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Advanced Space Propulsion Based on Vacuum (Spacetime Metric) Engineering (entered by Rep. Burchett)

U.S. House Committee Repository · 17 pages · text from the file's own layer

This is an unclassified Defense Intelligence Reference Document (DIA-08-1003-015), dated 29 March 2010. The Defense Intelligence Agency prepared it under the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications (AAWSA) Program, and Rep. Burchett entered it into the House committee record. The paper uses a general relativity metric tensor approach to look at how engineering spacetime might enable propulsion, including warp drives, apparent superluminal travel, reduced effective mass and antigravity. It finds these ideas consistent with physics but far beyond present engineering capability.

REFRACTIVE INDEX EFFECTS
When considering metric-engineered
spacetime associated with exotic
propulsion, a number of corollary side
effects associated with refractive index
changes of the vacuum structure
emerge as possibilities. Expected effects
would mimic known refractive index
effects in general and can therefore be
determined from known phenomena.
Indistinct boundary definition associated
with "waviness" as observed with heat
waves off a desert floor is one example.
As another, a light beam may bend (as
in the GR example of the bending of
starlight as it grazes the sun; see Figure
2) or even terminate in mid-space. Such
an observation would exhibit features
that under ordinary circumstances
would be associated with a high-
refractive index optical fiber in normal
space (well-defined boundaries, light
trapped within, bending or termination
in mid-space). Additional observations
might include apparent changes in size
or shape (changes in lensing Figure 2. Light-Bending in a Spacetime-Altered
magnification parameters). Yet another Region
possibility is the sudden "cloaking" or
"blinking out," which would at least be consistent with strong gravitational lensing
effects that bend a background view around a craft, though other technical options
involving, for example, the use of metamaterials, exist as well.
EFFECTIVE MASS IN SPACETIME-ALTERED REGIONS
As noted in the preceding sections, spacetime alteration of energy and light-speed
measures leads to an associated alteration in the effective mass of an object in a
spacetime-altered region as viewed from an external (unaltered) region. Of special
interest is the case in which the effective mass is decreased by application of spacetime
metric engineering principles as might be expected in the case of metric engineering for
spaceflight applications (reference last column in Table 1). Effective reduction of inertial
mass as viewed in our frame of reference would appear to mitigate against untoward
effects on craft occupants associated with abrupt changes in movement. (The physical
principles involved can also be understood in terms of associated coordinate
transformation properties as discussed above.) In any case, changes in effective mass
associated with engineering of the spacetime metric in a craft's environs can lead to
properties advantageous for spaceflight applications.
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