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This Defense Intelligence Reference Document from the Defense Intelligence Agency, dated 6 April 2010, is one in a series of FY 2009 advanced technology reports produced under the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications (AAWSA) program. It reviews the physics of zero-point field energy in the quantum vacuum and proposed schemes for extracting it, including the Casimir effect, Forward's vacuum-fluctuation battery, and resonant dielectric spheres. It notes that no practicable extraction technique has been demonstrated in the laboratory.
“electromagnetic effects”19 pages
• • • • UNCLASSIFIED/ ,'l"e" Cl"l"!e1,it tl!!L e11t I Low-temperature van der Waals forces . Casimir effect . Source of photon shot and fluctuating radiation-pressure noise in lasers . Astronomically observed cosmological constant (aka dark energy, a form of Casimir energy according to the Schwinger-DeWitt quantum ether prescription [Reference 1-4]). Rather than eliminate the ZPF energy from the equations, there is much left to be learned by exploring the possibility that it is a real energy. From this perspective, the ordinary world of matter and energy is like foam atop the quantum vacuum sea. If the ZPF is real, then there is the possibility that it can be tapped as a source of power or be harnessed to generate a propulsive force for space travel. This notion of exchanging energy with the quantum vacuum is the focus of this paper. An aircraft propeller or jet engine can push air backwards to propel the aircraft forward. A ship or boat propeller does the same thing in water. On Earth there is air or water to push against. But a rocket in space has no material medium to push against, and so it needs to carry and eject propellant in order to provide momentum. A deep-space rocket must start out with all the propellant it will ever require, and this quickly results in the need to carry additional propellant just to propel the propellant. The breakthrough desired in space travel is to eliminate the need to carry propellant at all, that is, to generate a propulsive force without carrying and ejecting propellant? vi UNCLASSIFIED/ /P8"1 8PPU!lit.1!! l!l!il! 8111!!¥
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Report, from the dia collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is under it. 57 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.