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Defense Intelligence Reference Document The Space Communication Implications Of Quantum Entanglement

Defense Intelligence Agency · 32 pages · text from the file's own layer

This Defense Intelligence Reference Document (DIA-08-1003-016), dated 30 March 2010 and produced by the Defense Intelligence Agency under its Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications (AAWSA) Program, reviews quantum entanglement and nonlocality. It asks whether they could carry observer-to-observer signals faster than light or backward in time, with real-time control of a Mars rover as an example. It finds no compelling answer yet and says the question must be settled by experiment.

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Figure 12. Schematic of Earth-to-Mars Real-Time Control of a Rover
In order to avoid having to transmit two streams of entangled photons, the equivalent
of the two fiber-optic links in Figure 10, at the base station the photons from one image
slit would be polarized horizontally and those the other slit would be polarized vertically
before transmission. Then, at the Earth control station, detection of the polarization of
photons in the stream would constitute "particle" measurements, while separating,
rotating to the same polarization state, and recombining the waves so that they could
interfere before detection would constitute a "wave" measurement.
In parallel with this nonlocal link, a conventional microwave or optical link would be
used to communicate video images and other data to the Earth station. The video
images and data would experience a propagation delay equal to the transmission
distance divided by the speed of light, and would arrive at the Earth station seconds,
minutes, or hours after they were transmitted. The entangled photons would experience
the same delay, but the nonlocal control signal would be sent backwards up the time
stream, arriving at the probe at the instant the video signals and data were being
transmitted, so that the nonlocal signal could steer and control the probe in real time,
and an Earth-based operator could "drive" the rover on Mars using virtual-reality
techniques. One can imagine driving the Mars Rover around the planet, actively
steering around obstacles, activating analysis instruments in real time as interesting
objects were found, and actively controlling repair equipment to deal with problems
that arise.
Such a communication loop (conventional + nonlocal) would be a light-like loop, with
the two-way send and receive points located on the light cone. As such, it would not
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Report, from the dia collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 32 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.