting NASA’s failure to provide those over the course of the last 40 years. At every turn, and at every critical design juncture, mainstream science has pushed NASA to use rockets. However, the time for rockets has come and gone.
Breakthrough Propulsion Physics
To give NASA credit, they have immediate goals for daily deliverables, and meeting those goals costs real money. It’s taken everything that NASA could beg, borrow, or steal from both America and our neighboring countries to put the space-station in orbit, as well as maintain satellite launch, retrieval, and repair services for both the military and well-positioned private organizations. They simply don’t have anything left for Breakthrough Physics research.
American Antigravity.Com Page 7 of 13 Another aspect is the aerospace culture, and the physics culture that supports this research. In the late 1990’s NASA did begin a highly-limited Breakthrough Propulsion Physics investigation, led by aerospace engineer Marc Millis at the NASA Glenn research center. Millis was given the task of sorting through modern physics to find loopholes or alternative theories to support the creation of something similar to a science-fiction style “warp-drive”.
Marc Millis single-handedly made the BPP Project into an admirable attempt to identify and develop key technologies to provide radical new methods of traveling through space. However, he was limited internally by organizational concern over NASA’s public image, and limited externally by holdover mainstream-scientists who still function with a NASA BPP: Publicity 1930’s-era level of doctoral knowledge about physics. photo of Marc Millis, M.E.
The NASA BPP Project was terminated in 2004, and Millis has since gone on to retrain for his MBA, demonstrating perhaps a jaded belief that getting a business- degree has more value in contemporary space research than breakthrough propulsion research does. However, in that same business-context, the NASA BPP program did have tremendous marketing value, as it demonstrated a real need for breakthrough technologies in the future.
So it appears that the largest limitation to real breakthrough propulsion engineering remains actually a cultural limitation – something that no amount of physics or engineering can solve within NASA or the government, because both of these organizations have committed themselves to internally contradictory goals – continuing exploration, but without the benefit of Ion-Drive: Better than developing the technologies to make it easier, faster, rockets, but not a long- safer, or less expensive. term solution for space.
The Alcubierre Warp Drive
One of the technologies that NASA might consider for reaching the outer solar- system is the Alcubierre Warp Drive. This conceptual propulsion system was designed by physicist Dr. Miguel Alcubierre in 1994, and promises to deliver a real warp drive, but within the confines of general relativity theory:
“It is shown how, within the framework of general relativity and without the introduction of wormholes, it is possible to modify a spacetime in a way that allows a spaceship to travel with an arbitrarily large speed. By a purely local expansion of spacetime behind the spaceship and an opposite contraction in front of it, motion faster than the speed of light as seen by observers outside the disturbed region is possible. The resulting distortion is reminiscent of the ‘warp drive'’ of science fiction. However, just as it happens with wormholes, exotic
American Antigravity.Com Page 8 of 13 matter will be needed in order to generate a distortion of space-time like the one discussed here.”
Alcubierre himself called this concept a warp-drive, with the reasoning being that it would allow a spacecraft to travel much faster than the speed of light, if only mankind could find a means of producing a type of “exotic matter” that would be required to solve the drive’s problematic mathematical standing in terms of violating the same theoretical framework that it functions within. Assuming that the required exotic matter could be produced, however, the Alcubierre Drive could eventually emerge as a real-life example of the Star Trek warp-drive that may facilitate travel to the outer solar system in minutes, and make our nearest star-system only a slightly longer journey.
Thus, the Alcubierre drive appears on the surface level to be both an example of a real warp-drive technology, as well as an example of why these technologies are impossible. While the physics behind the concept is sound, the mechanisms that he envisioned to bring the physics into play appear to be far from achievable – perhaps a distant vision of an idea that could be realized with a much better fine- grained knowledge of producing a type of matter that nobody has yet seen.
Warping Space for Real
The Alcubierre Drive is an illustration of the limitations not of physics, but of physicists. The concept itself is based on the idea of literally manipulating the fabric of time-space in front of the space-craft, creating a gravitational anomaly that would accelerate the craft without the requirement for reaction mass. It’s a great idea, because it not only means that faster than light travel is possible, but it also means that there isn’t a direct relationship between the amount of fuel to be carried onboard for reaction-mass. A relatively small amount of energy, from something like a nuclear reactor, could literally provide enough energy to travel across the galaxy several times over – compared to thousands of tons of rocket propellant to simply make it out of the atmosphere.
Another key aspect of the warp drive is that the acceleration wouldn’t be noticeable by the craft’s occupants. This is an important aspect of high-speed space-travel that seems to be ignored by everyone except NASA -- you won’t achieve your mission objectives by delivering a cargo of crushed astronauts to their destination. Dr. Alcubierre: Published on warp-drives in 1994.
Another practical aspect to creating a gravitational anomaly in front of a spacecraft is that it may sweep-aside (or carry along) small debris that would otherwise damage the hull of a fast-moving spacecraft. Keep in mind that even a grain of dust hitting an FTL spacecraft could completely destroy the vehicle, unless a mechanism is in place to account for the mismatch in kinetic energy between the spacecraft and the debris. In the case of a warp-drive, the gravitational anomaly would theoretically bring space-debris entering the warp-
American Antigravity.Com Page 9 of 13 field perimeter at least a comparable velocity to the spacecraft, and may in fact simply sweep such debris off to the side as the ship passes.
Despite the great number of benefits to the idea of utilizing a warp-drive for rapid travel throughout the solar system, the concept appears to be impractical within Relativity Theory because of a requirement for “exotic matter”. What if exotic matter wasn’t required, however? After all, Einstein himself claimed to have found an alternative to Relativity Theory …
Einstein’s Unified Field Theory
Contemporary mainstream physicists recognize the contribution that Albert Einstein made to the foundations of physics, but in a rather strange way -- they credit him for the immense advances in knowledge that resulted from the publication of his Special and General Theories of Relativity in 1905 and 1916 respectively, and they subsequently ignore the much more advanced Unified Field Theory that he spent literally the remainder of his life developing. In fact, most Universities teach only that it was “an unfinished precursor to modern String-Theory utilizing 5 dimensional space”. While this is vaguely true, the details of the story are far more complex.
First of all, Einstein’s Unified Field Theory is far more useful than modern string theory – for the simple reason that Einstein actually created the theory as a complete theoretical framework, connecting gravity, electromagnetism, and the strong and weak nuclear forces. On the other hand, String-Theory was and remains Real-Life Warp Drives: Physicist Miguel simply an equation in a math-text that Alcubierre postulated in 1994 that a real-life caught the eye of a 1970’s physicist – it version of the popular Star Trek warp-drive could function based on Einstein’s Relativity has never made a prediction, because Theory. However, his design required “exotic the mathematical terms have never matter” that mankind can’t produce. been put in the context of real, observable forces. M-Brane theory is a Einstein’s Unified Field Theory solves this mild extension of String-Theory, and challenge by providing cross-linking between again serves no practical purpose than Electromagnetism and Gravitation through to intrigue physicists who should have Einstein’s metric “torsion-tensor”. Hence, by probably made a different career resurrecting the neglected UFT theory, we can build real, working FTL propulsion drives. choice earlier in their education and become mathematicians.
This isn’t to say that the String or M-Brane theories will never provide practical solutions to warp-physics, but it suggesting that the solution has already been hinted at by Einstein himself: one of the primary tenets of his Unified Field Theory has been to show how electromagnetic forces can be harnessed to twist
American Antigravity.Com Page 10 of 13 time-space in exactly the manner that Alcubierre predicted. This is still very speculative, but because it is based on electromagnetic forces, it is also much more achievable than Alcubierre’s “exotic matter” contrivance.
The basis for what Jack Sarfatti has called “time/space metric engineering” is complex enough not to fully discuss here, but what is relevant is that space is a bit like a rubber-sheet –it can be bent, twisted, and stretched. Moreover, it would appear that by correctly utilizing common electromagnetic forces, we can modify space itself to provide very fast space-travel.
Einstein’s Unified Field Theory isn’t the only theory in physics that predicts effects that can be harnessed both for the required “Antigravity” effects to leave the Earth’s surface, as well as the “Warp Drive” effects to rapidly move through space without expending propellant. In fact, the failure of Relativity Theory and Quantum Mechanics to produce new and interesting predictions relating to interplanetary propulsion technology over the last few decades, coupled with a renewed questioning of science through of the introduction of String and M- Brane Theories has led science into a period of inner turmoil.
For decades, physics has been operating under the general assumption that the models of reality that Relativity Theory and Quantum Mechanics predict are whole and complete – despite an inability by QM-theory to describe gravity, and several generally unresolved questions about Relativity Theory’s comprehensiveness. At the dawn of the 21st century, we’re finally seeing the emergence of several decades of innovation in physics, largely as the result of a more open and inquisitive approach by mainstream physics.
Predicting Reality
It would behoove the physics community to realize that they consistently make the same errors over and over again – the largest one being the intellectual arrogance to suggest that anything not directly described by contemporary theory is impossible and the other being that observed phenomenon are subordinate to mathematical predictions made by existing theory. These problems have plagued physics since the 17th century, and each new revolution in physics passes along the same judgments about up and coming theories that were made about it before it became accepted.
A relatively new twist on this arrogance, which is no doubt an attempt to insulate entrenched physicists from having to relearn physics, is to suggest that “old theories cannot be proven incorrect – merely incomplete in comparison to newer theories”. This tenet, as the older theories, is and will be proven incorrect.
Is physics supposed to predict reality, or simply to explain what is seen in reality? A good theory does both – and should also predict what is not currently possible. However, experimental data is observed that violates the basic principles of a theory, its time for that theory to be retired and replaced with something that does explain the observed effects.
American Antigravity.Com Page 11 of 13 This leads us to a quandary – what to do with contemporary Relativity and QM theories, which suffice to explain the majority of observable phenomenon, and have also made a number of significant predictions over the last few decades. The reason is this: the competition from alternative theories like Einstein’s UFT, SubQuantum Kinetics, or any number of variants on String-Theory do support (or at least don’t preclude) effects that have been reported for years. In short, Antigravity exists, and the people that have been marginalized as being crackpots for reporting it are now getting their day in court.
Real Life Antigravity
The examples of Antigravity as reported by inventors, engineers and scientists for the last 60 years are too diverse to list – however, they have many common elements. One of those is the use of rotating magnetic fields – this is commonly associated with the rotating ring-roller system of the Searl Effect Generator and IGV, but also pops up with Podkletnov’s rotating superconductor apparatus, as well as the reported Mercury-Vapor Antigravity reportedly being developed in Germany during World War II. In fact, there are at least 30 known claims of Antigravity Effects associated with Rotating Magnetic Fields, and these claims often originate from inventors with no knowledge of each other’s work.
Even reports about side-effects correlate with each other – a mysterious “black fog” surrounding the core of the ‘Marcus Device’ is similar to a ‘black fog’ said to be underneath of the Searl IGV while in operation. Addtionally, as both of these devices are the product of dedicated tinkerers, it is unlikely that either would fabricate claims such a side-effect – which can only be the product of bent-light from a sharp delineation in a Searl Effect: One of gravitational field gradient. many AG-vehicle designs.
The details to construct these devices aren’t completely known – even in the case of the Searl Effect, a construction plan is available, but the details of operation aren’t understood. Thus, without a proper understanding of why these devices operate and how they’re built, they are a rarity that has escaped mainstream media attention for decades. It is because the media hasn’t taken these inventors seriously that footage of them in operation hasn’t been taken – consequently, they are relegated to a nearly mythological status, while decried as fraud by the self-interests of “professional debunkers”, who more often than not haven’t even bothered to read a summary of the effects.
Moving Forward
At the beginning of the 21st century, we’re left with a real need for space-travel to at least traverse the solar system effectively, and a collection of theories that need to be sorted out, as well as experimental claims that require validation.
The real objective in this case is to determine which path is the one of least resistance for creating the best possible warp-drive technology, preferably one
American Antigravity.Com Page 12 of 13 that can not only reach a distant planet, but can do it starting from a launch point on Earth. Again, the idea of rapid-transit to distant planets is a pressing need, as it is the only way that an infrastructure can by built for the off world operation of commercial enterprise and advanced scientific study of other planets.
While the Apollo Missions were a wonderful demonstration of man’s initial ability to step outside the bonds of Earth’s gravity, it was also a demonstration of a rather pyrrhic victory: one accompanied by the realization that traveling to another planet with contemporary technology is an incredibly difficult, dangerous, and expensive task.
The manned missions to visit our moon in the 1970’s are a modern-day retelling of Lewis & Clark’s journey of discovery, and with history as our guide we can take a shortcut by skipping directly to a space-equivalent of a railroad-style space infrastructure to deliver bulk men and materials to interplanetary destinations.
The alternative to rocket technology needs to be a form of intertialess, reactionless drive – something that doesn’t have the poor fuel-consumption of a rocket, and something that won’t crush our astronauts during acceleration. Even conventional physics supports the concept in theory, but a new physics will be required to develop it in practice.
We can also take lessons from technologies that we’ve known about for years – armed with a better physics to understand concepts like the Searl Effect Generator Rockets: Outdated tech and a variety of other alternative propulsion-systems, isn’t the future’s answer. we should be able to rapidly develop the new methods for traveling to moons like Iapetus with the resources that we need to fully explore this new terrain, and the safety-net that we need to account for unexpected problems along the way.
Control over gravity is the answer to mankind’s transportation challenges – both on Earth and in space. Not only does it provide a safe and inexpensive method of getting into orbit, but it opens the door to bending the fabric of space – a technology that will ultimately lead us from our first steps into space to the warp- drives of science fiction legend.
At the very least, we’ll be able to realize vast new commercial opportunities through space-mining and manufacturing, and a possibility exists that if other civilizations have visited our solar system in the past that we’ll find relics of their visits in our travels. After all, the solar system has been around for a quite a Antigravity: Kubrick & while, and if we can develop the FTL propulsion system Clarke in a zero-gravity to travel between the stars, then so can they. chamber on the movie set.
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