ENERGY FOR SPACE PROPULSION

"Space Propulsion - Can Empty Space Itself Provide a Solution" by H. E. Puthoff, pp 42-46, and "Breaking Through to the Stars" by Marc G. Millis,, pp. 36-40, Ad Astra, February 1997, available corn the National Space Society, 600 Pennsylvania Ave., S.E., Suite 201, Washington, DC. 20003, describe the problems of finding energy for intentellar space travel and potential solutions.

Millis calculates that sending a ship the size of the current space shuttle on a trip to our nearest star (4.5 light years away) at a speed such that the trip takes 1,000 years with use of shuttle-style chemical rockets is impossible, since the rockets would require more mass for propulsion than the total of all mass in the known universe. Even futuristic rockets using ion engines or antimatter are impractical. Propellant requirements with these methods for a single 100-year trip to the nearest star are estimated at about 300 million supertankers of fuel.

Puthoff and Millis discuss solutions to this problem based upon experimental and theoretical physics which indicates that space is not empty. It is, according to Richard Feynman and others, filled with energy so dense that it is at least comparable to nuclear energy densities. This sea of energy jiggles in "zero-point fluctuations" that may give rise to mass, inertia, gravity, and even discontinuities in space and time.

It is hypothesized that future interstellar travelers may extract their propulsion energy from the vacuum itself, alter inertia and gravity to reduce their energy needs, or even travel through space-time disconti- nuities to reduce the effective distance of their journeys. All of this isapparently acceptable within the theories and equations of modem physics, and laboratory experiments are beginning to demonstrate the possibility of human manipulation of the zero-point fluctuations.

Human journeys to (and colonizations of) Mars and other bodies in our solar system are now possible because of the theoretical and experimental work of scientists and engineers during the past few centuries. Now, the theoretical and experimental framework is being laid for journeys to the stars by future generations. Let us hope that humanity has the wisdom to continue these efforts. A human lifespan cannot be measured by time alone. It is a product of time and experience. As technology - such as that used for space travel - enriches the experi- ences of human life, whether by actual or vicarious participation, it adds to the effective human lifespan.

If space travel eventually enriched each life by one percent (I think the fiv should be very much higher), then we could calculate: (250,000,000) (4,000,000) / (100) = $10 trillion as the value of space travel to the current population of Americans alone and over $100 trillion to humanity as a whole.