A NASA engineer has invented an unbelievable device! In short, he has discovered an unclear principle, The inexplicable new fundamental force, and the development of thrusters that can be driven without propellants, seemingly defying the known laws of physics, but producing enough thrust to cancel out 1 Earth's gravity, and not violating the laws of conservation of energy, believes that it is a historic breakthrough that could be a game-changer, and may affect space travel for the next thousand years, and is currently seeking financial support to launch the thruster into space for testing.
That's right, the anti-gravity device, although the NASA engineer didn't say it's anti-gravity, but he does be a member of an anti-gravity research group, so we're going to be entering highly unknown territory today, and we're talking about something outside of mainstream science, which is currently on the fringes of science. In order to discuss this invention more scientifically and avoid misleading everyone, I will first devote some space to the background of this invention.
A true expert who is like a fake
The engineer, Dr. Charles Buhler, is the founder and chief research scientist of NASA's Electrostatic and Surface Physics Laboratory at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, which is responsible for the launch and operation of several of NASA's mission-critical missions. Dr. Charles Buller is one of the top experts in electrostatics, and it may even be necessary to remove this "one" because he has long been responsible for electrostatic discharge (ESD) management and safety for the Space Shuttle, the International Space Station, and the Hubble Telescope.
NASA's latest news about Dr. Bühler is an April 10 article on NASA's website: "NASA Technology Helps Defend Against Moon Dust," which describes an electrodynamic dust shield (EDS) technology being developed by Dr. Bühler's team to help spacecraft and astronauts deal with dust on the surface of the Moon and Mars, creating the first line of defense for long-term human stays on the Moon. So Dr. Bühler is a true expert, and his work and importance at NASA is unquestionable.
But it's important to note that Dr. Bühler didn't announce the invention as a NASA scientist, and he made it clear that the work had nothing to do with NASA and the U.S. government, but was the result of the Exodus propulsion technology team he co-founded, which is made up of engineers and scientists from NASA, Blue Origin, the Air Force, ExxonMobil, and the legal and business elites.
As for why it claims that it has nothing to do with NASA, it may also be because the principle of this invention is not clear, it is still outside the existing understanding of human beings, and it does not belong to the research scope of mainstream science, so I don't want to bring more trouble to NASA.
A circle of true scientists who are keen on fringe science
So the mainstream media didn't report on the invention either, but on a news website called The Debrief, which claims to be future-focused, cutting-edge science and technology, providing serious, honest, and rigorous journalism on cutting-edge technology, future science, defense intelligence, and knowledge beyond human comprehension.
And the platform for the release of this invention is the Alternative Advance Energy Conference (APEC), abbreviated as the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, not to be confused. Founded in 2020, APEC bills itself as the craziest science club on the internet, working to tackle anti-gravity and breakthrough propulsion.
APEC is composed of scientists from NASA, Air Force, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), MIT and other institutions, and APEC has formed a circle of about 100 people, of which at least 16 are current or former NASA scientists and engineers, and another 14 are from MIT, Harvard University and other well-known research institutions.
APEC members regularly hold online meetings to discuss topics or ideas outside the scope of mainstream science, the so-called fringe theories, with the most important focus on anti-gravity science and technology, and dozens of conferences have been held over the past three years, and Woodstock, considered the field of anti-gravity research, is considered to be the field of anti-gravity research - the 1969 counterculture madness music festival, which is considered to have had a huge impact and twist on modern music.
So this is a circle of true scientists who are passionate about marginal science, and the ideal is to create future technologies that go beyond the scope of human existing knowledge.
Non-propellant drive that violates the conservation of energy
Dr. Bühler began his research on propellant-free drive more than 20 years ago, and it took him 25 years to finally discover around 2020 that electrostatics could be the key to opening the door to propellant-free drive.
If it is indeed proven successful, Dr. Bühler should undoubtedly thank NASA and the state for allowing him to work in the system for money while studying the marginal sciences of civil science research, and also applied for international patents and founded his own company.
The Bühler team's device is an "asymmetric capacitance" that uses a voltage difference to create an electric field between at least one conductive surface, which, since the electric field is asymmetrically distributed, causes a net electrostatic pressure to be generated on the surface of the object, the magnitude of which is related to the geometry of the conductive surface, the applied voltage, and the dielectric constant of any material present in the electrode gap.
The theoretical basis of such a device is the Mach principle, which states that the inertia of one object is related to the gravitational effect of all other masses in the universe. In simple terms, this means that an object's inertia is created by its interaction with all other matter in the universe.
In 1999, Thomas L. Mahood of the Department of Physics at California State University tested the change in mass inertia by changing the energy density of high-energy capacitors by rapidly charging and discharging, and found that the mass of the reactive dielectric material could change instantaneously by up to ±10%. This suggests that if the timing of the external energy pulses can be precisely controlled, we can generate a net thrust without emitting reactive propellants using only electricity as a "fuel", which is equivalent to converting electrical energy directly into physical thrust, thus providing a possible way to develop propulsion technologies that do not use conventional propellants.
In early research, Dr. Bühler's team used extensive mathematical calculations and developed many models and configurations to finally get the propellant-free drive unit to produce a thrust of just 1/100,000 above Earth's gravity between 2016 and 2020, with the highest system reaching about 10 millinewtons.
And in 2020, after successfully applying for a patent, the team customized a vacuum chamber that simulated a deep space environment, began testing their device, and found the key to increasing thrust. They then abandoned the old asymmetrical capacitor design in favor of a relatively asymmetrical board design, and used a variety of charge carrier coatings applied to the dielectric film, while also overcoming the high voltage breakdown challenges of lightweighting, and finally achieved encouraging results, with thrust jumping to 1/10,000th of the Earth's gravity.
And after 2022, the progress of the Bühler team is even more shocking, in less than two years, the thrust has climbed step by step to one thousandth, one hundredth, one tenth, and by November 2023, it has finally reached 1 Earth gravity! This means that their latest device, weighing about 30-40 grams, can already generate enough thrust to counteract the full gravity of the Earth, in other words, it can already levitate!
Most astonishingly and unexplainably, the Bühler team also discovered an unusual phenomenon in which their devices were sometimes able to maintain thrust even without a constant charge input, which seemed to violate known laws of physics. Sometimes their devices sit on the scales for days, but as long as they remain charged, they continue to generate thrust, which scientifically seems to defy the law of conservation of energy, Dr. Bühler said.
Dr. Bühler said this is a clear indication that a new fundamental force is at work that is capable of producing thrust from their equipment without the need to emit anything or use conventional propellants. This new mechanical phenomenon is based on asymmetries in the electric field – in particular electrostatic pressure or electrostatic divergence – that can exert a non-zero force component on the centroid system without physical emissions. In short, an object can be propelled by an electric field without releasing mass to balance the momentum, and the electric field itself is sufficient to generate the propulsive force.
This is undoubtedly a new discovery, but it challenges existing physical theories, as it seems to suggest that there is some unknown mechanism of energy conservation or generation. This discovery, if further validated and understood, could lead to significant changes in our fundamental understanding of energy, force, and propulsion technology.
Other propellant-free drives
Of course, Dr. Bühler's team is not the only one conducting research on propellant-free drives, and friends who have followed me for many years will remember that a few years ago I introduced the famous EM Drive, the so-called electromagnetic thruster or relative thruster, which uses the radiation pressure of microwaves that repeatedly bounce in a confined space to generate thrust, which is also considered to violate the conservation of momentum and cannot explain its scientific principles.
NASA has tested the EM Drive and confirmed that it produced a tiny thrust that caused a global sensation. Chinese scientists have also done a lot of testing and are rumored to have been on satellites, but never released the results of the tests in space. Finally, in 2018, tests by German scientists suggested that the thrust generated by the so-called EM Drive may simply be the interaction of the device's wires with the Earth's magnetic field.
The U.S. company IVO has developed the Quantum Drive, which claims to be the world's first pure electric propulsion technology that has been tested and validated in low-Earth orbit, representing the future of space propulsion. This drive makes use of the theory of quantum inertia proposed by British physicist Mike McCulloch, which argues that inertia originates at the quantum level and interacts with Anlu radiation, which is expected to be visible to accelerating objects in quantum field theory.
However, this theory is not widely accepted, the so-called Anlu radiation has never been observed, and quantum drives are thought to violate Newton's laws and thermodynamics. But IVO insists it has conducted vacuum tests in the lab and produced 10 milliN of thrust, which can eventually produce up to 52 milliN of thrust with 1 watt of electricity, which is far more than the ion thrusters currently widely commercially available.
IVO launched a satellite aboard a Falcon 9 rocket last November in an attempt to test the quantum drive, but the satellite's electrical system failed, causing the test to fail, so their website says it has been verified in space, which may be up for debate.
The more successful propellant-free drives are the heists, also known as ion-propelled aircraft, which are considered to be similar to anti-gravity devices, but they actually generate thrust by ionizing air, and the largest helevers are currently not sufficient to generate enough thrust for manned flights or useful loads.
So you see, judging from the current research and development progress, the propellant-free drive has not actually been proven, and the principle is not clear, so can Dr. Bühler's really succeed?
Can propellant-free drives really succeed?
Dr. Bühler is convinced that this is a historic breakthrough that could be a game-changer, and that the discovery of this new fundamental force could affect space travel for the next thousand years, and he wants to send the most important message to the public that a major discovery has been made. The discovery of the new force is fundamental because the electric field alone allows an object to generate sustainable thrust and allows the center of mass of the object to translate without emitting mass, and if handled properly, we can generate any force that has never been produced before by humans.
However, I think his statement of a new force may be debatable, because the electrostatic force is not a new force, it is still an electromagnetic force in nature. If their device did produce thrust, how this force was created is indeed worth a deeper study.
I just made a calculation, the comparison of the electrostatic force and the gravitational force between the protons and electrons inside the hydrogen atom, the electrostatic force turned out to be 2.27×10^39 times the gravitational force, nearly 40 orders of magnitude, which means that if the electrostatic force is released in some way, it can indeed greatly "counter" gravity. There are also many friends who may have done electrostatic experiments, and objects such as pieces of paper and hair can indeed easily resist the earth's gravity.
So let's hope this device is real, it will probably give human civilization wings to fly to interstellar space.
Reference:
https://www.nasa.gov/centers-and-facilities/kennedy/nasa-technology-helps-guard-against-lunar-dust/
https://thedebrief.org/nasa-veterans-propellantless-propulsion-drive-that-physics-says-shouldnt-work-just-produced-enough-thrust-to-defeat-earths-gravity/
论文：Propellantless propulsion: Recent experimental results exploiting transient mass modification