Rockets. The Chinese invented them back in 1232 A.D. Since then, the Europeans took the concept and ran with it. A solid or liquid propellant, ignited and forced through a narrow funnel like a venturi which causes the escaping gases to increase their velocity of flow, thereby pushing the rocket in the opposite direction, which is usually up. They have been used mostly for military purposes, and for the last 60 years, for space exploration.
Werner Von Braun developed the V-2 rockets for the Nazis in WWII, and then after the war, was head of NASA, overseeing the Apollo program that sent astronauts to the moon. The Saturn V version was the largest rocket ever constructed, a direct descendant of the V-2s built by Von Braun.
But as man cast his eyes beyond the moon and further into space, he quickly realized that the chemical thrust produced by rocket technology was very limited. The enormous amount of fuel required just to achieve escape velocity is dwarfed by the further amount needed to propel rockets any distance into space at anything close to useful speeds, and are completely insufficient to reach even the edge of our solar system in a reasonable amount of time, let alone our nearest stellar neighbor, Proxima Centauri, a mere 4.3 light years away. With our current rocket technology, such a journey would take hundreds of thousands of years–a completely impractical endeavor.
So then why do books, films, television series and science fiction art continue to portray futuristic spacecraft with engines in the rear, all using some form of chemical thrust? Even the Star Trek franchise, with its “Warp Drive,” still uses thrusters to maneuver at low velocity, i.e., into and out of space dock. Many stories and films are set in the far future, sometimes thousands of years so. Given how far we’ve advanced in the century since the Wright Brothers first short flight, wouldn’t man have advanced much farther in thousands of years, so much so that he would have mastered a system that would be much farther advanced than we are today from Kitty hawk, NC? Many authors have latched onto the so-called “Alcubierre Drive,” which purports to use a gravity wave to “surf” through space, but even this has its limitations, namely, it’s only theoretical, and hasn’t been proven as a functional system.. Another system is “Ion Drive,” which NASA is currently developing. Much better than chemical thrust, but nowhere near capable of even approaching the kind of speeds necessary to reach the stars.
So what is the answer? What system of propulsion could propel man into intergalactic space and beyond in a scientifically realistic fashion? Well, how about antigravity? But you say it too is only theoretical. Actually, it isn’t. An electrical engineer named Thomas Townsend Brown, and Dr. Paul Biefeld (a close friend of Einstein), worked together to produce actual experiments of an antigravity system known as “electrogravitics” as far back as the 1950s. Indeed, T.T. Brown began his experiments with electrogravitics as early as the 1920s. Together with Dr. Biefeld, he produced many successful flights of a small saucer using their electrogravitic system. They were so successful that the US Navy took interest, and ordered Biefeld and Brown to conduct a demonstration. While the Navy claimed the demonstration was unimpressive, shortly thereafter the pair established “Project Winterhaven,” and set up shop in a large warehouse in Los Angeles, which was highly classified. Rumor had it that the Navy set them up to perfect their system. Their work in antigravity has been studied by the likes of physicist Dr. Thomas Valone and physicist Dr. Paul LaViolette. Both confirm the validity of the “Biefeld-Brown effect of electrogravitics, and even claim the system is being used today, namely in the B-2 Spirit stealth bomber.
In November of 1988, a friend of Mark McCandlish was at Norton AFB, and claimed to have seen three saucer-like craft that were powered by what he described as an electrogravitic propulsion system (Senator Alan Cranston and Congressman George E. Brown Jr. were in attendance). McCandlish was told the craft had faster than light capabilities. He produced a film about the incident titled “Zero Point: The Story of Mark McCandlish and the Fluxliner.”
When discussing T. T. Brown’s electrogravitic system, aircraft historian Michael Schratt said this – “An underlying theme is that T.T. Brown propulsion, once developed, will usher in an age of flight so revolutionary it will make all previous aviation from the Wright Brothers to space shuttles constitute the stone age of flight.” Mr. Schratt is correct. He also said “there is no way man will get to the stars using chemical thrust.”
Chemical thrust is woefully inadequate. But there’s no need to wait for Alcubierre drive, or Ion drive, or even Star Trek's warp drive, because antigravity drive is already here. However, the late Ben Rich, former head of Lockheed Skunkworks smashed us over the head with the reality that “We already have the means to go to the stars, and it won’t take a lifetime to get there (i.e., antigravity). But these technologies are locked up in black projects, and it will take an act of God to get them out to benefit the public.”
So while Scarecrow and his fellow members of Solar Warden are flying around the stellar neighborhood using antigravitic FTL drive, you and I will have to wait for that “Act of God” that Ben Rich mentioned, before we can travel to and from work like George Jetson.
Too bad.