A mechanical engineer by training, Rob has gathered information from far and wide to assemble this presentation on gravity drives, the alien cultures that produce them and the earthly inventors and investigators who work on the cutting edge of this area of research. This talk will cover a number of gravity drives that we know about from such diverse sources such as David Adair, John Hutchison, David Hamel and John Searle. Our collective level of knowledge about some of these gravity drives ranges from being sufficient to reproduce them, to nothing more substantial than gossip.
One example of advanced tech that Rob will discuss is craft from the red giant Aldebaran, a star shown on the Hertzsprung–Russell diagram. Aldebaran has the reputation of being the “Detroit” of the Milky Way. It is said to manufacture ships for several alien races. Similar to our sun but 4 billion years older, with a diameter of 38 million miles, it is 44 times the size of our sun. When our sun goes through its red giant phase, it will engulf Mercury, incinerate Venus and Earth, boil away our oceans and sterilize the planet. However, given the sophistication of the space ships that this civilization allegedly makes, it is plausible that the inhabitants moved the orbit of their planet to avoid destruction. To do this, they would’ve required a gravity drive. The case of Aldebaran is but one that will figure into this survey of the drives reportedly used by various advanced civilizations.
Rob will give us an overview of the “cream of the crop” of gravity drives. He will explain how they work and compare their mode of operation with the principles of known physics. Several of these devices are not similar, but violate similar laws of physics. This may help us understand which laws of physics are on shaky ground. These drives are well documented in the public literature, but violate laws of physics that are pretty durable. So even if we could build them successfully, we still would not fully understand how they work.
Alternately, Rob will describe devices that do not violate any laws of physics, ones that we understand sufficiently so they could be engineered in the public sphere today. These devices would not require exotic materials to build, just elbow grease and engineering skill. Rob will describe the budget and logistics needed to take a drive concept from the theoretical stage to a functioning model, ready to travel in interstellar space. Rob is serious about this and is currently seeking interested entrepreneurs with the wherewithal and gumption to undertake a singular and potentially lucrative project of this kind.
ABOUT ROB
Rob is a Mechanical Engineer with a Bachelors Degree from the University of Colorado (1975). He also holds a Master of Science Degree in Gas Dynamics from the University of Colorado (1976), and currently engineers tunnel ventilation systems for AECOM, a large civil engineering firm. Rob also has a Masters Degree in Mechanical Engineering from MIT (1981), where his thesis was on the vibration of rotating objects. Rob also has a Masters Degree in Management from MIT (1981) with a specialization in Finance and Management Information Systems. For the past 30 years, Rob has engineered exotic industrial equipment for industries as diverse as luxury yachts, microwave synthesizers, incinerators, and control systems.
