Spaceships that Conquer
Gravity
The spherical craft squatting on a concrete strip
emitted a faint hum. A ghostly glow surrounded its shell. The strange
craft rose and hovered momentarily while its landing gear retracted.
Then the hum increased and the craft shot eastward and vanished beyond
the horizon before the witnessing scientists could click their stop
watches.
Jet-powered missle? No. Made weightless and propelled by
its anti-gravity engine the round ship was a research vehicle able to
travel at almost the speed of light - 600,000,000 miles per HOUR.
How soon will such a revolutionary craft take to the
skies?
Since 1953 the Canadian government's PROJECT MAGNET has
been working on a GRAVITY-DEFYING VEHICLE powered by ELECTROMAGNETIC
FORCES.
AT LEAST 14 UNITED STATES UNIVERSITIES AND OTHER
RESEARCH CENTERS ARE HARD AT WORK CRACKING THE GRAVITY BARRIER.
Convair on the West coast, Glenn L. Martin Aircraft Co. of Baltimore,
MD., Bell Aircraft Co. of Buffalo, NY and Sperry GYROSCOPE Co. of
Great Neck, NY. maintain teams of researchers and engineers prying
into Nature's most jealously guarded secret - GRAVITY.
"Aviation is on the threshold of amazing new concepts,"
said the late Lawrence D. Bell, level-headed builder of the Bell
rocket research planes. "We are already working with nuclear fuels and
equpment to CANCEL OUT GRAVITY instead of fighting it."
Even before the famous apple fell on Isaac Newton's
head, men were trying to solve the gravity problem. But from the
simple pre- historic lever to the most intricate modern machinery, the
best we could do was to win a temporary victory.
"What goes up must come down," said the biggest
scientific brains, helpless before the mysterious gravity pull. Newton
and other great physicists formulated the gravity laws, measured
gravity pull and passed their findings to posterity.
But their gravity "laws" had SEVERAL EXCEPTIONS that
bothered inquiring minds. Take the strange behaviour of liquids, for
example.
Move your fingertip slowly toward the surface of water
and watch the water JUMP UP to hug your finger. Or put a soda straw
into the water and see the water level inside creep ABOVE the outside
level in defiance of the earth's gravity pull.
To get an even more striking contradiction of the
gravity laws, drape a towel over the edge of a basin half-filled with
water. After a time the water will climb UP the towel and over the
side.
These and other strange anti-gravity tricks were
considered freaks of MOLECULAR ATTRACTION - phenomena QUITE APART FROM
GRAVITY - UNTIL Albert Einstein came up with his Theory of Relativity.
Einstein said that molecular attraction IS REALLY NO
DIFFERENT from the gravity pull of the planets and stars. He theorized
that this attraction works on the same principle as electromagnetism.
A molecule, a planet or a star all have gravitational
fields just as magnets or electromagnets have their magnetic fields.
To illustrate the similarity, Einstein said that a gravitational field
would attract and bend light rays JUST AS A MAGNETIC FIELD BENDS
CATHODE RAYS in your TV picture tube.
Dr. Stanley Deser and Dr. Richard Arnowitt of the
Princeton Institute for Advanced Study have recently discovered new
sub- nuclear particles of the atom. Bombarded by powerful electro-
magnetic accelerators such as the Cosmotron and Betatron, atomic
structure yielded strange particles which may be the answer to the
gravitational field problem.
"Until recently, gravitation could be only observed but
not experimented on in a controlled fashion," Drs. Deser and Arnowitt
wrote in their scientific paper. "But the NEW PARTICLES of the atom
which have been linked with the gravitational field can now be
examined and worked with at will."
The new discovery means that before long we shall be
able to switch gravity on and off as we do electricity and
electromagnetism. The next logical step is a master of engineering.
Let's take an ordinary FLYWHEEL SUSPENDED ON ROLLER
BEARINGS and coupled with a POWERFUL ELECTRIC GENERATOR. One side of
that wheel would be "under fire" of our de-gravitational apparatus.
The particles responsible for the gravitational attraction would be
NEUTRALIZED, a portion of the wheel would
be made WEIGHTLESS.
But once out of the anti-gravity field, the same part of
the wheel would gain weight and be pulled down by earth's gravity,
thus giving as a powerful ROTATING MOTOR.
Another idea for an anti-gravity device comes from Dr.
George Rideout, president of the Gravity Research Foundation of New
Boston, N.H.
"To make a gravity motor," said Dr. Rideout, "we need a
DIFFERENTIAL OF GRAVITY FORCES and the way we can get it is through a
GRAVITY INSULATOR or ABSORBER." To see how this device might work,
let's turn to gravity's twin brother - electromagnetism.
For years we've had trouble with watches that get
magnetized. You made a phone call or tinkered with your car's
generator and presto - the delicate balance wheel of your watch,
exposed to an electromagnetic field, became a little magnet. Now your
watch was no longer a reliable timepiece.
To protect a watch from magnetic influence, we put the
inner works in a soft iron casing that absorbs the magnetic force and
shields the balance wheel. In other words within the soft iron casing
we have a SPACE FREE from the outside magnetic pull - we have a
DIFFERENTIAL OF MAGNETIC FORCES.
A gravity absorber or shield would do the same for the
anti-gravity spaceship. The shielded interior would be free from the
earth's gravity attraction. The inner structure, equipment and crew
would be weightless in relation to the earth. Thus, we would have a
differential of gravity forces and our ship would take off instantly
like a super-balloon.
For ease of calculation, suppose we take our G-ship to
the equator where the rotational speed of the earth is about 1,000
mph. With our anti-gravity shield completely shut, the G-ship would be
hurled into space just as a particle of mud shoots off a spinning
tire. We would scoot along a more or less straight line unless we had
some way of controlling direction and
speed.
The weightlessness of the G-ship could be easily
controlled by letting some of the earth's gravity force act upon the
ship's interior. An arrangement of shutters like venetian blinds would
do the trick. To control our direction, we would need thrust. A rocket
would limit us to the amount of fuel, so let's try something else.
We could have an ion rocket proposed by Dr. Ernst
Stuhlinger or another similar nuclear rocket where sub-atomic
particles are accelerated by a powerful electromagnetic gun and
ejected into space. We could also utilize ELECTROMAGNETIC REPULSION.
We know that two LIKE MAGNETIC POLES REPEL EACH OTHER,
just as under certain conditions an electromagnetic field REPELS THE
SO-CALLED DIAMAGNETIC METALS. Take a flat aluminum ring, put it over a
strong electromagnet and switch on the current. The disk will fly off
the solenoid with quite a speed.
Starting with this principle of DIAMAGNETIC REPULSION, a
group of Canadian scientists of Project Magnet proposes to harness the
magnetic fields of the earth and other celestial bodies for propulsion
of the G-ship.
The earth's magnetic field is TOO WEAK TO REPEL or
PROPEL a G-ship made of ORDINARY METAL. However, current studies in
the nature of magnetism point to a possible solution. Scientists
believe that the answer lies in THE STRUCTURE OF ATOMS.
By RE-ARRANGING THE ATOMIC STRUCTURE we could GREATLY
INCREASE THE DIAMAGNETIC PROPERTIES of the G-ship and make it travel
along the magnetic lines of force like the aluminum ring shooting off
the solenoid.
According to Einstein's theories, there is no end to the
electromagnetic and gravitational fields of the planets and stars.
Those fields INTERTWINE in a MOST COMPLEX PATTERN but
THEY ARE EVER PRESENT. Proper selection of the fields and the
controlled exposure to their forces would let us navigate our G-ship
in space as well as within the earth's boundaries. And the use of
electromagnetic propulsion would eliminate the problem of fuel.
Now, let's take a closer look at the G-ship. Its
spherical shape is dictated by the internal pressurization necessary
for high altitude and space travel. From the viewpoint of engineering,
a sphere is ideal for coping with the pressure differential. Also, it
gives the maximum volume for its dimensions. An interior artificial
gravity ring would solve the
problems of living in a weightless void.
The anti-gravity shield would completely conceal the
crew and passenger compartment. This would eliminate visual
observation. However, even our present radar and TV would give the
crew excellent electronic vision.
Apart from the cabin, there would be an engine room for
the anti-gravity motor and the auxiliary power to run the electronic
apparatus. Since the ship would take off and land in the atmosphere,
there would be two problems to overcome - the heat caused by air
friction and the question of air drag of the spherical shape.
To take the singe out of the friction heat, Canadian
scientists headed by Wilbur B. Smith contemplate an ingenious
ELECTRO-MAGNETIC device. Switched on before takeoff, the device would
attract and hold fast a large portion of air around the ship.
This captured "boundary cushion" would move with the
ship. Therefore the air friction would take place at a distance from
the ship's structure and the heat would be dissipated before it could
warm up the ship's anti-gravity shield. The mass of captive air would
be shaped into the most
advantageous aerodynamic form. A tear-drop for moderate speeds, a
sharp-ended spindle for supersonics and a concave, cup-like shape for
aiding deceleration for landing.
Even for space travel, the stores and provisions would
be small. Once OUTSIDE the earth's atmosphere, the G-ship would be
capable of traveling at near the speed of light - roughly 600,000,000
miles per hour.
At that speed, a 322,000,000 mile round-trip to Venus
would TAKE ABOUT 30 MINUTES!
Make no mistake about it, anti-gravity motors and
G-ships are coming. Remember, a year before the Wright brothers took
off at Kitty Hawk some of our top scientists "proved" that a
heavier-than- air craft could not possibly fly.
And in 1935 the British Air Ministry nixed Frank
Whittle's jet engine as "interesting but not practical."
But the best answer to the disbelievers is that some of
these anti-gravity ideas are already on the drawing boards of the
United States aircraft industry. With their brain power and
technological know- how, our engineers will soon send Newton's apple
back up where it came from!
(COMMENTARY: What happened to all of this research by
aircraft companies? I haven't seen an anti-G Boeing airliner at my
local airport lately)
by Michael Gladych