The
Stellar Drive Engine is an electromagnetic device for generating
unidirectional thrust. It has no
moving parts and generates
unidirectional thrust based on a flaw
in Maxwell's electromagnetic
equations which manifests itself when
two conductors carrying
current with harmonics greater than
the fundamental interact through
their magnetic fields. The vector sum
for these interacting magnetic
fields is zero when the excitation is
sinusoidal (which is in general
agreement with default observations
based on standard calculations)
but they are not zero for sustained
non-sinusoidal excitations.
A simple way to explain how a Stellar
Drive works is to take two
electromagnets made from copper wire
with an air core and glue
them back to back with an intervening
plastic rod between them.
The importance of not using an iron
core (normally used to enhance
the electromagnet's strength) is that
with an air core, the
electromagnets are not magnetic when
switched off. Using copper
for the wire and plastic for the
intervening rod makes the whole
assembly non-magnetic. If the
electromagnets have magnetic cores,
or if there are any significant
magnetic materials nearby, the device
will not work at the expected
efficiencies. Figure 1. shows the
arrangement of the non-magnetic
electromagnets and the plastic rod.
When electromagnet one switches on,
its field will propagate to
electromagnet two. Before the field
reaches electromagnet two,
electromagnet one is switched off.
Thus we get a travelling pulse of
magnetic pulse that would eventually
sweep past electromagnet two
at the speed of light. As the pulse
from electromagnet one arrives at
electromagnet two, electromagnet two
is switched on.
Electromagnet two's field interacts
with the passing field from
electromagnet one and electromagnet
two would be attracted to
electromagnet one. (The arguments
remain consistent whether the
force is attraction or repulsion.)
Electromagnet 1 Electromagnet 2
:---: :---:
: :------------------: :
: : : : Figure 1
: : : :
: :------------------: :
:___: plastic rod :___:
While the field from electromagnet one
is interacting with
electromagnet two, the rod feels a
unidirectional push towards
electromagnet one. In free space, the
rod and electromagnet assembly
would be accelerated unidirectionally.
The situation is true while the field
from electromagnet one is
passing over electromagnet two. To
create the equal and opposite
force, the magnetic field from
electromagnet two races to
electromagnet one to interact with it
to create the equal and
opposite. But here it encounters a
problem. Electromagnet one is
switched off and since there is
nothing magnetic there it cannot
interact with it and so it must pass
through it unaffected.
The consequence of this escaping field
is that we have created local
momentum. Once all the fields have
escaped the device, there is no
way of cancelling the locally
generated momentum.
After the field from electromagnet two
has passed through
electromagnet one, the momentum
generating cycle can be repeated.
Electromagnet one is pulsed on and off
again and as the field passes
through electromagnet two, it is also
pulsed on and off again
generating more momentum. In theory,
the device can keep on
accelerating forever if there was a
method for energizing the coils on
and off in the incredibly short
periods needed for the interactions to
be observable.
Because magnetic fields travel at the
speed of light c, the energizing
method must be very quick so as to
generate the appropriate pulsed
magnetic fields.
The device has no moving parts, yet it
generates thrust. If it were to
be rotated clockwise ninety degrees
and placed on a weighting
machine (that has no magnetic
components nearby) we would see the
weight of the device lessening . The
weight loss would be
proportional to the amount of power
fed to the electromagnets.
Changing the phase at which the
electromagnets are turned on and
off and the frequency with which they
are turned on and off will also
register proportional thrust. The mark
space ratio of the rectangular
wave used to turn the electromagnets
would also affect the thrust
generation characteristics of the
drive.
The Stellar Drive would appear to be
violating Newton's third law
but if we look closely it does not
violate Newton's laws. The
escaping fields have pulling power.
The fields escaping to the left
have more pulling power than to the
right because the fields escaping
to the right have interacted with
electromagnet two and thereby
diminished its strength whereas the
field escaping to the left is much
stronger because it has not interacted
with anything. These fields
will terminate on distant objects and
pull them cancelling the locally
generated momentum.
This part of the theory more than
anything else allows the Stellar
Drive to exist because from a
theoretical point of view, Newton's
third law is violated locally only to
be cancelled globally which is
perfectly acceptable science. If the
device did break Newton's third
law in its entirety, then virtually
all of physics would need to re-
written and most scientists would find
it difficult to accept such a
theory because of the counter evidence
gathered from centuries
of work.
The excitation of the electromagnets
are assumed to be from a
rectangular wave. Since the
rectangular wave is merely the sum of
sinusoidal functions given by a
Fourier series, it is easy to see that
in theory at least, the local momentum
generating effects should start
to appear if more than the fundamental
harmonic is present in the
excitation. Energizing the
electromagnets with sinusoidal wave forms
merely allows the radiating of energy
in the form of photons which
is what Maxwell's theory. Photons
unfortunately yield virtually zero
thrust. But turning the excitation to
a rectangular wave yields
extremely large thrust. The
theoretical maximum is 50% of the force
experienced between two electromagnets
when they are fully
switched on, turned into
unidirectional thrust. The maths (not
included) conveniently express
unidirectional force generated as a
percentage of the force measured
between two electromagnets when
they are fully on. This percentage
changes as the frequency or shape
of the excitation wave is changed, if
the mark space ratio is altered
and if the total power delivered to
the electromagnets is changed due
to unwanted physical phenomena (such
as inductance). The designs
for practical devices give 25% maximum
but its likely to be much
less than that when put into
operation.
The effects are large and should be
measurable.
If anyone wants to build a 'Star Wars'
(as in the movie) type
thrusters, building the Stellar Drive
is the real way to proceed.
Fabrication of high speed
electromagnets is difficult but I have
worked out a scheme for implementing
it using GaAs photocell ring
arrays fabricated onto the surface of
a chip and illuminated by high
speed laser pulses (in the picosecond
region) to energise it. Because
high speed lasers have low mark space
ratios, the operation of the
Stellar Drive Array could be severely
affected. However, based on a
consideration of total power consumed,
a 100W laser shining over a
large area array (around one square
metre) should be able to generate
around 1W of mechanical power in the
form of unidirectional thrust
with prototypes even if the mark space
ratios are low.
Improvements in the efficiency of the
device can be worked out once
the physics of picosecond magnetics is
better understood.
This device requires very little
capital expenditure to build working
prototypes compared to work done with
ion drives, large thrusters.
All we need is a GaAs chip to be
manufactured and a picosecond
laser facility to test it. The Stellar
Drive is not an 'anti-gravity'
machine but a proper unidirectional
thrust generating engine. As
such the device could for example
control the flight of a missile
without any control surfaces because
of the way it creates forces
within an object, eliminating the need
for complex mechanical
attitude and spin control systems.
Because the Stellar Drive Engine
can be turned on and off extremely
quickly, it can be used to control
the flight path of high speed
projectiles where mechanical systems
cannot intervene on time. It can also
be used to stabilise high speed
wings in supersonic flight against
vibrations through its use to
deliver a dampening force on the wing
tip where no mechanical
systems can compete because mechanical
systems do not have the
slew rate needed to achieve the
desired result.
Satellites equipped with Stellar
Drives and a power source such as a
solar panel or nuclear battery can
change their orbits frequently
because they do not run out of fuel.
It is possible to think of
building dual use satellites that
function in low earth orbits and at
geostationary orbits.
Because satellites need constant fuel
to keep them in low altitude
and non equatorial geostationary
orbits (to repel the excess force of
gravity), it is possible now to think
of deploying Stellar Drive driven
satellites that generate the counter
balancing force to repel an excess
gravity vector. These satellites are
far more useful in that they have
much narrower footprints and deliver a
lot more power to the
receiving aerials. They are also much
easier to control because they
don't need complex thruster
orientation/firing sequences and
associated complex orbital
trajectories to achieve desired
positioning in space.
