There four camps that comprise the present day interstellar travel community and only one camp will succeed.
The first camp, the conventional rocket camp, believes it is possible using conventional rockets (chemical, ion, nuclear or antimatter) to realize interstellar travel to our nearest star Alpha Centauri. One of the problems is the costs, estimated at an unthinkably large $238,596 billion and upwards. It is several thousand times greater if we choose to use antimatter.
Further, John Eades, a former senior scientist with CERN, in his March/April 2012 Skeptical Inquirer article “Antimatter Pseudoscience”, lays down the reasons why antimatter based propulsion will never be technologically feasible.
Black Hole of wealth. One down three to go.
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The second, the hypothesis camp, believes that there is some equation that will allow us to reach 1,000 x velocity of light and upwards based on quantum foam. Nonsense. Be very clear, the experimental evidence proves that anything with mass cannot be accelerated to exceed the velocity of light. Sure, we have hypotheses (i.e. mathematical guesses without experimental proof) that point every which way, but at best these are guesses and they have not or cannot be proven experimentally. In addition, Robert Nemiroff’s three photon discovery suggests that both quantum foam and quantum gravity may in part or whole invalidated while upholding relativity.
Wrong turn. Two down and two to go.
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The third, the impossible camp, believes that interstellar travel is impossible. As Prof. Adam Franks stated in his July 24, 2012 New York Times Op-Ed, Alone in the Void, “Short of a scientific miracle of the kind that has never occurred, our future history for millenniums will be played out on Earth”. Obviously the impossible camp disagrees with the hypothesis camp on the basis of the physics.
Don’t argue. Three down one more to go.
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I belong to the fourth, the new physics camp, that there is a new physics that the other three camps do not subscribe to. There are 57 of us physicist-engineers from 16 countries, US, Russia, UK, China, Japan, Romania, Austria, India and more, who have researched or are researching new propulsion technologies that are not based on chemical, ion, nuclear or antimatter engines or untested hypotheses. We search out and investigate anomalies.
Change is coming. We will be successful.
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Based on my work as evidence, several important phenomena have been discovered
1. A new formula for gravitational acceleration that does not require us to know the mass of the planet or star. This is an immense discovery, never before accomplished in the 346-year history, since Newton, of the physics of gravitational fields, as all theories on gravity require us to know the mass of the planet or star.
2. Solved Laithwaite’s Big Wheel experiment, which nobody else could in the last 35 years.
3. Asked questions that neither relativity nor quantum theory has. For example, how is probability implemented in Nature?
Because we have learned to ask questions that the other three camps have not, we the new physics camp will find different answers and reach the stars before anyone else.
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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.