Posted on 01/05/2006 3:44:01 PM PST by Names Ash Housewares
http://news.scotsman.com/scitech.cfm?id=16902006
Welcome to Mars express: only a three hour trip IAN JOHNSTON SCIENCE CORRESPONDENT AN EXTRAORDINARY "hyperspace" engine that could make interstellar space travel a reality by flying into other dimensions is being investigated by the United States government.
The hypothetical device, which has been outlined in principle but is based on a controversial theory about the fabric of the universe, could potentially allow a spacecraft to travel to Mars in three hours and journey to a star 11 light years away in just 80 days, according to a report in today's New Scientist magazine.
The theoretical engine works by creating an intense magnetic field that, according to ideas first developed by the late scientist Burkhard Heim in the 1950s, would produce a gravitational field and result in thrust for a spacecraft.
Also, if a large enough magnetic field was created, the craft would slip into a different dimension, where the speed of light is faster, allowing incredible speeds to be reached. Switching off the magnetic field would result in the engine reappearing in our current dimension.
The US air force has expressed an interest in the idea and scientists working for the American Department of Energy - which has a device known as the Z Machine that could generate the kind of magnetic fields required to drive the engine - say they may carry out a test if the theory withstands further scrutiny.
Professor Jochem Hauser, one of the scientists who put forward the idea, told The Scotsman that if everything went well a working engine could be tested in about five years.
However, Prof Hauser, a physicist at the Applied Sciences University in Salzgitter, Germany, and a former chief of aerodynamics at the European Space Agency, cautioned it was based on a highly controversial theory that would require a significant change in the current understanding of the laws of physics.
"It would be amazing. I have been working on propulsion systems for quite a while and it would be the most amazing thing. The benefits would be almost unlimited," he said.
"But this thing is not around the corner; we first have to prove the basic science is correct and there are quite a few physicists who have a different opinion.
"It's our job to prove we are right and we are working on that."
He said the engine would enable spaceships to travel to different solar systems. "If the theory is correct then this is not science fiction, it is science fact," Prof Hauser said.
"NASA have contacted me and next week I'm going to see someone from the [US] air force to talk about it further, but it is at a very early stage. I think the best-case scenario would be within the next five years [to build a test device] if the technology works."
The US authorities' attention was attracted after Prof Hauser and an Austrian colleague, Walter Droscher, wrote a paper called "Guidelines for a space propulsion device based on Heim's quantum theory".
How would humans be able to safely travel in a machine capable of producing extreme G forces?
Yeah, the script wasn't too good either. The basic idea was good but very poorly done.
Sorry, that is Dante's Peak with Pierce "the Bush hater" Brosnan or possibly the later Billy Jack movies.
lol, sounds far fetched to me, but hey, what do i know.
Bob Lazar is a known fraud.
The Ebens supposedly made the journey in about a curiously similar 70-90 days from Zeta Reticuli. Very curious indeed. We got the DIA supposedly leaking in controlled fashion this Eben stuff, beginning just this November, now this. What next? "Hey, we been goofing around in the spiral arm for the last 30 years. Just thought we'd let you taxpayers know."
(Adjusting double layer of Alcoa's finest)
I save all my receipts from when I visit Italian restaraunts for my Infinite Improbability Drive!
I agree completely. Like, what serious world-famous geologist would be caught dead without a Brunton's compass and a rock hammer.
My wife who is a geologist and loved Pierce Brosnan cant even look at him anymore after that atrocious movie.
When visible, the craft is then protected by an intense S.E.P. field. From the Guide:
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"An S.E.P.,' he said, 'is something that we can't see, or don't see, or our brain doesn't let us see, because we think that it's somebody else's problem. That's what S.E.P. means. Somebody Else's problem. The brain just edits it out; it's like a blind spot. If you look at it directly you won't see it unless you know precisely what it is. Your only hope is to catch it by surprise out of the corner of your eye."
On the other hand, what have we got to loose but a couple Billion Dollars?
The tax payers will never miss it.
Besides, it would just wind up in New Orleans anyway.
If energy can be produced from splitting atoms (overcoming the strong nuclear force) perhaps gravity can be produced by adding energy. If gravity is specific to mass, space and time then perhaps by manipulating gravity the current limitations upon space travel can be overcome.
If this engine can achieve 50x the speed of light it most likely will not be via known conventional physics.
I guess Bob Lazar was right after all.
"We got the DIA supposedly leaking in controlled fashion this Eben stuff..."
Can you provide a tad bit more info please...I'm curiuous.
Maybe Bush admits on national television that he is really a Martian. Whoever came up with this idea ought to have their college degrees, security clearances, and government salaries taken away.
I don't believe I made it to the half-way point.
I don't think Bruce Campbell could have saved it.
Here's the link. Pretty whacked out stuff - lots of internal inconsistencies and difficult to believe discussions of rather mundane problems and issues, beyond the unbelievable. Maybe it's primo disinformation from the usual suspects, or somebody goofing - but there are some historical trails to this rumor.
http://www.serpo.org/
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