Talk:Field propulsion

Cleanup
A reviewer recently upgraded this article to Start class, which seems high for an article with so many issues. This article is way to brief for this extensive topic, in addition, many necessary terms are overloaded words whose meaning is unclear in this context. Much of the text appears to be WP:OR. There are no inline citations except for the two on the last brief paragraph as raw urls. We'll keep the article as Start class, but it needs a lot of work to stay there.

Most of the examples given in this article are for controversial and speculative theories, so I added this article to the Alternate View projects. Aldebaran66 (talk) 19:22, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

Field propulsion
The subject of this page "Field Propulsion" does not specifically refer to "Field Propulsion" as it applies to "Space Propulsion". "Field Propulsion" is not a speculative form of propulsion, but has been proven possible under another name "Magnetohydrodynamics" in which "Fields" are used for "Propulsion". If the article disregards "Field Propulsion" methods which are not specifically applicable to "Space Propulsion" then the article is not accurate. There is no real argument against applying such principles to space propulsion, as the underlying method is well proven. The only issues are production of sufficient power and whether space itself has sufficient reactive coupling. The method is most definitely not speculative, as "Magnetohydrodynamics" is well proven. This article deserves far more editing. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.159.34.98 (talk) 04:34, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

Speculative methods
This statement in the Speculative Methods section is obsolete:

"Any such schemes worthy of discussion must rely on energy and momentum transfer to the spacecraft from some external source such as a local force field, which in turn must obtain it from still other momentum and/or energy sources in the cosmos, in order to satisfy conservation of both energy and momentum.[citation needed]"

A startling discovery was made in 2002 by Jack Wisdom at MIT - his paper "Swimming in Space-Time" published in Science describes a process that permits an object to move within a gravitational field by producing a series of deformations that exploit the curved topology of spacetime, without any exchange of momentum or energy: http://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/6706/AIM-2002-017.pdf?sequence=2

Additional work has been done to explore and generalize his original flash of insight:

“Swimming” versus “swinging” effects in spacetime, Geuron 2006: http://arxiv.org/pdf/gr-qc/0510054v2.pdf

Swimming in curved space or the Baron and the cat, Avron and Kenneth 2006: http://iopscience.iop.org/1367-2630/8/5/068/fulltext/

Extended-body effects in cosmological spacetimes, Harte 2007: http://arxiv.org/pdf/0706.2909v2.pdf

And Guéron published this article about the effect in 2009: http://www.nature.com/scientificamerican/journal/v301/n2/full/scientificamerican0809-38.html — Preceding unsigned comment added by Informedskeptic (talk • contribs) 07:34, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

Henry Wm Wallace 1971 Kinemassic Field Generator
Wikipedia's page discussing the topic of "Field Propulsion" does not contain reference to the 1971 patented invention by electronics engineer and inventor under the auspices of General Electric, Henry Wm Wallace, who invented what he called a "kinemassic" field generator. This patent is available online; I have a copy of it, and it should be included, discussed, analyzed, and given some consideration as a potential pathway toward a practicable field propulsion device. The Wallace device uses a rotor/stator configuration, both rotor and stator are to be manufactured using a half-integer spin nuclear isotope such as bismuth metal. This device requires very close tolerances, precision machining, and quite high RPM. The field effect develops gradually. Experiments to verify this field effect were done, but the results were held confidential. New R&D needs to be done and the results need to be publicized with full methodology. New alloys made with half integer spin isotopic metals could be tested, such as LiquidMetal Technologies new metal alloy, especially if all metals used in the alloy are half-integer spin nuclear isotopes.

I thought it was interesting that you had a proposal to have the "field propulsion" section removed from Wikipedia. In my opinion, if we don't go to field propulsion technologies in aerospace, we will be severely disadvantaged when others make breakthroughs.

The Henry Wm Wallace patent is available at: http://www.geocities.ws/jcfdillon/wallace.html — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.185.128.75 (talk) 10:37, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

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merging content from Breakthrough Propulsion Physics program
We have some descriptions of various hypothetical space drives parked at Talk:Breakthrough_Propulsion_Physics_Program/Dumping_ground. They are taken mostly from this document:. No one has known where to put it, from its own articles to merging into Breakthrough Propulsion Physics program and then taken back out. The first three sections concern drives based on manipulation of gravitational fields. Thoughts on whether they belong in this article? The examples might help clarify this article, but it might give these examples undue weight. Cyrej (talk) 08:07, 22 February 2018 (UTC)

"Limits" section does not consider remote energy sources
The “Limits” section of the article states that an energy source must be present on a spacecraft.

But, Laser electric propulsion (a technology far closer to being reality than field propulsion) could obviate the need for a spacecraft to carry all its fuel.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_propulsion#Laser_electric_propulsion

I'd suggest the Limits section be removed, unless good references can be found to support it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Timcgrant (talk • contribs) 16:42, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

Propulsion in gravity field
Here's a proposed propulsion method in gravity field https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/61761/propellantless-propulsion-in-gravity-field 159.148.78.57 (talk) 08:47, 7 February 2023 (UTC)

Undo Redirect from Propellantless propulsion
the redirect should never have been made in the first place. there are a variety of physically plausible propellantless propulsion methods, but which are also not "field propulsion" such as:


 * light sail


 * photon rocket


 * gravity assist maneuver


 * momentum exchange tether


 * electric and magnetic sail (and other solar wind ion interaction schemes)


 * black hole starship


 * penrose process — Preceding unsigned comment added by 135.180.116.182 (talk) 23:04, 24 January 2024 (UTC)