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Archive for the ‘Interstellar Travel’ tag

Jul 28, 2015

100 Year Starship Announces the Canopus Award for Interstellar Writing

Posted by in categories: futurism, space, space travel

canopus award logo f

100 Year Starship (100YSS) today announced the establishment of the Canopus Award, an annual writing prize recognizing the finest fiction and non-fiction works that contribute to the excitement, knowledge, and understanding of interstellar space exploration and travel.

100YSS, led by former astronaut, engineer, physician and entrepreneur Dr. Mae Jemison, is an independent, long-term global initiative working to ensure that the capabilities for human interstellar travel, beyond our solar system to another star, exist within the next 100 years.

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Mar 9, 2015

100 Year Starship Establishes EU Hub in Brussels to Advance Space, Science and Technology Initiatives with European Partners

Posted by in categories: space, space travel

International Audacious SpaceInitiative Partners with Brussels-Based ISC Intelligence to Support EU’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Goals to Meet Global Challenges on Earth

BRUSSELS/HOUSTON, March 5, 2015100 Year Starship™ (100YSS™), an independent, long-term global initiative working to ensure that the capabilities for human interstellar travel, beyond our solar system to another star, exist within the next 100 years today announced the establishment of its hub in the European Union. The inaugural 100YSS@EUä Hub debuted at the ES:GC2 (European Science: Global Challenges Global Collaboration) Conference held by the Brussels partner ISC Intelligence.

The 100YSS@EU Hub will further the 100YSS mission and facilitate robust transatlantic and international collaboration in research and innovation, science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) capacity building, entrepreneurship and education projects between organizations, companies, universities and individuals, as well as support the objectives of the EU’s Horizon 2020. The U.S.-based 100YSS began with a competitive seed-funding grant from DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency).

Horizon 2020 is the largest EU Research and Innovation programme ever and is aimed at implementing the Innovation Union, a Europe 2020 flagship initiative designed to secure Europe’s global competitiveness.

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Jun 7, 2014

The Gravity Modification Workshop

Posted by in categories: engineering, innovation, physics, science

I am preparing a 1-day The Gravity Modification Workshop (more details here) and expect to conduct this workshop in the August-September 2014 time frame. I would like to gauge interest so if you are interested in attending pleased complete this short QuickSurveys survey https://www.quicksurveys.com/s/p6K3J informing me of your interest. This survey ends June 22 2014.

Workshop details are as follows:

Title: The Gravity Modification Workshop

Presenter: Benjamin T Solomon

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May 27, 2014

100 Year Starship Call for Papers // 2014 Public Symposium

Posted by in categories: asteroid/comet impacts, astronomy, futurism, science, space, space travel

logo for the symposium transparent b100 Year Starship announces a Call for Papers for the 100YSS 2014 Public Symposium. The Symposium will be held September 18–21 at the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston, Texas, United States.

You’re invited to submit your abstract for one of the eight Technical Tracks or Poster Session and be a part of our transdisciplinary scope to include the broadest swath of ideas and people for our mission. Abstract deadline is 20 June, 2014.

The Pathway to the Stars, Footprints on Earth theme still guides the focus of 100YSS’s Public Symposium. It compels us to continue our journey and maintain our mission. Last year, our participants explored different avenues of fundamental research, technology development, societal systems, and capacities that facilitate ready access to our inner solar system. This year we move that focus forward with more in-depth access to emerging and cutting edge topics – expanding our view of design, creating new pathways in education, discovering psychology, and cutting edge transportation methods. Using a collaborative and Transdisciplinary approach to capability and capacity building, our mission will continue to support our efforts to enhance life here on earth…today. Join us as we log another year in our 100-year mission at the 100YSS 2014 Public Symposium.

Below are the tracks for our 2014 Call For Papers.

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Apr 21, 2014

Crisis In Physics

Posted by in categories: engineering, general relativity, particle physics, physics, science, space

The crisis in super symmetry physics is causing physicist to search for a new physics. Could this new physics be non-particle based? A physics closer to General Relativity than to either Quantum or String theories?

Apr 21, 2014

The Experiments that Started the Investigation Into Gravity Modification

Posted by in categories: defense, disruptive technology, engineering, general relativity, particle physics, physics, policy, space

The video blog shows 2 of the 400 experiments I conducted between September 1999 and at least April 2001, maybe later. I used various weight measuring scales, battery packs and power supplies. These experiments convinced me that something was a miss with contemporary physics, thus leading to my 12-year study into gravity modification.

This study has been published under the title “An Introduction to Gravity Modification, 2nd Edition”. It documents the new massless formula g=(tau)c^2, for gravitational, mechanical & electromagnetic accelerations; the discovery of Non Inertia (Ni) Fields and non-Gaussian photon probability, and the subsequent unification of photon shielding, transmission/cloaking, invisibility and resolution into a single phenomenon.

Apr 9, 2014

Ground Zero of Interstellar Propulsion

Posted by in categories: defense, innovation, particle physics, philosophy, physics, science, space, space travel

Private Space exploration is gaining a lot of attention in the media today. It is expected to be the next big thing after social media, technology, and probably bio fuels . Can we take this further? With DARPA sponsoring the formation of the 100 Year Starship Study (100YSS) in 2011, can we do interstellar propulsion in our life times?

The Xodus One Foundation thinks this is feasible. To that end the Foundation has started the KickStarter project Ground Zero of Interstellar Propulsion to fund and accelerate this research. This project ends Fri, May 9 2014 7:39 AM MDT.

The community of interstellar propulsion researchers can be categorized into three groups, those who believe it cannot be done (Nay Sayers Group – NSG), those who believe that it requires some advanced form of conventional rockets (Advanced Rocket Group – ARG), and those who believe that it needs new physics (New Physics Group – NPG).

The Foundation belongs to the third group, the New Physics Group. The discovery in 2007 of the new massless formula for gravitational acceleration g=τc^2 , where τ is the change in time dilation over a specific height divided by that height, led to the inference that there is a new physics for interstellar propulsion that is waiting to be discovered.

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Jan 5, 2013

Gravity Modification – What Is The Record?

Posted by in categories: business, defense, economics, education, lifeboat, particle physics, physics, policy, space, transparency

If, we as a community, are intending to accelerate the development of interstellar travel we have to glower at the record and ask ourselves some tough questions. First, what is the current record of the primary players? Second, why is everyone afraid to try something outside the status quo theories?

At the present time the primary players are associated with the DARPA funded 100-Year Starship Study, as Icarus Interstellar who is cross linked with The Tau Zero Foundation and Centauri Dreams is a team member of the 100YSS. I was surprised to find Jean-Luc Cambier on Tau Zero.

Gary Church recently put the final nail in the Icarus Interstellar‘s dreams to build a rocket ship for interstellar travel. In his post on Lifeboat, Cosmic Ray Gorilla Gary Church says “it is likely such a shield will massive over a thousand tons”. Was he suggesting that the new cost of an interstellar rocket ship is not 3.4x World GDP but 34x or 340x World GDP? Oops!

Let us look at the record. Richard Obousy of Icarus Interstellar and Eric Davis of Institute for Advanced Studies claimed that it was possible, using string theories to travel at not just c, the velocity of light but at 1E32c, or c multiplied by a 1 followed by 32 zeros. However, Lorentz-FitzGerald transformations show that anything with mass cannot travel faster than the velocity of light. Note that Lorentz-FitzGerald is an empirical observation which was incorporated into Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity.

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Dec 27, 2012

Gravity Modification – What is it?

Posted by in categories: cosmology, defense, economics, engineering, general relativity, particle physics, physics, policy, space

OK, why do we need a different technology to achieve commercial viability (as in mass space tourism) for either interplanetary or interstellar travel?

In many of my previous posts I had shown that all the currently proposed technologies or technologies to be, are either phenomenally expensive (on the order of several multiples of World GDP), bordering on the impossible or just plain conjecture. This is very unfortunate, as I was hoping that some of the proposals would at least appear realistic, but no joy. I feel very sorry for those who are funding these projects. For a refresher I have posted an updated version of the Interstellar Challenge Matrix (ICM) here which documents 5 of the 11 inconsistencies in modern physics. I give permission to my readers to use this material for non-commercial or academic uses.

I recently completed the 12-year study into the theoretical & technological feasibility of gravity modification published under the title An Introduction to Gravity Modification, 2nd Edition. For the very first time we now have a scientific definition for gravity modification:

Gravity modification is defined as the modification of the strength and/or direction of the gravitational acceleration without the use of mass as the primary source of this modification, in local space time. It consists of field modulation and field vectoring. Field modulation is the ability to attenuate or amplify a force field. Field vectoring is the ability to change the direction of this force field.

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Dec 14, 2012

The Kline Directive: Technological Feasibility (3b)

Posted by in categories: cosmology, defense, economics, education, engineering, general relativity, particle physics, physics, scientific freedom, space

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.

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