Boeing, the world’s largest aircraft
manufacturer, has admitted it is working on experimental anti-gravity
projects that could overturn a century of conventional aerospace
propulsion technology if the science underpinning them can be engineered
into hardware.
As part of the effort, which is being run out of
Boeing’s Phantom Works advanced research and development facility in
Seattle, the company is trying to solicit the services of a Russian
scientist who claims he has developed anti-gravity devices in Russia and
Finland. The approach, however, has been thwarted by Russian
officialdom.
The Boeing drive to develop a collaborative
relationship with the scientist in question, Dr Evgeny Podkletnov, has
its own internal project name: ‘GRASP’ — Gravity Research for Advanced
Space Propulsion.
A GRASP briefing document obtained by JDW sets
out what Boeing believes to be at stake. "If gravity modification is
real," it says, "it will alter the entire aerospace business."
GRASP’s
objective is to explore propellentless propulsion (the aerospace
world’s more formal term for anti-gravity), determine the validity of
Podkletnov’s work and "examine possible uses for such a technology".
Applications, the company says, could include space launch systems,
artificial gravity on spacecraft, aircraft propulsion and ‘fuelless’
electricity generation — so-called ‘free energy’.
But it is also
apparent that Podkletnov’s work could be engineered into a radical new
weapon. The GRASP paper focuses on Podkletnov’s claims that his
high-power experiments, using a device called an ‘impulse gravity
generator’, are capable of producing a beam of ‘gravity-like’ energy
that can exert an instantaneous force of 1,000g on any object — enough,
in principle, to vaporise it, especially if the object is moving at high
speed.
Podkletnov maintains that a laboratory installation in
Russia has already demonstrated the 4in (10cm) wide beam’s ability to
repel objects a kilometre away and that it exhibits negligible power
loss at distances of up to 200km. Such a device, observers say, could be
adapted for use as an anti-satellite weapon or a ballistic missile
shield. Podkletnov declared that any object placed above his rapidly
spinning superconducting apparatus lost up to 2% of its weight.
Although
he was vilified by traditionalists who claimed that gravity-shielding
was impossible under the known laws of physics, the US National
Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) attempted to replicate his
work in the mid-1990s. Because NASA lacked Podkletnov’s unique formula
for the work, the attempt failed. NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in
Alabama will shortly conduct a second set of experiments using
apparatus built to Podkletnov’s specifications.
Boeing recently
approached Podkletnov directly, but promptly fell foul of Russian
technology transfer controls (Moscow wants to stem the exodus of Russian
high technology to the West).
The GRASP briefing document
reveals that BAE Systems and Lockheed Martin have also contacted
Podkletnov "and have some activity in this area".
It is also
possible, Boeing admits, that "classified activities in gravity
modification may exist". The paper points out that Podkletnov is
strongly anti-military and will only provide assistance if the research
is carried out in the ‘white world’ of open development.
