Secret Star Wars program

[supernode]

A lot of things are kept under lid. As ex-Lockheed Skunkworks director Ben Rich is reported to have said: "We already have the means to travel among the stars, but these technologies are locked up in black projects and it would take an Act of God to ever get them out to benefit humanity...Anything you can imagine, we already know how to do."

Other referral to his testimonial, shortly before passing away:
Lockheed Skunk Works Chief Ben Rich remark to Jim Goodall

[Satanic Mechanic]

As a fan and reader of many of the Skunkworks projects for the last fourteen years, I doubt Ben Rich said "we could go to the stars" on his death bed.  If he did, it was probably a joke or a side-effect of the chemotherapy.  He died of cancer in 1995.
I am not surprised about the youtube video saying that the Skunkworks is 50 years ahead of its time.  There are many technologies that have never been utilized until decades later, e.g. the bladeless turbine, Frequency Modulation and AC power.  We are still trying to figure out radio signal propagation to this day.

SM

[supernode]

Jan Harzan (pic) is the Director of MUFON O.C. He was the source of the rumor that Ben Rich made statements in a presentation he gave to the group of engineers which happened to be members of a UCLA Alumni association who were invited to hear his presentation on March 23, 1993.

The late Ben R. Rich, a UCLA School of Engineering alumnus (MS '50) who is known as the "Father of Stealth," is recognized as one of the best aircraft engineers in the world and led development of the heralded F-117 stealth fighter.

Here is what Jan, a Senior Project Executive with Boeing told about Ben's presentation:

- Ben showed slides and went through the history of the Skunk Works. Showed pics of U2 and SR-71 and drones that no one had seen before.

- The kicker was the last slide. It showed a black disk headed for space. Ben showed this and made the statement, "We now have the technology to take ET home". He made this statement in 1993, but did not say how long we have had this tech.

There was a Q&A after the lecture. In this Q&A, he told the engineers that it was now possible to travel to the stars. There was an error in the equations which was corrected. The time of travel is fast, but he didn't say how fast.

Ben said he believed that security was too oppressive and that the time had come to develop this technology in the commercial world now that the cold war has ended.

[ijuin]

I don't doubt that the Skunkworks and other secret programs have materials and engineering decades ahead of any non-classified programs. I DO doubt, however, that they can do stuff for which the basic math and physics are still unknown to the public--e.g. faster-than-light travel. To do that, they and their foreign counterparts would have to have abducted or suppressed every physicist worldwide in the past several decades who stumbled onto a "sensitive" theory and tried to publish a paper about it--something doubly impossible in an era where you can post something online and hundreds of people can read it faster than the CIA could even react to it.

[supernode]

You omit some evidence from the court of law. We live in a wide universe which offers more information than that contained on a planet. There has been interaction, instruction, application.

Article 1
Article 2

[jdbenner]

Could Ben Rich, have been talking about Project Orion, or about Laser sails?  Either could launch a payload to several % of the speed of light, making travel times to the closest stars only one or two generations. 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/documentaries/features/mars-a-bomb.shtml

http://nextbigfuture.com/2007/02/photonic-laser-propulsion.html

[ijuin]

Laser sails are quite practical, assuming that we care to put big enough lasers in orbit to drive them--it's really more a question of money and earth-to-orbit lift capacity, rather than one of technology.

We have quite a few propulsion concepts that are quite workable for fast sublight travel--VASIMR, for example, which is capable of putting out an ISP ten to one hundred times greater than current ion thrusters, and without the thrust ceiling of ion engines--the only practical limit is how much power you can put into it before the hardware melts from the heat. The current biggest obstacle to VASIMR is not technical, but rather the political barriers to launching a sufficiently powerful nuclear reactor to power the thing--you really need several megawatts of power to get the 30-day Earth to Mars transit time that VASIMR could make possible. Notice how Project Prometheus, the plan to build a new generation of nuclear reactors for space, has been shelved indefinitely?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VASIMR

However, I don't think that the government is keeping secret a working theory of faster-than-light propulsion when at the same time the same government is spending billions of dollars openly on researching one--if they already had one, they'd slash the amount of funds being spent on searching for it and spend it on something else.

[jdbenner]

Ijuin, I do not think that the government has much of any Secret capabilities.  So I would agree with your assessment of current faster than light capabilities.

One thing more,  Why do we need to place the lasers in orbit?  We have the option of using more than one Laser. (this overcomes earths rotation, and local weather)  We also have Adaptive Optics, and the ability to use balloons to lift Lasers above most of the atmosphere.  I think that leaving the lasers on earth would save money, and bypass the treaties against orbital weapons.

[ijuin]

The problems with putting the lasers on Earth's surface is that number one, the air absorbs part of the laser energy and number two, air will tend to spread the beam. If you want to drive a manned mission in any reasonable time, you need gigawatt-class lasers.

[isael23]

okay i'm new here so why put lasers on earths orbit i mean why do we want to do this

[jdbenner]

Yes, placing the lasers on Earth could lead to beam spreading (Due to the lower index of refraction of heated air)  and some of the laser energy would be absorbed by the atmosphere.  But locating lasers on earth saves on launch costs, makes repair easer and power is cheaper  here.

But if the air is a problem that can not be addressed, there is still the option of tall towers or balloons.  Or we could use Microwaves with a Synthetic aperture antenna up to the diameter of the earth.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phased_array
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Very_Long_Baseline_Interferometry

isael23, If a laser is to be used to power an interstellar spacecraft, the laser should preferably be able to provide constant power for the length of the acceleration.  The laser should be able to deliver most of its energy to the spacecraft.

An orbiting Laser Can keep its beam pointed in one direction essentially indefinitely (if the orbit is selected for the intended laser target)

An orbiting Laser does not have to deal with the atmosphere.  The Hubble Space Telescope is in orbit, so that it does not have to deal with the atmosphere.

An orbiting Laser Can have a larger aperture since gravity will not warp the mirror.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defraction

[ijuin]

Balloons? We're talking about lasers with a beam output of over a gigawatt--which means one BIG superconducting power cable, or else its own power plant to run it. We're talking the equivalent of the entire power output of one fairly large nuclear reactor.

For comparison, in Dr. Robert L. Forward's novel Rocheworld, fifteen hundred gigawatts of laser power is used to accelerate a starship whose payload mass is eight hundred tons (the rest of the mass is the lightsail and support truss). Even at that stupendous power output, it still takes twenty years of constant output to reach 20% of the speed of light.

[jdbenner]

      Why does the power cable have to be Superconducting?  Many Power lines on earth exceed 30 miles.

I have read Rocheworld, Dr. Robert Forward.  Had a two stage sail to decelerate.  That is not necessary,  A magnetic sail, such as Mini Magnetosphereic propulsion, could act as a parachute to slow into orbit around the destination star.  This should reduce the required range of the laser and reduce the mass of the spacecraft. 

Also there were several chemically fueled Landers with propellant in the payload to Rocheworld.  The point is that mass can be reduced.

It is also not necessary to reach 20% of the speed of light.  5% c will make the trip to  Rigil Kentaurus, in under a Century.  10% light speed would allow travel to any of the 25 closest stars (other than the sun) in under 120 years.   

[supernode]

I don't doubt that the Skunkworks and other secret programs have materials and engineering decades ahead of any non-classified programs.

Considering testimonies from other ex-workers in covert aerospace programs, it seems reasonable to assume that eg. zero gravity spaceflight exists. Interviewed by award-winning reporter George Knapp, Robert Lazar sets out how this technology was reverse engineered from off-planet sources. Link

Of course, some will suggest that mr. Lazar made this whole story up. This is the usual innuendo about not trusting anyone that doesn't comply with what is revealed through mainstream news channels.

Lt. Colonel Philip Corso explains in some excruciating detail how this process unfolded in his post-mortem biography 'The Day after Roswell'. Link

[jdbenner]

I doubt that Aliens have visited Earth.  I actually Doubt that Aliens even exist.  However, for the sake of argument let us assume that aliens from another star system have visited Earth.  Why would they have faster than light travel, antigravity more advanced Physics?  We could already make the trip with advances to existing Technologies.  Perhaps E.T. Lives a long time, and hundreds of years spent on the trip are equivalent to ten years Post Doctorate studies for a human.

If we do have advanced Alien technology, How could it be kept secret for more than 40 years?  Why not use it to save our boys in Vietnam?  How come no one has defected to the Soviet Union, with information that would allow him to live like a king?  How come the Chinese are not selling Teleporters with plans purchased by their spies?