MARS and back in 2 days...

[Koen1]

Now I bet this has been suggested before,
but would it not be possible to "simply" use
antennae and panels to absorb energy in the form of
cosmic and solar radiation to charge batteries,
and use that to power electrokinetic thrusters?
That would reduce the weight as a lot less rocket
fuel would be needed...

And we could surely build an electromagnetic railgun
on the moon to launch craft with?
Surely we do not necessarily have to launch every
bit of thrust in the form of a huge fuel tank before
we can consider shooting off to Mars?
Only getting back would require either fuel brought along,
or another railgun on the Mars end...
But it seems to me that would at least save half the fuel...

The biggest problem is probably how to break when you
get there, which might be solvable (thinking of using slingshot
effect and cutting of magnetic field lines there to both produce
decelleration and provide power for the batteries once again),
and the "chunky salsa" effect of high speed accelleration in the railgun.

[z.monkey]

Howdy Y'all,

I just can't believe no one has mentioned the SEG here.  When a Searle disk is spun at a low speed it generates electricity.  When you spin it at higher speeds it becomes a anti-gravitational device.  If we build a high performance SEG we could generate an anti-gravitational field around a significant ship.  The SEG also is generating electricity when it is running in antigrav mode so you could use the electrical power to charge some Bifield Brown Nacelles to provide the thrust via high voltage elastic cohesion with the air, like a lifter.  John Searle may be one of the few true geniuses left in the world.

Now lets get more sophisticated.  Lets take a look at alien technology.  They use an inertia canceling devices that creates an independent gravity system for the ship.  This includes navigational gravity and shipboard gravity.  The system is two large counter rotating disks which have a large amount of weight around the periphery of the disks.  The two disks are in close proximity on the same axis and spun at a great velocity.  This is like a double gyroscope with each wheel spinning in the opposite direction.  An electromechanical control system allows the spacial proximity between the two disks to be altered by the pilot of the ship.  By mechanically altering the symmetry between the two disks the "down" side of the gravitational field is changed, and the ship "falls" toward the "down" side.  Keep in mind that the "down" side can be in any direction of the X, Y, and Z axises.  This enables the ship to "fall" up.  Within the ship the gravitational forces are rectified to maintain an environment that is free of the tremendous gravitational forces used to navigate.

I have investigated this concept to the limits of earthbound knowledge.  There are far more sophisticated systems I am sure.  I have read about ships that can traverse the planes of existence.  A ship that normally exists on the etheric plane, and can come into the physical plane at will.  Theoretically there are ships that travel at the speed of intangible light, which moves far more rapidly (maybe a thousand times) than visible light.  Then there is the teleportation phenomena.  Supposedly the whole human DNA includes the code for powers that we only dream of.  Unfortunately, our DNA is damaged and we cannot access our "higher" powers until we have evolved to a point where we can repair our own DNA.  These powers include telepathy, telekinesis, teleportation, egoic knowledge, and freedom from death.  When man masters DNA we will be able to teleport ourselves to another planet at will, no ship required.  Of course we will probably come up with a Stargate before then.

So the next time you see an alien who had to make a pit stop on our puny, little, backward planet to take a wizz, go jump in his ship and take off with it.  Then come over to my place, and we will reverse engineer the technology.  I am sure that will only take a couple of hours, then we can return the ship to the alien, and he can get on his way.  Hopefully he won't raygun us, and we will have the secrets of interstellar travel.  Then we will build a cool antigravity ship and go cruising the galaxy for space chix...

Blessed Be Brothers...

[Koen1]

Right.

Well, unconventional huge gyroscope setups are nice ideas but will need
large amounts of energy and you need to bring that somehow...
The only versions I know of that have been tested used earth-based
launch platform where an earth-based motor spun it to a high enough
speed, then it could lift off and fly and as the rotation slowed down it
would come down again. But it took a huge lot of power and it needed
the launch pad to fly...
The Searl disc is interesting but as far as I know nobody has been able
to replicate it on anything but a smaller scale, and even then it did not fly.

There are several interesting technologies that normal humans have
invented that are usefull for propulsion, we really don't need aliens for that.
Of course standard electrokinetics and electrogravity (Biefeld Brown effect etc)
come to mind, as well as the Jeff Cook coil...

The main problem of manned spaceflight at very high speeds is, in my opinion,
a twofold one: On the one side we will need quite a lot of energy to accellerate
and decellerate the craft, which leads to its own problems of either using internal
propulsion and needs a fuel tank or fuel collection, or external propultion (launch
system) that also still needs fuel, and that needs to be on both ends of the trajectory
in order to get both there and back. On the other side we need to keep the people
inside the craft in one piece during accellerations that would normally reduce a
person to ketchup.
So, what we need seems to be a significant decrease of inertia of the craft and
its occupants, so that it does not take as much energy to achieve accelleration,
and the people inside don't experience the high accellerations.

The TR31-B "flying triangle" comes to mind, it was claimed (by people who
came forward in the disclosure project I believe but am not certain) that
contained a large circular mercury plasma accellerator, the effect of which was
that everything inside that circle decreased in effective inertia quite a lot,
and this lowered the effective weight of the craft so much that it could
easily lift iself and its crew, mercury ring, fuel tanks, machinery, everything,
with just three relatively small jet engines and could achieve phenomenal speeds.
The Belgian airforce chased one of those for a while back in the '80s, and
have the radar footage to show it. Thousands of citizens witnessed the
triangle being chased by 2 F16 jets and simply shoot off to the horizon
as if the F16 were standing still.

[utilitarian]

Now lets get more sophisticated.  Lets take a look at alien technology.  They use an inertia canceling devices that creates an independent gravity system for the ship.  This includes navigational gravity and shipboard gravity.  The system is two large counter rotating disks which have a large amount of weight around the periphery of the disks.  The two disks are in close proximity on the same axis and spun at a great velocity.  This is like a double gyroscope with each wheel spinning in the opposite direction.  An electromechanical control system allows the spacial proximity between the two disks to be altered by the pilot of the ship.  By mechanically altering the symmetry between the two disks the "down" side of the gravitational field is changed, and the ship "falls" toward the "down" side.  Keep in mind that the "down" side can be in any direction of the X, Y, and Z axises.  This enables the ship to "fall" up.  Within the ship the gravitational forces are rectified to maintain an environment that is free of the tremendous gravitational forces used to navigate.

No, that's not true.  Everybody knows that the Zorkons use interdimensional travel.  Inertia canceling/artificial gravity is so obsolete now.

[Steven Dufresne]

Well, unconventional huge gyroscope setups are nice ideas but will need
large amounts of energy and you need to bring that somehow...
The only versions I know of that have been tested used earth-based
launch platform where an earth-based motor spun it to a high enough
speed, then it could lift off and fly and as the rotation slowed down it
would come down again. But it took a huge lot of power and it needed
the launch pad to fly...

This sounds interesting. Do you have any links?

The Searl disc is interesting but as far as I know nobody has been able
to replicate it on anything but a smaller scale, and even then it did not fly.

It was replicated back in 2000 by Roshin and Godin.
http://ether.sciences.free.fr/acrobatfiles/Searl-Roshin-Godin.pdf
The first few paragraphs don't work for me (probably in a language that
I don't have fonts for) but the rest is okay.

While we're at it, there's also David Hamel's device consisting of metal
cones and magnets. There have been claims of replication but no proof
given.

And then there's Podkletnov's gravity shielding, rotating superconductor.
Hmmm... the list goes on.
-Steve
http://rimstar.org