Talk:Breakthrough Propulsion Physics Program

Diametric Drive

"However, positive and negative gravity on a single spacecraft involves balanced forces within a structure, and would not result in acceleration." Unless I misunderstood the explanation, both forces are not acting on the spaceship. As far as I can tell, what it says is that the positive gravity is acting on the 'brick' of negative matter while the negative gravity is acting on the spaceship. If this is true, then the forces are in fact unbalanced. However, I have no higher claim to physics education beyond highschool level, and it is entirely possible I'm wrong.

76.183.171.22 (talk) 22:11, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes, the forces are unbalenced and the system accelerates so I have removed it. 210.138.117.211 added this line and rather underestimates the level of physics required by a NASA study in advanced propulsion. This pairing breaks no conservation laws. The energy for the system at high speed is the same as stationary, as is the momentum. The elephant in the room is simply that though the mathematics allows for negative as well as positive mass/energy, noone has been able to show that the negative values corrispond to anything we can physically observe. Ambix (talk) 01:01, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Doesn't V = 0 in that expression? 184.162.124.206 (talk) 07:53, 5 August 2015 (UTC)

Diametric weapon

I think the possible usage as a kinetic weapon should be stated.

Differential Sail

Someone who knows more than me needs to fix this; vacuum fluctuations are not related to cosmic background radiation.AtomSmith 09:09, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

I have attempted to fix this, because it bothered me. Unfortunately, I have messed up the footnote to a reference because I cannot find where it describes how to do this properly. My apologies. I just wanted to fix the factual error. Sorry to be such a noob. -- SD —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.107.135.113 (talk) 08:05, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Dysjunction drive

It would be interesting if someone with more knowledge on the subject could clarify the section on the Disjunction Drive. Specifically:

The electromagnet is turned on briefly, then turned off, emitting a pulse of electromagnetic radiation in the process.

Electrical energy would be consumed to create this pulse. Some would appear as heat. Is the remaining energy transformed into a "pull" that propigates toward the iron?

The EMP in the above example carries significant momentum, which it transfers to the plate.

This would seem to say YES to my question.

Imagine two objects floating freely in space, not at a great distance from each other (so speed of light is not an issue), connected by a rope. If object A pulls object B, B will move toward A but A will also move toward B. Does the same thing occur when the "rope" is an EMP?

If so, put A and B a light year from each other and switch back to EMP instead of rope. Can't A "pull" itself toward B whether or not B exists?

The above "paradox" is what fields are all about.

Care to elaborate?

To answer your original question, yes; the device will work even without the object B; if I understand your description correctly, the system is just a rocket with EM radiation as its propellant. Ben Standeven 21:46, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Field structure pertaining to gravity.

The subject of gravity can be supported by two- fold arguements ,the total field structurally here on the planets surface consists of numerous conjoining and blending dynamics.traditionally the mass/density is said to attract other objects to it but a myriad of affects may be the actul attraction.Torsion,surface-tension,electro-magnetic flux?Questionably the attraction is in a hyperinflexive enviornment to begin with(many faceted variable structured)

Updated information?

AFAIK, this program has been discontinued. Does anyone have any information to share? ---CH 21:59, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

Free energy

Under the diametric drive heading, the term 'free energy' as it is defined by the link to the corresponding article is used incorrectly.

non-breakthroughs

I've added this link:

• [1]

Some of that info should probably go on this page. Fresheneesz 08:26, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Pitch Drive

Here is what I emailed to the program manager way back:

"A magnetic field rate of change of the virtual field caused by the assemblage of point sources, at the pole, exceeds the pole's local magnetic field rate, thereby causing the magnetic monopole to appear."

It is a line of point sources one hundred meters long, one meter spaced, charged at 1 megavolt. Pushing the line of charges through the sun's magnetic field causes the monopole polarity. Push toward the sun and turn on and it attracts, push away from the sun with a small chemical rocket and turn on the voltage and it repels.

Pitch change was the terminology for the rate of parameter change in the abstract. My monopole pitch exceeds the local magnetic pole pitch rate. It all boils down to the infinite rate at the top of the magnet, and all magnets are fintite because of the size of the ferrocenters. Well that is a very small change, and I did email the idea in.

Disjunction Drive

"There is nothing in mainstream physics to suggest this is possible; indeed, from this description it is impossible to understand exactly what the idea behind this proposal is."

This statement seems a bit unencyclopedic & odd. Is the proposal as vague as this description?

And the statement that the Diametric Drive "sounds suspiciously like perpetual motion pseudoscience" is fishy, too. Is that the opinion of the author or someone else's opinion? Jordansc 20:21, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Deletion

It had a fact-check marker anyway, but I deleted text suggesting that a device that used a hypothetical negative mass to accelerate violates conservation of energy. Energy is equal to 1/2 * mass * velocity^2. Since this is proportional to mass, having negative mass implies negative energy; as the negative and positive masses accelerate, the negative mass gains negative energy at the same time the positive mass gains positive energy, for a net change in energy of zero. Therefore conservation of energy is not violated. Forward explained this in an article in Analog.

There are, however, other problems. It's supposed to be impossible to distinguish acceleration from gravity. However, if you put positive and negative masses in space in an elevator, accelerating the elevator would cause both of those objects to "fall" towards the bottom of the elevator, while in an actual gravitational field the positive mass object falls down and the negative mass object falls up. Ken Arromdee 03:00, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

react

OK with the negative energy rising with speed, but not with the negative mass in an elevator, "the negative mass would fall towards the positive as does any mass toward any other" so no problem.I am french, and i'm affraid to not really understand "However, positive and negative gravity on a single spacecraft involves balanced forces within a structure, and would not result in acceleration.".Does it mean that with a bond between the two masses, there won't be any acceleration resulting? First I would say no, and then why?Klinfran (talk) 19:57, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Technically you still can't distinguish acceleration from gravity - they are, in fact, one in the same. The simple direction difference between the negative and positive masses accelerations are not qualifiers for discrimination. There is no way, in a single reference frame, to distinguish the negative and positive masses - i.e. whether the earth is negative or positive mass and the object in question is positive or negative. Further, the magnitude of the acceleration should be identical for each object.

I would suggest reading up on Hawking's idea (in his universe in a nutshell book) that mass energy + gravitational energy = 0. In essence, you can create all the matter you want, as long as it has gravitational pull which he regards as a negative energy. If this is the case, then there could, in fact, be negative mass with positive gravitational energy, which behaves in an opposite manner. I would presume that annihilation due to matter-antimatter interactions would have gravitational energy considerations as well - but in any case, the mere fact that negative mass would accelerate in a different direction in a gravitational field does not in itself preclude its existence, especially since gravitational laws were formulated without accounting for this eventuality. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.238.64.194 (talk) 10:47, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Time travel?

"Millis retired from NASA on February 3rd, 2010, and continues to pursue similar research under the nonprofit organization Tau Zero Foundation."

I'm looking at this on 1/31/2010 and it's mentioned in the past tense. Is this date accurate?

207.5.203.11 (talk) 03:01, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Low Importance . . . ?

on the WikiProjects Physics importance scale ? I emphatically disagree & request a discussion on BPP's importance. If the BPP were properly funded over an extended period (instead of the $1.2 million over six years ??), the possibilities discovered might very well increase dramatically. It would profoundly alter every person's view of space exploration. And could there be a path that takes us to a new source of energy ? I think it would be arrogant for humanity to believe that every aspect of physics has been discovered and is known. PFSLAKES1 (talk) 23:25, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

There's no pretense that physics is a completed endeavor. New discoveries are expected to be made, but there's no way to know ahead of time exactly what those discoveries will be. In the mean time, one must work with what resources one has at-hand. All of the proposals of the BPPP are predicated on one thing: that some empirically very successful principle of physics is wrong. This isn't a trivial thing. There's no way to calculate the odds of any particular physical law being usurped by future progress. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.223.130.32 (talk) 22:49, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Title?

Why do the article name and first sentence disagree about the name? Is it "Program" or "Project"? Is the acronym BPPP or BPP? References please. 70.247.166.5 (talk) 02:29, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

see here please :-> abstract@ grc.nasa.gov:From 1996-2002, NASA supported the Breakthrough Propulsion Physics Project to examine physics in the context of breakthrough spaceflight. In this paper To leap past the limitations of existing propulsion, the NASA Breakthrough Propulsion Physics (BPP) Project seeks further advancements in physics from which new propulsion methods can eventually be derived. Also here under Identifying Critical Issues and Unknowns p.2: This process was applied by the NASA Breakthrough Propulsion Physics Project. -> Project. --Advanceddeepspacepropeller (talk) 18:52, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

Grammar

I don't understand this edit: [2]. The reverted edit, while clumsy, was grammatically correct, and the current text isn't even consistent. "in math"? "in mathematics"? Which one is it? I suggest the first simply be "The concept is expressed as" and the second "The bias drive and pitch drive is expressed qualitatively as". Jogar2 (talk) 13:09, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

Diametric Drive: x & y equals what?

In the equation for the diametric drive, what does x and y equal?

$V=(-m){\begin{bmatrix}{\frac {-G}{\sqrt {(x+d)^{2}+y^{2}}}}\end{bmatrix}}$ $+(+m){\begin{bmatrix}{\frac {-G}{\sqrt {(x+d)^{2}+y^{2}}}}\end{bmatrix}}$

where :

$x$ = ?

$y$ = ? -SGA314 (talk) 15:28, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

Hal Puthoff's involvement

It seems Hal Puthoff, one of the physicists who conducted the Parapsychology research at SRI and at Project Stargate with the CIA and Fundamental Fysiks Group back in the 1970s to 1990s was also involved with NASA on this project of theirs. According to the Parapsychological Association,

Puthoff works closely with NASA’s Breakthrough Propulsion Physics initiative; is Chairman of the Science Advisory Board of Bigelow Aerospace, involved in the construction of inflatable modules for space applications; regularly serves various foundations, corporations, government agencies, the Executive Branch and Congress as consultant on leading-edge technologies and future technology trends; is a member and officer of several professional organizations; and is listed in American Men and Women of Science, Who's Who in Science and Engineering, and Who's Who in the World; and has been designated a Fetzer Fellow (1991).

http://archived.parapsych.org/members/h_puthoff.html

This seems corroborated by the fact that other scientists who worked on the Breakthrough Propulsion Physics Program such as Eric Davis are currently involved at Hal Puthoff's Institute for Advanced Studies at Austin:

Eric is currently employed as a Senior Research Physicist at the Institute for Advanced Studies at Austin. He is also the CEO/Chief Scientist of Warp Drive Metrics, and has provided contract services to the Air Force Research Laboratory, the Department of Defense, the Department of Energy, and the NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts. He was also a technical contributor and consultant to the NASA Breakthrough Propulsion Physics Program.

http://www.icarusinterstellar.org/team/eric-davis/

And note the page for the Institute for Advanced Studies, which lists both Puthoff and Davis as staff:

Harold Puthoff Ph.D., CEO Physicist

Dr. Puthoff is a theoretical and experimental physicist. A graduate of Stanford University in 1967, he has published over forty technical papers in the areas of electron-beam devices, lasers and quantum zero-point-energy effects, and has patents issued in the laser, communications, and energy fields.

Eric Davis Ph.D., Physicist

Dr. Davis received his Ph.D. in astrophysics at the University of Arizona in 1991. His research specializations include breakthrough propulsion physics, general relativity and quantum field theories, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, spacecraft exploration of the outer solar system, and space mission engineering.

http://earthtech.org/staff/

Neuroscience325 (talk) 00:22, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

Coatrack

Currently, most of this article is not about the Breakthrough Propulsion Physics Program. "The Breakthrough Propulsion Physics Project (BPP) was a research project funded by NASA from 1996-2002 [...]" - the rest of the article should also describe the program, not propulsion physics in general.

Connections between the ideas in the rest of the article and the main topic should be found in sources, or it needs to be moved out of this article.

The sources given were a 1997 paper by Millis, which can't say much about what happened in the program; a 2005 conference report by Miis which does summarize what happened in the program; and a 2009 book which has a chapter "Recent History of Breakthrough Propulsion Studies" but the rest is about physics theory.

I will be looking for connections to add, especially in the 2005 report. Excess material on propulsion physics ideas may get parked in my userspace. Cyrej (talk) 09:03, 8 February 2018 (UTC)

@Cyrej: Concurred on all points. Thanks for your contributions. Please do also have a look at Tau Zero Foundation, which could use some development. The one difference I'd take is that any material from the page, e.g. propulsion physics be archived on the article's Talk page or as a subpage, rather than in disconnected userspace, simply for reasons of accessibility. — ♞ Aeröwyn 15:46, 8 February 2018 (UTC)

Diametric drive section: I looked for sources of the diametric drive section. I found some sources on the concept but nothing connecting it to the article topic. So I'm removing it from this article. It's at Talk:Breakthrough_Propulsion_Physics_Program/Dumping_ground. Have not yet looked for an article where it might go. Cyrej (talk) 17:27, 8 February 2018 (UTC)

Thanks. This revision states:

After funding for research ended, the Project's founder and manager, Marc G. Millis, was supported by NASA to complete the documentation of results. The culmination of that work is the book, Frontiers of Propulsion Science, which was published in February 2009, by the American Institute for Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA). Chapter 3 (Prerequisites for Space Drive Science) provides refinements and deeper explanation of the following hypothetical "space drive" propulsion methods: diametric drive, pitch drive, bias drive, disjunction drive, and three variations of differential sails.

These are likely excerpts sourced from Chapter 3. If notable enough, all could be grouped together in an article on the physics of breakthrough propulsion (rather than the program).

— ♞ Aeröwyn 19:16, 8 February 2018 (UTC)

Same for the disjunction, pitch and bias sections. All of these concepts are only mentioned by name as hypothetical / thought experiments / illustrative examples in the one report (Millis 1997) and in this introductory chapter of the book. They are not in the rest of the book and are probably not subject of research (although the general principles might be). As such they will probably not end up being notable. Cyrej (talk) 11:02, 9 February 2018 (UTC)

I moved the Alcubierre drive section out. I didn't try improving this section, since it's already covered with better accuracy and detail at Alcubierre drive and White–Juday warp-field interferometer.

The Millis 2005 source, which summarizes the BPPP, mentions the Alcubierre drive in the introduction and as a further point of interest - however I couldn't identify it with any item in the list of projects and their outcomes. As far as I can tell the BPP project didn't investigate the Alcubierre drive and related theory, however if someone finds evidence that they did feel free to add it back in. Cyrej (talk) 17:49, 9 February 2018 (UTC)

I kept the 'differential sail' section, since this actually was done by the BPP. But I changed the section title, as the BPP wasn't working on a sail directly. Cyrej (talk) 17:22, 10 February 2018 (UTC)