DOES ANYBODY AT NASA HAVE THE RIGHT STUFF?

These are turbulent times at NASA. The shuttle program has run its course, and its showpieces are being parceled out to museums. Crazy anti-Science people are wielding lots of political clout, aiming some of their biggest, scariest guns at: Science and Exploration (in the name of Humanity). But human Space Flight is still at a Stone Age level. The work has truly just begun. Wise leadership is needed now, more than ever. And before NASA can focus on leading-- it must first survive. For sure, another headline-grabbing screw-up right now, such as the Hubble Telescope blurred vision fiasco, might prove fatal. NASA really, really needs a new HERO right now, to save them from imminent embarrassment potentially lots more damaging than the Hubble bumble. I am talking about the launch boost that can be borrowed from the Rotating Earth-- thus reducing the amount of man-made thrust needed to accelerate a rocket from dead stop to escape velocity. The question is: Is this scientific fact or naked assumption? To which everybody answers, Jeez, man, Are you a moron, or what? Surely, thats not a serious question? Everybody knows it. It is common knowledge. This is a settled matterabout as settled as can be. There is global consensus on the validity of this fact. It is elementary. Couldnt be more obvious. What, you dont believe that Earth rotates? Are you an idiot? And even worse, Do you think us Physicists are all idiots? By God We ARE NOT!!! There has never been any question about it. Its a no-brainer. Absolutely no doubt about itNONE! And so forth. It is important to the self-image of everyonebut especially scientists-to see themselvesand to be seen by the Rest Of The World-- as uberrational, independent thinkers

Butin real life-- it is equally difficult for a scientist and a religious zealot to stand back and critically examine his own core beliefs. As in, almost a human impossibility. Unfortunately, only such a rare and precious intellect can save NASA from serious fallout damage in the months and years ahead, as the truth about the launch boost myth inevitably becomes the revised (permanent) world-wide consensus. It will take one extremely bright, insightful and intrepid individual to lead NASA out of harms way here. That individual must have the Right Stuff to be able to: 1) Critically examine the theoretical and factual bases of the launch boost tenet, and 2) Present the (unwelcome) news to the rest of NASA-- and stand his ground and push and insist until a great big light bulb inside NASAs collective head comes on. Only then, as the leader in the world-wide correction process, will NASA be strategically placed so as to turn the revelation into a positive rather than a negative thing. Who will turn out to be that new NASA hero. Somebody at Kennedy? Johnson? JPL? Is it you?

NASA is all about DATA, right? Cold hard facts as supported by cold hard numbers. Good. Imagine that a shipload of friendly aliens lands on the lawn outside your office tomorrow morning, and their leader inquires as to the basics of your Earthling propulsion technology. So you tick off the latest

rocketry developments, then you mention the available Equatorial 1,000 mph launch boost from Earths rotation as sort of a post script. That idea would naturally pique the aliens interest, and they would no doubt ask about the payload-to-thrust ratio data comparisons at different latitudes and launch azimuths. So, how would you answer? Possibly you would rattle off something like this: Launches from any locations can in general be said to comply with theoryeach launch is carefully tracked, and any unexplained deviations would surely be investigated until explained. The amount of free boost varies from maximum at the equator to zero at the poles.* To which, wouldnt the alienor any passably intelligent being-- shake its head and respond, So, then, what youre saying is that your launch boost is merely an untested theory, is that correct? To which you could then give no answer that didnt sound stupid. Starting with either, Yes or No, you couldnt avoid the truth that you had labeled an obvious assumption (and a pretty silly one at that) as hard Scientific Fact. Dont you suppose that those aliens would radio back home that-although they had found life forms on this little planet-- they were not what they would call intelligent life forms ? Then they would re-board their nifty space ship and leave, calling out, Adios, muchachos. Get some help. My point being that the free launch boost idea has for some reason received a huge free credibility boost for about 50 years now. As pioneers in Human Space Flight, NASA has always been supremely positioned to turn a rational mind and skeptical eye on this old folk tale. Oh, well. Better late than never, I say (especially if NASA wants to have any script control for how this all gets reported to the World).

This is an ACTUAL answer I received from an ACTUAL NASA EXPERT just recently. I kid you not. CNG _____________________________________________________________

P.S. Now I have made the point that NASA has never applied any sort of scientific testing to the launch boost theory. That is my message. How it affects YOUis entirely up to you. This is something that anyone who has grown old dreaming happy dreams about pulling off major launch boost heists will tend to summarily reject. Only a special kind of mind will even know how to appraise such a concept. Then it takes effort. Serious, objective, motivated, intrepid, quality effort. If thats not you, then we are done here. For those special few who accept the challenge, bless you. Give em hell. Check your sources for any and all comparative mission data touching on the proven relationship of thrust efficiency to latitude and launch azimuth. Then you will know for yourself whether rotational launch boost is fact or fancy. If you arrive at the same conclusion I have, then I expect that youll take the additional step of re-examining the theory itself, as a kind of historical / psychological mystery. Youll find yourself astounded that neither you nor any of your colleagues had ever looked at launch boost from obvious and sensible perspectives like this: In the first place, does it make any sense to think that Earths surface is a huge pulsing, crackling ball of kinetic energy, equivalent to the force necessary to maintain Earths huge mass in rotary motion, with a magnitude equivalent, at the Equator, to 1,000 Earth-miles per hour: and yet this same force interferes not one nano-bit with a glass of water on your dining table? In the second place, isnt a moment of inertia actually the measure of an objects resistance to (either new or continued) rotary motion? So what resists Earths mass in its turning? Nothing, thats what. Clearly, Earths solar orbit is unresisted in Space. So how could Earths rotary motion while floating along in that Solar orbit be any different (resisted), huh? And in the third place, if Earths motions are unresisted, then doesnt that indicate that the persistence of those motions entails neither any active expenditure of energy nor any imminent expenditure (kinetic energy)? And (4thbut whos counting?), heres a slightly different slant on it: Isnt a rotating Gravity Field a collection of particles all of which circle a common imaginary axis in a common direction and at a common angular velocity? And since the rotation is unresisted, it requires no

energy? And since no energy is used, none of the energy spinoffs we associate with man-made movement are present (such as whiplash, centrifugal forces, Coriolis effects, or any of the rockin, rollin and reelin that those hard-driving truck-drivers put up with 18 hours a day)? And since Earths rotation manifests NO ENERGY in play versus the Gravity Field as a whole: it follows that NO ENERGY is in play versus any particle of the Gravity Field. (Any fraction of zero is zero. Duh.) On the launch pad, isnt a rocket constantly pulled toward Earths Gravitational center with a force commensurate with its weight? Andat Ignition, at Liftoff , all through Ascent, and @ Insertion into orbitisnt all of this resisted by Earths Gravity in that same predictable way (downward / orthogonal pull commensurate with weight)?? And isnt the sign that a vehicle has reached the requisite velocity for escape / orbit the onset of the static condition of weightlessness? Are an Earth-surface rocket launch pad and the flight deck of a seagoing aircraft carrier analogous? Not really. But the carrier does present a helpful slant on the THEORY of Launch boost. Does a jet borrow speed from the moving flight deck? Versus the air. Yes. Versus the flight deck itself, Absolutely Not. The distinction is critical. Sub-orbital flight velocity is all about lift created by airflow versus wings. But orbit / escape velocity is all about a rockets horizontal velocity versus Earths center of Gravity (in which the velocity of the air-flow along the rockets skin is immaterial. Because: Earths atmosphere and Space are totally different flight dimensions) Whatever max magnitude of the jet receives via contact with the deck while the jet is parked is exactly the same the jet will receive from the deck as it accelerates during takeoff. Point: the ultimate expectation of a borrower of momentum for use in energy-driven transportation (within a Gravity Field) is to borrow enough to keep pace to hold its own.

Since Orbit V is a relationship between the Centers of Gravity of Earth and a Rocket, wouldnt any viable THEORY about Rotational Launch Boost have to be based on a concept of Earth-surface-as-movingrunway ?** But, then, the maximum versus a moving runway that a vehicle being carried on that runway can ever borrow is just enough to keep up (as in ZERO ) . Crikey! This is Science? So just where did this brilliant idea come from, in the First Place? Who knows?

Like a really, really wise man once told me, You can run from the beast, or you can ride the beast. But do not imagine that you can use the beasts own speed against him (to outrun him). The only way to GAIN any ground against the beast is if the power of your own legs and feet exceeds that of the beast.

**(Please dont yell at me about not going through the consensus launch boost rationale point-by-point. Because there is no such thing as a consensus about how launch boost theoretically takes place . No two references I have ever found about the launch boost story have agreed except in their evasiveness. Every one has been remarkably short on detailabout as true-to-life as a 3-year-olds crayola portrait of Daddy.) C N Gifford, Springfield, MO 65804 October 16, 2011