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This Defense Intelligence Reference Document from the Defense Intelligence Agency, dated 1 November 2010, is one of a series of advanced technology reports produced in FY 2009 under the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications (AAWSA) Program. It proposes a provisional cockpit design for craft driven by speculative breakthrough propulsion, such as control of gravity and inertia and faster-than-light travel. It draws mainly on the book Frontiers of Propulsion Science and on human-machine interface research.
“The Advance”11 pages
UNCLASSIFIED/ ,'F811. 8FFll!l*L 1!1!11! t!IIU:!Y which is a speed that is still three orders of magnitude beyond the highest speeds achieved to date. Another modification for star trackers will be required for FTL travel. In essence, with FTL flight, the vehicle arrives at the destination ahead of time-in an unfamiliar way. To understand this, recall that a// information we see from the cosmos is old. Those images have taken a while to reach us, and the reality at their point of emission has continued forward in time. For example, when we see sunlight, the image is more than 8 minutes old. The images we see from Alpha Centauri show what it looked like over 4 years ago. Thus, if we could zip to Alpha Centauri instantly, over 4 years of time would have elapsed since we last looked at it. Alpha Centauri's condition will be a surprise upon arrival. Therefore, any star tracker to accompany FTL flight must take into account the trajectories of astronomical objects so that their positions can be accurately predicted to correspond to the correct time of arrival in both spatial and temporal coordinates. There is no known precedent for this situation. In support of the forgoing discussion, we are speculating that heretofore unknown advances in physics regarding the quantum vacuum and the nature of inertial frames will result in new motion-detection technology. In researching future propulsion breakthroughs, the utility of sensing and affecting such phenomena is pertinent. Compilations of Implications The following list is a compilation of the characteristics discussed in this section about the possible features associated with breakthrough flight. While the list is admittedly incomplete, it conveys the most significant differences compared to conventional methods of flight. • Six degrees of independent motion/orientation: - Translational motion: fore/aft, left/right, up/down. - Rotational (orientation): pitch, yaw, roll. • Distinct inner and outer environments for inertial and gravitational forces. • Speeds encompassing zero, subrelativistic (<0.1 c), relativistic (0.1 c :5 v < 1.0 c), and beyond light-speed, yet expecting a travel limit of about a 100-light-year radius around the Sun. • Three flight regimes: - Near the surface of gravitating body (where gravitational direction provides natural orientation). - Orbits around a gravitating body (where cues for entering orbit are required for the pilot). - Deep-space flight (without obvious orientation cues or obvious sense of motion). 16 UNCLASSIFIED/ ;'P81il 8FFI&I.«1k WEE ODIi ¥
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Report, from the dia collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 57 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.