Conference 7.286::space

872.0. "Put on your skeptical hats....A Magnetic StarDrive (no reaction mass) Engine Explained" by SKYLAB::FISHER (Carp Diem : Fish the Day) Tue Sep 28 1993 14:34

Article 24117 of sci.space:
Newsgroups: sci.space
From: [email protected] (Joseph Michael)
Path: jac.nuo.dec.com!pa.dec.com!decwrl!uunet!news!demon!stellar.demon.co.uk!Joe
Subject: The Stellar Drive Engine Space Propulsion System
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Organization: Stellar Drive
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Date: Mon, 27 Sep 1993 02:09:17 +0000
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STELLAR DRIVE THEORY

by J. Michael

(C) Copyright J. Michael 1993


(Revised 18-09-93 to correct error in penultimate sentence of
paragraph 3 below. Additional errors corrected 27-09-93.)


The Stellar Drive Engine is an electromagnetic device for generating 
unidirectional thrust. It has no moving parts and generates 
unidirectional thrust based on a flaw in Maxwell's electromagnetic 
equations which manifests itself when two conductors carrying 
current with harmonics greater than the fundamental interact through 
their magnetic fields. The vector sum for these interacting magnetic 
fields is zero when the excitation is sinusoidal (which is in general 
agreement with default observations based on standard calculations) 
but they are not zero for sustained non-sinusoidal excitations.

A simple way to explain how a Stellar Drive works is to take two 
electromagnets made from copper wire with an air core and glue 
them back to back with an intervening plastic rod between them.  
The importance of not using an iron core (normally used to enhance 
the electromagnet's strength) is that with an air core, the 
electromagnets are not magnetic when switched off. Using copper 
for the wire and plastic for the intervening rod makes the whole 
assembly non-magnetic. If the electromagnets have magnetic cores, 
or if there are any significant magnetic materials nearby, the device 
will not work at the expected efficiencies. Figure 1. shows the 
arrangement of the non-magnetic electromagnets and the plastic rod.

When electromagnet one switches on, its field will propagate to 
electromagnet two. Before the field reaches electromagnet two, 
electromagnet one is switched off. Thus we get a travelling pulse of 
magnetic pulse that would eventually sweep past electromagnet two 
at the speed of light. As the pulse from electromagnet one arrives at 
electromagnet two,  electromagnet two is switched on. 
Electromagnet two's field interacts with the passing field from 
electromagnet one and electromagnet two would be attracted to 
electromagnet one. (The arguments remain consistent whether the
force is attraction or repulsion.)


 Electromagnet 1        Electromagnet 2

     :---:                  :---:
     :   :------------------:   :
     :   :                  :   :     Figure 1
     :   :                  :   :
     :   :------------------:   :
     :___:   plastic rod    :___:



While the field from electromagnet one is interacting with 
electromagnet two, the rod feels a unidirectional push towards 
electromagnet one. In free space, the rod and electromagnet assembly 
would be accelerated unidirectionally.

The situation is true while the field from electromagnet one is 
passing over electromagnet two. To create the equal and opposite 
force, the magnetic field from electromagnet two races to 
electromagnet one to interact with it to create the equal and 
opposite. But here it encounters a problem. Electromagnet one is 
switched off and since there is nothing magnetic there it cannot 
interact with it and so it must pass through it unaffected.

The consequence of this escaping field is that we have created local 
momentum. Once all the fields have escaped the device, there is no 
way of cancelling the locally generated momentum.

After the field from electromagnet two has passed through 
electromagnet one, the momentum generating cycle can be repeated. 
Electromagnet one is pulsed on and off again and as the field passes 
through electromagnet two, it is also pulsed on and off again 
generating more momentum. In theory, the device can keep on 
accelerating forever if there was a method for energizing the coils on 
and off in the incredibly short periods needed  for the interactions to 
be observable.

Because magnetic fields travel at the speed of light c, the energizing 
method must be very quick so as to generate the appropriate pulsed 
magnetic fields.

The device has no moving parts, yet it generates thrust. If it were to 
be rotated clockwise ninety degrees and placed on a weighting 
machine (that has no magnetic components nearby) we would see the 
weight of the device lessening . The weight loss would be 
proportional to the amount of power fed to the electromagnets. 
Changing the phase at which the electromagnets are turned on and 
off and the frequency with which they are turned on and off will also 
register proportional thrust. The mark space ratio of the rectangular 
wave used to turn the electromagnets would also affect the thrust 
generation characteristics of the drive.

The Stellar Drive would appear to be violating Newton's third law 
but if we look closely it does not violate Newton's laws. The 
escaping fields have pulling power. The fields escaping to the left 
have more pulling power than to the right because the fields escaping 
to the right have interacted with electromagnet two and thereby 
diminished its strength whereas the field escaping to the left is much 
stronger because it has not interacted with anything. These fields 
will terminate on distant objects and pull them cancelling the locally 
generated momentum.

This part of the theory more than anything else allows the Stellar 
Drive to exist because from a theoretical point of view, Newton's 
third law is violated locally only to be cancelled globally which is 
perfectly acceptable science. If the device did break Newton's third 
law in its entirety, then virtually all of physics would need to re-
written and most scientists would find it difficult to accept such a 
theory because of the counter evidence gathered from centuries 
of work.

The excitation of the electromagnets are assumed to be from a 
rectangular wave. Since the rectangular wave is merely the sum of 
sinusoidal functions given by a Fourier series, it is easy to see that 
in theory at least, the local momentum generating effects should start 
to appear if more than the fundamental harmonic is present in the 
excitation. Energizing the electromagnets with sinusoidal wave forms 
merely allows the radiating of energy in the form of photons which 
is Maxwell's theory. Photons unfortunately yield virtually zero 
thrust. But turning the excitation to a rectangular wave yields 
extremely large thrust. The theoretical maximum is 50% of the force 
experienced between two electromagnets when they are fully 
switched on, turned into unidirectional thrust. The maths (not 
included) conveniently express unidirectional force generated as a 
percentage of the force measured between two electromagnets when 
they are fully on. This percentage changes as the frequency or shape 
of the excitation wave is changed, if the mark space ratio is altered 
and if the total power delivered to the electromagnets is changed due 
to unwanted physical phenomena (such as inductance). The designs 
for practical devices give 25% maximum but its likely to be much 
less than that when put into operation. 

The effects are large and should be measurable.

If anyone wants to build a 'Star Wars' (as in the movie) type 
thrusters, building the Stellar Drive is the real way to proceed. 
Fabrication of high speed electromagnets is difficult but I have 
worked out a scheme for implementing it using GaAs photocell ring 
arrays fabricated onto the surface of a chip and illuminated by high 
speed laser pulses (in the picosecond region) to energise it. Because 
high speed lasers have low mark space ratios, the operation of the 
Stellar Drive Array could be severely affected. However, based on a 
consideration of total power consumed, a 100W laser shining over a 
large area array (around one square metre) should be able to generate 
around 1W of mechanical power in the form of unidirectional thrust 
with prototypes even if the mark space ratios are low.

Improvements in the efficiency of the device can be worked out once 
the physics of picosecond magnetics is better understood.

This device requires very little capital expenditure to build working 
prototypes compared to work done with ion drives & large thrusters. 
All we need is a GaAs chip to be manufactured and a picosecond 
laser facility to test it. The Stellar Drive is not an 'anti-gravity' 
machine but a proper unidirectional thrust generating engine. As 
such the device could for example control the flight of a missile 
without any control surfaces because of the way it creates forces 
within an object, eliminating the need for complex mechanical 
attitude and spin control systems. Because the Stellar Drive Engine 
can be turned on and off extremely quickly, it can be used to control 
the flight path of high speed projectiles where mechanical systems 
cannot intervene on time. It can also be used to stabilise high speed 
wings in supersonic flight against vibrations through its use to 
deliver a dampening force on the wing tip where no mechanical 
systems can compete because mechanical systems do not have the 
slew rate needed to achieve the desired result.

It does not take much imagination to put Stellar Drives to military use 
in space. Small solar powered Stellar Drive engine based 'pebbles' (an 
object about a metre in size!) can be put into large high velocity 
holding orbits that can then be switched to target missiles in an all 
out ICBM offensive scenario. These pebbles would be deployed at 
the first hint of tension and would remain in orbit for months if 
necessary. It is much more cheaper than launching large rail guns 
which can be evaded by targets that change velocity. It is better than
chemical propellant based pebbles because they need to be serviced 
frequently with fuel if they are deployed. Stellar Drive Engines have 
higher slew rate allowing the pebble to change directions much 
faster than mechanical systems will ever be able to do. The pebbles 
are powered by solar panels while in holding orbits but switch to 
chemical batteries when in interceptor mode. Enough pebbles are 
held in storage orbits that can be switched to graded interceptor 
orbits with intercept times in the order of minutes to tens of minutes.

Satellites equipped with Stellar Drives and a power source such as a 
solar panel or nuclear battery can change their orbits frequently 
because they do not run out of fuel. It is possible to think of 
building dual use satellites that function in low earth orbits and at 
geostationary orbits.

Because satellites need constant fuel to keep them in low altitude 
and non equatorial geostationary orbits (to repel the excess force of 
gravity), it is possible now to think of deploying Stellar Drive driven 
satellites that generate the counter balancing force to repel an excess 
gravity vector. These satellites are far more useful in that they have 
much narrower footprints and deliver a lot more power to the 
receiving aerials. They are also much easier to control because they 
don't need complex thruster orientation/firing sequences and 
associated complex orbital trajectories to achieve desired 
positioning in space.

Stellar Drive engined planetary probes powered by nuclear batteries 
or solar cells can be sent off to reach their destinations more quickly 
because the drives can accelerate the probe half of the way and 
decelerate the other half of the journey. The intervening velocities 
reached can be quite high shortening the length of the whole 
journey.

As for building systems that would take off and land from Earth (as 
in the movie 'Star Wars'), I believe there is a long way to go for 
increasing power to weight ratios before we see such vehicles. 
Regrettably, the device cannot provide warp drive. You may however 
accelerate for a year at a time at g and achieve simulated warp drive. 
Each additional year will add another warp factor. Unfortunately 
your sense of time will be slowed down that will allow you to get to 
your destination apparently at speeds greater than c but what really 
happens is that you will travel at speeds close to c while the rest of 
the Universe ages faster around you. Einstein worked this out in his 
theory of relativity and I have no idea at present on how to 
circumvent Einstein's time dilation effects.

On a less technical note, some of you must be wondering why go to 
all this bother building all these things. In a round about way I have 
a motive. I personally believe that planets and planetsimals out 
number stars by anything from 2:1 to 5:1 in most stable galaxies and 
because of that I believe that life should have existed in millions of 
planets. The fact that life does not appear to be common and that we 
cannot see any beacons left by other intelligent life forms suggests 
to me far more sinister things are happening than meets the eye. The 
universe is too silent. When you see life and its struggles to exploit 
every niche for survival on just Earth alone, trying to comprehend 
the total silence of the cosmos is an insult to any intelligence. At the 
moment, I believe with our advanced SQUID devices and the like, it 
is far better to listen (e.g. the SETI programme) rather than talk (as 
we do by broadcasting radio waves in all directions in virtually all 
channels). The last thing we need is a hostile visitor that cannot 
tolerate any other forms of life. That a hostile culture dominates this 
part of the universe may be a pretty good one of two reasons why 
there is so little life to be found (the other reason being the sheer 
pessimistic statistics associated with probabilities of stable life 
systems evolving which may in the end turn out to be true). If we are 
faced with hostile culture situation we need to be ready.

The physics of this device although fitting neatly into standard physics 
without violating Newton's laws, still leaves room for awful rewrites. 
For example, if the device works, it is not necessary for objects to 
reach escape velocity to leave the gravitational pull of another 
object. This line of argument is treading on dangerous territory since 
black holes are assumed to exist on the assumption that escape 
velocity is greater than c and so light must become trapped. There 
are many such niggling doubts that surface once the principles of the 
theory are accepted. For example, what happens at the microscopic 
quantum levels if interactions arise that lead to local momentum 
generation or if escaping fields carry momentum instead of 
'particles'.

Incidentally, Feynman's ideas about magnetism as an extension of 
electrostatics are better suited to describing the Stellar Drive than 
standard classical models of magnetism. Since Feynman's model is 
totally equivalent to the classical model, we should not see any 
difference and that is just what we get when applied to the Stellar 
Drive.

All in all, in this project there is a lot of work here for 
students, academics, reporters, research establishments, defence 
companies and Government agencies who get involved.




AUTHOR'S NOTES

Please download and distribute this document freely in bulletin 
boards, Internet etc., but don't alter copyrighted content without 
prior permission other than to give credit to say who you are and 
where you downloaded from.



Anyone interested in involvement, donations or setting up research 
programmes can contact me through any of the following electronic 
methods:-

Compuserve 100273,350
Internet [email protected]
Fax +44 81 800 9915

Or through the old fashioned boring postal method:-

Joe Michael
23 Portland Rise
London N4 2PT
United Kingdom.


Requests for posting of information bundles and updates will be 
catered at $8 which include a minimal administration charge & 
international post.

I will reply to as many letters as I can. I am interested in any
strictly academic comments and cater for letters with professional and 
reasonable maths content. I am weary of claims made by people who 
have 'invented' gyroscopic anti-gravity machines and I am keen to 
disprove any such mechanism to promote the Stellar Drive Engine in 
its place. Students and companies wishing to be educated more on 
the subject matter can arrange for posting of information bundles 
and updates. Alternatively, if there is a group of you out there that 
need a lecture, then that can be arranged too (I travel widely).


Written by J. Michael

(C) Copyright J. Michael 1993

-- 
Joseph Michael

I'm not sure I understand this...

Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: The Stellar Drive Engine Space Propulsion System
Date: 28 Sep 93 14:51:56 GMT
Organization: Helsinki University of Technology
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Message-ID: <[email protected]>
References: <[email protected]>
NNTP-Posting-Host: vipunen.hut.fi

I think it is trivial, but anyhow I decided to post my reply to
article about The Stellar Drive Engine...

In free space this device produces zero thrust.

The catch is that there is no force between fields but between
magnets, always. There is no flaw in Maxwell's equations.