Documents / FOIA release
This 1992 JPRS report, dated 16 June 1992 and held in the CIA collection, translates a Rabochaya Tribuna article by Vladimir Lagovskiy called "Flight to Alpha Centauri." The article reports that specialists at the Experimental Machine Building Scientific Research Association say they built a high-temperature superconductor. They propose using it for a saucer-shaped spacecraft driven by electron flux. Scientist Vasiliy Shabetnik also describes an "energy conversion" process that he says could power a flight to Alpha Centauri and back in 12 years.
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# Concatenated JPRS Reports, 1992 ## Document 4 of 20 electron emitters will be mounted in a circle. The charged particles will bathe the ship. As they move, they will create a current and an electromagnetic field. And a field and current will simultaneously arise in the superconducting layer. What will happen? The fields and currents will begin to interact with ampere force. Simply speaking, their carriers will repel one another. And this is incomparably more efficient than the interaction of the simple electromagnetic field of a craft and the earth's geomagnetic field. The ship will soar and appear to sail in the very electron medium that it formed around itself." 13. The sphere is the ideal shape for interstellar travel. "'Saucers"' are best for travel in the atmosphere. It is therefore obviously necessary to create a craft with a changing geometry. Its start from the surface will require only an extremely modest electrical force. About 100 amperes will suffice for a 5-ton spaceship. It will be easy to maneuver by increasing or decreasing the currents along its sides. ## 14. From a Superconductor 15. Scientists are essentially proposing an electromagnetic method of travel. But it has been fundamentally modernized. The idea itself is not subject to doubt. But will it be possible from an engineering standpoint? Superconductors are needed. The record, i.e., minus 80 degrees Celsius, would be fine for space. There the temperatures are much lower. But this threshold is not enough for the atmosphere. 16. ''But have you forgotten,'' wonders Vasiliy Dmitriyevich, ''that we have proposed superconductors that maintain zero resistance at 850 degrees Celsius?' 17. ''I have not forgotten. But all that is still just plans.'' 18. ''Yes, they are just plans, but they are entirely realistic.'' 19. Shabetnik and his colleagues are certain that they have discovered new fundamental laws governing the structure of matter. This knowledge makes it possible to explain the properties of matter in a way never attempted before-on the basis of probability and statistics. A more natural approach has been proposed. 20. Researchers have demonstrated, for example, that the physical parameters of all elements depend on the number and state of their elementary particles. It has even been possible to establish the shape and structure of these building blocks. And it has turned out that everything in the material world around us is subject to exact calculation. Everything from boiling point and entropy to
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FOIA release, from the cia-readingroom collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. The text was read from the page images by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word. 5 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.