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Last month a colleague of mine and I visited with Dennis Heap, Executive Director of the National Front Range Airport, at Watkins, CO, the location of the future Spaceport Colorado, and Colorado’s contribution to getting into space. Here is Part 3.

In my last post I had mentioned that there were 2 business models for spaceports. I’ll name the first Sweden-America model after spaceports Sweden & America. The second, I’ll name Colorado-Singapore model after (yet to be) spaceports Colorado & Singapore.

The Sweden-America model basic premise is that spaceport ought to be built in remote locations, and then a hinterland economy is eventually built around the spaceport. This approach was originally driven by safety concerns and the need for a rocket range or vacant land for launching rockets to crash back to.

The basic premise of the Colorado-Singapore model is that launch vehicles are safe and that spaceports ought to be built close to centers of commerce and intermodal transportation networks. That is, spaceports are to be built in an existing hinterland economy.

Spaceport Colorado is therefore tucked in close to Denver International Airport and the city of Denver. Spaceport Singapore is to be built within Changi Aiport (ranked #2 out of 388 airports in the world). Changi Airport is located on the Eastern end of the island of Singapore, with Malaysia to the North.

Note that in the case of Spaceport Singapore, the Singapore Strait to the South and East of Changi form a natural rocket range. While Spaceport Colorado has 3,000 acres (less 900 acres for the spaceport) of vacant land to develop additional revenue generating and revenue supporting facilities.

There has been debate about which is the better business model. Both models are correct. Having been Head of Corporate Planning in the early days at Westport, Malaysia, I can assure you that the key is to match your capex with revenue generation. Today the Goggle map of Westport, shows a well-developed island of Pulah Indah. When I worked there in 1995–96 the whole island was virgin and civil engineering firms were draining the swampland.

That is, if there is enough drive, ambition, and cooperation between the private and public sectors a whole island can be transformed from swampland to a world class shipping hub, commercial, industrial & residential zones in a decade. The same is true for spaceports, and for that matter, American cities.

The problem with Spaceport America is that the public sector is not willing to do enough to ensure its success. At least not what it took to ensure Westport’s long term success. New Mexico take a look at Westport and see what you will be missing 10 years from now.

I have to run now. More in the next post.

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Benjamin T Solomon is the author & principal investigator of the 12-year study into the theoretical & technological feasibility of gravitation modification, titled An Introduction to Gravity Modification, to achieve interstellar travel in our lifetimes. For more information visit iSETI LLC, Interstellar Space Exploration Technology Initiative.

Solomon is inviting all serious participants to his LinkedIn Group Interstellar Travel & Gravity Modification.

Last month a colleague of mine and I visited with Dennis Heap, Executive Director of the National Front Range Airport, at Watkins, CO, the location of the future Spaceport Colorado, and Colorado’s contribution to getting into space. Here is Part 2.

What is a spaceport?

Wikipedia gives a very broad definition of a spaceport, that anything and everything that is used to launch vehicles into orbit, space and interplanetary missions are now termed spaceports. ICBM sites are termed launch sites. There is, however, a distinction between a military site and a commercial site. In the aviation world a military site is termed an ‘airbase’ while a commercial civilian site is termed an ‘airport’. Similarly in the marine world the respective terms are ‘naval base’ and ‘seaport’. In that vein there are ‘spacebases’ and ‘spaceports’. So bear in mind that not everything that is labeled a ‘spaceport’ is one.

As far as I can remember the term ‘spaceport’ caught the public’s imagination only recently with the advent of Spaceport America at Las Cruces, NM. So let’s clarify. A spaceport is port for launching vehicles into suborbital, orbital and interplanetary space whose primary mission is to support and manage commercial activities, not military, not government sponsored launches. And therefore, in the United States there are only 10 existing or proposed spaceports. They are (1)Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport, Wallops Island, VA (2)Cecil Field Spaceport, Jacksonville, FL (3)Spaceport Florida, Cape Canaveral (4)Spaceport Oklahoma, Burns Flat, OK (5)Spaceport America, Las Cruces, NM (6)Mojave Air and Spaceport, Mojave, CA (7) California Spaceport, Vandenberg Air Force Base, Lompac, CA (8)Kodiak Launch Complex, Kodiak Island, AK, (9) Spaceport Colorado, Watkins, CO and (10)Spaceport Hawaii, HI.

Map of US Spaceports as of Aug 26, 2011, Courtesy of US Department of Transportation.

The proposed spaceports outside of the United States that interest me are Spaceport Sweden, Spaceport Singapore, and Ras Al Khaimah Spaceport, UAE. Spaceport Sweden is the only one of the three that shows some form of life. The other two appear to be dormant with no signs of life. If one were to compare business concepts, Spaceport Sweden is closer to Spaceport America and Spaceport Singapore is similar to Spaceport Colorado.

Spaceports, real people doing real things to get into space.

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Benjamin T Solomon is the author & principal investigator of the 12-year study into the theoretical & technological feasibility of gravitation modification, titled An Introduction to Gravity Modification, to achieve interstellar travel in our lifetimes. For more information visit iSETI LLC, Interstellar Space Exploration Technology Initiative.

Solomon is inviting all serious participants to his LinkedIn Group Interstellar Travel & Gravity Modification.

Last month a colleague of mine and I visited with Dennis Heap, Executive Director of the National Front Range Airport, at Watkins, CO, the location of the future Spaceport Colorado, and Colorado’s contribution to getting into space.

On April 19, 2012, Gov. John Hickenlooper signed a bill that limited a spaceflight entity’s liability for spaceflight participants and paved the way for Spaceport Colorado’s development. The Front Range Airport Authority situated on 3,900 acres will allocate 900 acres towards the development and construction of Spaceport Colorado and ancillary facilities. The next steps are the completion of an environmental assessment, and feasibility and marketing study. This is expected to be completed by end of 2013.

In the 1995–96 I was Head of Corporate Planning at Westport, a $1 billion seaport infrastructure project in Malaysia, where I created and deployed the 7-hour port strategy, streamlined financial controls, container handling and container tariffs, reducing incoming (wharf to gate) dwell time to zero hours compared to the then world’s largest container port, Port Authority of Singapore’s (PSA) 18-hours. Westport was able to grow substantially, to the point where, in 2011, Westport handled 6.4 million TEUs compared to PSA’s 29.9 million TEUs. (TEU = Twenty-foot Equivalent Units or half a container)

So it caught my attention when Dennis Heap said Spaceport Colorado will be 33 miles (53 km) east of the city of Denver and about 6 miles (10 km) south of Denver International Airport (DIA).

DIA is the 5th busiest airport in the US, and the 11th busiest airport in the world. It is located centrally in the continental United States. Read more about DIA here. The plan is to build a rail link between DIA and the Spaceport.

Denver is the second largest city after Phoenix, AZ, in the Mountain States (Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, & Wyoming). It is the 23rd most populous city in the United States. Read more about Denver here.

After our visit with Dennis Heap, I took some photos of the Front Range Airport.

This photo above is of the view of the left side of the runway. In this photo you can see a white smudge just above the fourth plane (from the right). That white smudge is the Denver International Airport. The blue and white streak above ground on the horizon (left to middle of photo) is the majestic snowcapped Rocky Mountains. The city of Denver would be 33 miles (53 km) left or west of the Front Range Airport.

You can see from this picture that the Front Range Airport is a general aviation airport. That white smudge above the first plane (from the left) is the Denver International Airport. Note the clear blue skies. Colorado is the sunniest state in the US with more sunny days than even Hawaii.

This photo above was of the view to the right of the runway. Terminal building and offices are on the right of this photo. And if I have my bearing right, when built, Spaceport Colorado will be visible on the horizon.

I must congratulate Dennis Heap, Front Range Airport, and the many people, county and state officials and private companies who made this a reality. Public and private sectors cooperating to make things happen today. Real people doing real things to get into space sooner rather than later.

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Benjamin T Solomon is the author & principal investigator of the 12-year study into the theoretical & technological feasibility of gravitation modification, titled An Introduction to Gravity Modification, to achieve interstellar travel in our lifetimes. For more information visit iSETI LLC, Interstellar Space Exploration Technology Initiative.

Solomon is inviting all serious participants to his LinkedIn Group Interstellar Travel & Gravity Modification.

To achieve interstellar travel, the Kline Directive instructs us to be bold, to explore what others have not, to seek what others will not, to change what others dare not. To extend the boundaries of our knowledge, to advocate new methods, techniques and research, to sponsor change not status quo, on 5 fronts, Legal Standing, Safety Awareness, Economic Viability, Theoretical-Empirical Relationships, and Technological Feasibility.

In a previous post on Technological Feasibility I had stated that a quick and dirty model shows that we could achieve velocity of light c by 2151 or the late 2150s. See table below.

Year Velocity (m/s) % of c
2200 8,419,759,324 2808.5%
2152 314,296,410 104.8%
2150 274,057,112 91.4%
2125 49,443,793 16.5%
2118 30,610,299 10.2%
2111 18,950,618 6.3%
2100 8,920,362 3.0%
2075 1,609,360 0.5%
2050 290,351 0.1%
2025 52,384 0.0%

That is, at the current rate of technological innovation we could as a civilization reach light speed in about 140 years. More importantly we could not even reach anywhere near that within the next 100 years. Our capability would be 6.3% of c.

The Lorentz-Fitzgerald transformation informs us light speed would require an infinite amount of energy (i.e. more than there is in the Universe!), thereby highlighting the weaknesses in these types of technological forecasting methods. But these models still serve a purpose. They provide some guidance as to what is possible and when. The operative word is guidance.

Rephrasing is required. Is the technological light speed horizon of the 2150s too far out? If you are as impatient as I am the answer is ‘yes’. It would not be in the spirit of the Kline Directive to accept a 2150s horizon. 2150s is for people with no imagination, people who have resigned to the inevitable snail’s progress of physics. Further, we now know the inevitable impossibility using our contemporary physics because of the 5 major errors.

Completing the Interstellar Challenge Matrix (ICH) gives:

PDF version available here.

What are we left with? We have to find new directions, new models, new mathematical constructions, that address all 5 errors. And in the spirit of the Kline Directive, there needs to be a better method of sifting through academic papers “ … to provide reasonability in guidance and correctness in answers to our questions in the sciences …”

What do we do for starters? Here are my initial recommendations are:

1. The physics community has to refocus on mathematical construction hypotheses.

2. More experimental physicist leading combined teams of experimental and theoretical physicist.

3. Prioritize research funding by Engineering Feasible Theories, 100-Year Theories, and only then Millennium Theories.

I started this series of blog posts in order to achieve interstellar travel sooner rather than later, but we as a community are heading in the wrong direction. It won’t work to build bigger carriages. It won’t work add more horses, as some would suggest. That would be like flogging a dead horse. We have to do something radically different. That is why the Kline Directive matters.

I have made the assumption that technological feasibility is a necessary step. Yes it is, given our lack of technological capability to reach the stars in a realistic and finite time frame. Technology feasibility very quickly leads back to the next question of commercial viability, the second step.

Future feasible technologies will iterate between technological feasibility and commercial viability until we can reach the stars in a manner we don’t have to ask the question, whom do we select to leave Earth?

Until then we are not ready!

Previous post in the Kline Directive series.

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Benjamin T Solomon is the author & principal investigator of the 12-year study into the theoretical & technological feasibility of gravitation modification, titled An Introduction to Gravity Modification, to achieve interstellar travel in our lifetimes. For more information visit iSETI LLC, Interstellar Space Exploration Technology Initiative.

Solomon is inviting all serious participants to his LinkedIn Group Interstellar Travel & Gravity Modification.

To achieve interstellar travel, the Kline Directive instructs us to be bold, to explore what others have not, to seek what others will not, to change what others dare not. To extend the boundaries of our knowledge, to advocate new methods, techniques and research, to sponsor change not status quo, on 5 fronts, Legal Standing, Safety Awareness, Economic Viability, Theoretical-Empirical Relationships, and Technological Feasibility.

My apologies to my readers for this long break since my last post of Nov 19, 2012. I write the quarterly economic report for a Colorado bank’s Board of Directors. Based on my quarterly reports to the Board, I gave a talk Are We Good Stewards? on the US Economy to about 35 business executives at a TiE Rockies’ Business for Breakfast event. This talk was originally scheduled for Dec 14, but had moved forward to Nov 30 because the original speaker could not make the time commitment for that day. There was a lot to prepare, and I am very glad to say that it was very well received. For my readers who are interested here is the link to a pdf copy of my slides to Are We Good Stewards?

Now back to interstellar physics and the Kline Directive. Let’s recap.

In my last four posts (2c), (2d), (2e) & (2f) I had identified four major errors taught in contemporary physics. First, to be consistent (2c) with Lorentz-Fitzgerald and Special Theory of Relativity, elementary particles contract as their energy increases. This is antithetical to string theories and explains why string theories are becoming more and more complex without discovering new empirically verifiable fundamental laws of Nature.

Second, (2d) again to be consistent with Lorentz-Fitzgerald and Special Theory of Relativity, a photon’s wave function cannot have length. It must infinitesimally thin, zero length. Therefore, this wave function necessarily has to be a part of the photon’s disturbance of spacetime that is non-moving. Just like a moving garden rake under a rug creates the appearance that the bulge or wave function like envelope is moving.

Third, that exotic matter, negative mass in particular, converts the General Theory of Relativity into perpetual motion physics (sacrilege!) and therefore cannot exist in Nature. Fourth, that the baking bread model (2e) of the Universe is incorrect as our observations of the Milky Way necessarily point to the baking bread model not being ‘isoacentric’.

Einstein (2f) had used the Universe as an expanding 4-dimensional surface of a sphere (E4DSS) in one of his talks to explain how the number of galaxies looks the same in every direction we look. If Einstein is correct then time travel theories are not, as an expanding surface would necessarily require that the 4-dimensional Universe that we know, does not exists inside the expanding sphere, and therefore we cannot return to a past. And, we cannot head to a future because that surface has not happened. Therefore, first, the law of conservation of mass-energy holds as nothing is mysteriously added by timelines. And second, causality paradoxes cannot occur in Nature. Note there is a distinction between temporal reversibility and time travel.

In this E4DSS model, wormholes would not cause time travel but connect us to other parts of the Universe by creating tunnels from one part of the surface to another by going inside the sphere and tunneling to a different part of the sphere. So the real problem for theoretical physics is how does one create wormholes without using exotic matter?

Previous post in the Kline Directive series.

Next post in the Kline Directive series.

—————————————————————————————————

Benjamin T Solomon is the author & principal investigator of the 12-year study into the theoretical & technological feasibility of gravitation modification, titled An Introduction to Gravity Modification, to achieve interstellar travel in our lifetimes. For more information visit iSETI LLC, Interstellar Space Exploration Technology Initiative.

Solomon is inviting all serious participants to his LinkedIn Group Interstellar Travel & Gravity Modification.

To achieve interstellar travel, the Kline Directive instructs us to be bold, to explore what others have not, to seek what others will not, to change what others dare not. To extend the boundaries of our knowledge, to advocate new methods, techniques and research, to sponsor change not status quo, on 5 fronts, Legal Standing, Safety Awareness, Economic Viability, Theoretical-Empirical Relationships, and Technological Feasibility.

In this post I explain two more mistakes in physics. The first is 55 years old, and should have been caught long ago.

Bondi, in his 1957 paper “Negative mass in General Relativity”, had suggested that mass could be negative and there are surprising results from this possibility. I quote,

“… the positive body will attract the negative one (since all bodies are attracted by it), while the negative body will repel the positive body (since all bodies are repelled by it). If the motion is confined to the line of centers, then one would expect the pair to move off with uniform acceleration …”

As a theoretician Bondi required that the motion be “confined to the line of centers” or be confined to a straight line. However, as experimental physicist we would take a quantity of negative mass and another quantity of positive mass and place them in special containers attached two spokes. These spokes form a small arc at one end and fixed to the axis of a generator at the other end. Let go, and watch Bondi’s uniform straight line acceleration be translated into circular motion driving a generator. Low and behold, we have a perpetual motion machine generating free electricity!

Wow! A perpetual motion machine hiding in plain sight in the respectable physics literature, and nobody caught it. What is really bad about this is that Einstein’s General Relativity allows for this type of physics, and therefore in General Relativity this is real. So was Bondi wrong or does General Relativity permit perpetual motion physics? If Bondi is wrong then could Alcubierre too be wrong as his metrics requires negative mass?

Perpetual motion is sacrilege in contemporary physics, and therefore negative mass could not exist. Therefore negative mass is in the realm of mathematical conjecture. What really surprised me was the General Relativity allows for negative mass, at least Bondi’s treatment of General Relativity.

This raises the question, what other problems in contemporary physics do we have hiding in plain sight?

There are two types of exotic matter, that I know of, the first is negative mass per Bondi (above) and the second is imaginary (square root of −1) mass. The recent flurry of activity of the possibility that some European physicists had observed FTL (faster than light) neutrinos, should also teach us some lessons.

If a particle is traveling faster than light its mass becomes imaginary. This means that these particles could not be detected by ordinary, plain and simple mass based instruments. So what were these physicists thinking? That somehow Lorentz-Fitzgerald transformations were no longer valid? That mass would not convert into imaginary matter at FTL? It turned out that their measurements were incorrect. Just goes to show how difficult experimental physics can get, and these experimental physicists are not given the recognition due to them for the degree of difficulty of their work.

So what type of exotic matter was Dr. Harold White of NASA’s In-Space Propulsion program proposing in his presentation at the 2012 100-Year Starship Symposium? Both Alcubierre and White require exotic matter. Specifically, Bondi’s negative mass. But I’ve shown that negative mass cannot exist as it results in perpetual motion machines. Inference? We know that this is not technologically feasible.

That is, any hypothesis that requires exotic negative mass cannot be correct. This includes time travel.

Previous post in the Kline Directive series.

Next post in the Kline Directive series.

—————————————————————————————————

Benjamin T Solomon is the author & principal investigator of the 12-year study into the theoretical & technological feasibility of gravitation modification, titled An Introduction to Gravity Modification, to achieve interstellar travel in our lifetimes. For more information visit iSETI LLC, Interstellar Space Exploration Technology Initiative.

Solomon is inviting all serious participants to his LinkedIn Group Interstellar Travel & Gravity Modification.

To achieve interstellar travel, the Kline Directive instructs us to be bold, to explore what others have not, to seek what others will not, to change what others dare not. To extend the boundaries of our knowledge, to advocate new methods, techniques and research, to sponsor change not status quo, on 5 fronts, Legal Standing, Safety Awareness, Economic Viability, Theoretical-Empirical Relationships, and Technological Feasibility.

In this post on technological feasibility, I point to some more mistakes in physics, so that we are aware of the type of mistakes we are making. This I hope will facilitate the changes required of our understanding of the physics of the Universe and thereby speed up the discovery of new physics required for interstellar travel.

The scientific community recognizes two alternative models for force. Note I use the term recognizes because that is how science progresses. This is necessarily different from the concept how Nature operates or Nature’s method of operation. Nature has a method of operating that is consistent with all Nature’s phenomena, known and unknown.

If we are willing to admit, that we don’t know all of Nature’s phenomena — our knowledge is incomplete — then it is only logical that our recognition of Nature’s method of operation is always incomplete. Therefore, scientists propose theories on Nature’s methods, and as science progresses we revise our theories. This leads to the inference that our theories can never be the exact presentation of Nature’s methods, because our knowledge is incomplete. However, we can come close but we can never be sure ‘we got it’.

With this understanding that our knowledge is incomplete, we can now proceed. The scientific community recognizes two alternative models for force, Einstein’s spacetime continuum, and quantum mechanics exchange of virtual particles. String theory borrows from quantum mechanics and therefore requires that force be carried by some form of particle.

Einstein’s spacetime continuum requires only 4 dimensions, though other physicists have add more to attempt a unification of forces. String theories have required up to 23 dimensions to solve equations.

However, the discovery of the empirically validated g=τc2 proves once and for all, that gravity and gravitational acceleration is a 4-dimensional problem. Therefore, any hypothesis or theory that requires more than 4 dimensions to explain gravitational force is wrong.

Further, I have been able to do a priori what no other theories have been able to do; to unify gravity and electromagnetism. Again only working with 4 dimensions, using a spacetime continuum-like empirically verified Non Inertia (Ni) Fields proves that non-nuclear forces are not carried by the exchange of virtual particles. And therefore, if non-nuclear forces are not carried by the exchange of virtual particles, why should Nature suddenly change her method of operation and be different for nuclear forces? Virtual particles are mathematical conjectures that were a convenient mathematical approach in the context of a Standard Model.

Sure there is always that ‘smart’ theoretical physicist who will convert a continuum-like field into a particle-based field, but a particle-continuum duality does not answer the question, what is Nature’s method? So we come back to a previous question, is the particle-continuum duality a mathematical conjecture or a mathematical construction? Also note, now that we know of g=τc2, it is not a discovery by other hypotheses or theories, if these hypotheses/theories claim to be able to show or reconstruct a posteriori, g=τc2, as this is also known as back fitting.

Our theoretical physicists have to ask themselves many questions. Are they trying to show how smart they are? Or are they trying to figure out Nature’s methods? How much back fitting can they keep doing before they acknowledge that enough is enough? Could there be a different theoretical effort that could be more fruitful?

The other problem with string theories is that these theories don’t converge to a single set of descriptions about the Universe, they diverge. The more they are studied the more variation and versions that are discovered. The reason for this is very clear. String theories are based on incorrect axioms. The primary incorrect axiom is that particles expand when their energy is increased.

The empirical Lorentz-Fitzgerald transformations require that length contracts as velocity increases. However, the eminent Roger Penrose, in the 1950s showed that macro objects elongate as they fall into a gravitational field. The portion of the macro body closer to the gravitational source is falling at just a little bit faster velocity than the portion of the macro body further away from the gravitational source, and therefore the macro body elongates. This effect is termed tidal gravity.

In reality as particles contract in their length, per Lorentz-Fitzgerald, the distance between these particles elongates due to tidal gravity. This macro expansion has been carried into theoretical physics at the elementary level of string particles, that particles elongate, which is incorrect. That is, even theoretical physicists make mistakes.

Expect string theories to be dead by 2017.

Previous post in the Kline Directive series.

Next post in the Kline Directive series.

—————————————————————————————————

Benjamin T Solomon is the author & principal investigator of the 12-year study into the theoretical & technological feasibility of gravitation modification, titled An Introduction to Gravity Modification, to achieve interstellar travel in our lifetimes. For more information visit iSETI LLC, Interstellar Space Exploration Technology Initiative.

Solomon is inviting all serious participants to his LinkedIn Group Interstellar Travel & Gravity Modification.

It was on a long-haul flight many months ago that I recalled a visit to the National Air and Space Museum [1] to a fellow passenger whom I struck up conversation with. Asking if I could recommend somewhere to visit in Washington DC, I recounted how I had spent an entire day amazing at the collection of historic aircraft and spacecraft on my only visit to that city fifteen years or so previous as a young adult — and as always a kid at heart.

Seeing the sheer scale of the F-1 engine for the Saturn 5 rocket first hand, stepping inside an Apollo command module identical to those used during the Apollo program, not to mention seeing full life-size replicas of the Lunar Roving Vehicle, an Apollo Lunar Module and for some reason what seemed most surreal to me… the Viking 1 Lander. This was enchantment.

However, for all the amazement that such a museum can provide, it is also a saddening reminder that what once was the forefront of human ambition and endeavor has now been largely resigned to history. NASA budgets are cut annually [2] whilst military expenditure takes ever more precedence. A planned six percent budget decrease in 2013 is the equivalent savings to three hours of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars. Instead of reaching to explore outer-space we are encouraged to get excited about the equivalent billions [3] invested on science exploring the subatomic inner-space world. Meanwhile, we tend to forget that the ambitions of space exploration are not just to satisfy some wide-eyed childhood yearning to explore, but the serious and sobering prospect of needing to ensure that we as a species can eventually colonize to other worlds and ensure we are not counting down the days to our extinction on an ever-more-precarious planetary solitude.

In the face of such indifference, such concepts of lifeboats have become marginalized to what is perceived to be a realm solely for loons and dreamers, or ‘space cadets’ as we used to call them back in the days of school. The trillion dollar question really is what it takes to redirect all that military investment into science & exploration instead. It is down to credibility. Governments shy away from investing public funds when there is a lack of credibility.

It was an easy sell to the public to invest in the military after the tragic events of 9/11 and terrorist threats which were presented largely by propaganda/disinformation to the public as an existential risk to the free world. The purse strings opened and an unforgivable amount of expenditure was invested on the military in the subsequent years. Let us hope that it does not take unprecedented natural disasters [4] to awaken the world to the fact that it is nature which poses much greater existential risks to the survival of our society in the long-term.

[1] http://airandspace.si.edu/
[2] http://www.care2.com/causes/2013-nasa-budget-gutted.html
[3] http://www.ibtimes.com/forbes-finding-higgs-boson-cost-1325-billion-721503
[4] http://rt.com/news/paint-asteroid-earth-nasa-767/

To achieve interstellar travel, the Kline Directive instructs us to be bold, to explore what others have not, to seek what others will not, to change what others dare not. To extend the boundaries of our knowledge, to advocate new methods, techniques and research, to sponsor change not status quo, on 5 fronts, Legal Standing, Safety Awareness, Economic Viability, Theoretical-Empirical Relationships, and Technological Feasibility.

In this post I discuss the second of three concepts, that if implemented should speed up the rate of innovation and discovery so that we can achieve interstellar travel within a time frame of decades, not centuries. Okay, I must remind you that this will probably upset some physicists.

One of the findings of my 12-year study was that gravitational acceleration was independent of the internal structure of a particle, therefore, the elegantly simple formula, g=τc2, for gravitational acceleration. This raised the question, what is the internal structure of a particle? For ‘normal’ matter, the Standard Model suggests that protons and neutrons consist of quarks, or other mass based particles. Electrons and photons are thought to be elementary.

I had a thought, a test for mass as the gravitational source. If ionized matter showed the same gravitational acceleration effects as non-ionized matter, then one could conclude that mass is the source of gravitational acceleration, not quark interaction; because the different ionizations would have different electron mass but the same quark interaction. This would be a difficult test to do correctly because the electric field effects are much greater than gravitational effects.

One could ask, what is the internal structure of a photon? The correct answer is that no one knows. Here is why. In electromagnetism, radio antenna’s specifically, the energy inside the hollow antenna is zero. However, in quantum theory, specifically the nanowire for light photons, the energy inside the nanowire increases towards the center of the nanowire. I’m not going to provide any references as I not criticizing any specific researcher. So which is it?

One could ask the question, at what wavelength does this energy distribution change, from zero (for radio waves) to an increase (for light photons)? Again, this is another example of the mathematics of physics providing correct answers while being inconsistent. So we don’t know.

To investigate further, I borrowed a proposal from two German physicists, I. V. Drozdov and A. A. Stahlhofen, (How long is a photon?) who had suggested that a photon was about half a wavelength long. I thought, why stop there? What if it was an infinitely thin slice? Wait. What was that? An infinitely thin slice! That would be consistent with Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity! That means if the photon is indeed an infinitely thin pulse, why do we observe the wave function that is inconsistent with Special Theory of Relativity? That anything traveling at the velocity of light must have a thickness of zero, as dictated by the Lorentz-Fitzgerald transformations.

The only consistent answer I could come up with was that the wave function was the photon’s effect or the photon’s disturbance on spacetime, and not the photon itself.

Here is an analogy. Take a garden rake, turn it upside down and place it under a carpet. Move it. What do you see? The carpet exhibits an envelope like wave function that appears to be moving in the direction the garden rake is moving. But the envelope is not moving. It is a bulge that shows up wherever the garden rake is. The rake is moving but not the envelope.

Similarly, the wave function is not moving and therefore spreads across the spacetime where the photon is. Now both are consistent with Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity. Then why is the Standard Model successful? It is so because just as the bulge is unique to the shape of the garden rake, so are the photon’s and other particles’ wave function disturbances of spacetime are unique to the properties of the photon & respective particles.

In my book, this proposed consistency with Special Theory of Relativity points to the existence of subspace, and a means to achieve interstellar travel.

There are a lot of inconsistencies in our physical theories, and we need to start addressing these inconsistencies if we are to achieve interstellar travel sooner rather than later.

Previous post in the Kline Directive series.

Next post in the Kline Directive series.

—————————————————————————————————

Benjamin T Solomon is the author & principal investigator of the 12-year study into the theoretical & technological feasibility of gravitation modification, titled An Introduction to Gravity Modification, to achieve interstellar travel in our lifetimes. For more information visit iSETI LLC, Interstellar Space Exploration Technology Initiative.

Solomon is inviting all serious participants to his LinkedIn Group Interstellar Travel & Gravity Modification.