Mach Effects and Rapid Spacetime Transport

Over the past several years Mach effects have been explored as a possible source of propellantless propulsion. Until June of 2006 this work was done at CSUF using a Unimeasure U‐80 position sensor fitted with a diaphragm spring, making it a thrust sensor. This work suggested that thrusts on the order of 100 μN could be produced in laboratory conditions with devices employing capacitors enclosed in coils of wire suitably energized—Mach Lorentz thrusters (MLTs). As a check on this work, two devices tested at CSUF were sent to Nembo Buldrini at the Austrian Research Center (ARC) in Seibersdorf for testing using a thrust balance designed and built there to test small thrust devices. Results obtained by Buldrini in tests in December, 2005 and February 2006 suggested that any thrusts that might be present were smaller by a factor of about 0.3 or less than those obtained at CSUF. This suggested that either the thrust signals seen at CSUF were spurious, or that the U‐80 was markedly more sensitive to very small thrusts than simple linear scaling from calibration conditions indicated should be the case. To explore these possibilities, Thomas Mahood designed and built an approximate replica of the ARC thrust balance—which he dubbed the “ARC Lite” thrust balance‐so that Buldrini's results could be checked at CSUF. Various technical problems with the balance have been addressed since the summer of 2006. Preliminary results obtained with the ARC Lite balance were reported at STAIF2007. Here, the refined version of the balance is described and results obtained with MLTs optimized for operation in special circumstances are reported. Those results suggest that MLTs may well make viable thrusters for a variety space applications. More importantly, however, if MLTs actually work, that means that the Mach effect mass fluctuation equation is essentially correct. Since that equation contains a term that is always negative—that is, that predicts an inducible transient negative mass—this technology holds out the promise of making sufficient negative mass to create practical wormholes, stargates, and warp drives.