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First some psychology
I would like to write on these pages; the truth about thrust and future travel...
Humans 'think', which is fine but thoughts of reality aren't equal to reality. It doesn't matter if one, one hundred, or one billion people share the same thought; a though is a thought and not equal to reality. When an idea predicts something very well, than the idea is "fit" and to be used, up to the moment when a new idea arises that is more fit. "Survival of the fittest" does also apply to thoughts.


Human Environment
The environment humans experience is just a tiny-miny part of the universal spectrum. The human mind is focused on a extremely narrow human-environment and thus blind to most things in the universe. We should not expect all the other parts of the universe to behave like the way we are used to.


Knowledge
I feel kind of ashamed about how little we know. If we'd truely work together, share our knowledge efficiently, we can accomplish amazing things! (which can be used for good and for bad... as always). But we don't, not really, not yet.


Questions
We don't really known much.
When letting go of a stone, it accelerates towards the earth. Why? "because of gravity", yea sure, but why does it attract and not repel, what is gravity?! Gravity is a property of mass... or is mass a property of gravity? There definitely is a link between them, they may as well be inseparable. Can we create gravity? Is there a link between gravity and magnetism? There definitely is a link between electricity and magnetism. Is there a link between gravity and rotating mass? (rotation is a continues acceleration). Does the inside of an atom spin and is that causing space to bent?

Some questions that need answers:
- What are the most fundamental elements of this universe?
(All is made from this. To understand complex things, we'd better first understand the basics)
- In what quantities are the fundamental elements present?
- What are the smallest parts?
(or is this question as dumb as asking what the smallest number is?)
- Where does it all come from and where is it going to?
(or is this question as dumb as asking what time it is?)
- Can mass only attract, or also push?
(or is mass not pulling but is space pushing?)
- What don't we know, how much % of all possible knowledge do we know?
- Is there more than one universe?
(the universe contains all there is, all there is in this universe. but if there are more universes that are not connected, there could be more)
- Does the universe "loop" somewhere?
- Is the total of the univers: zero?
(like if there is as much +energy as –energy)

On these pages I'll act as if what I say is the absolute truth. This of course is not true, but is easier than continuously making excuses for the ever present uncertainties. I hope for one of my thoughts to be more useful, more "fit" than a common opinion of today. Of the few things we know and do, most can be improved.

History of this site
I started my IFO site in 1996, it was only one page! It slowly grew to I don't know how many page and images. But while working on it I realized that I was going in the wrong direction. Wings and rocket engines are very interesting, as are steam engines, but there are NOT fit for future flight, not even the most advanced technologies of today, like ion-propulsion. One good reason to write about that "old stuff" is to educated the majority of people who still don't understand the basics: no; a rocket does not really repel on the ambient air, and no; a wing does not fly because there is "fast air" on top.


New Goal
I will now focus on possible keys to future planet and space travel. The goal of it all is how to travel from A to B, where A might be the bottom of a sea, and B a planet beyond Mars. To a passenger it does not really matter how this is done, as long as the journey is a pleasant one: fast, safe, cheap, and with on-board comfort. To me what is interesting is how to manipulate mass space and gravity for thrust, in an environmental friendly way.

Linear Gravity Thrust
I would like to see a propellantless propulsion system; a thrust producing system that does not repel on propellant-mass, but generates a linear gravity force (an artificial gravity force in what ever direction you want). No more wings and rockets... stone-age! But it would be okay to repell on the gravitational fields of planets, stars and such.
When efficient and realable, Flying crafts can replace:
- Cars and roads
- Ships and artificial water roads
- Trains and railroads
- Classic style aircraft and airports
- Rockets and their near equator launch stations
Think of all space and materials the can get a new destination!
Of which most space should be given back to nature -to my opinion.


Rockets of today (2005)
- They have very little space inside, are not pleasant to live in, don't have enough space for a healthy eco system that can support human life. A main reason to make a spacecraft a small & slim tube is to minimize the air resistance during the first few kilometers after take-off. But if acceleration takes place outside the atmosphere, there's no need to worry about air resistance!
- Only a very small percentage of the rocket's mass is "pay load", most mass is fuel, fuel tanks, a strong structure that can handle 4G, and engines.
- During lift off, the space shuttle is accelerated to about 3 G. (1 G = 1 times the gravity on earth). 3 G on your body is not pleasant, unless you like to freak on it. And the sad thing is that there really is no need for this.
- The atmosphere is only about 100 km thick (X-prize hight). Relative to from earth to any other planet, 100 km is a distance next to zero %.

The reason to accelerated to about 3 G is to minimize the time the rocket engine has to produce 1 G (costing hundreds of kg fuel per second). Vertical take-off at say 1.1 G is enough to escape from earth, it just takes a little longer. Going slow minimizes the air resistance (while going through the atmosphere). When under less influence of planetary gravity, a space craft could throttle down to an acceleration of 1G, accelerating to extraordinary speeds without the people on board noticing it.
Re-entering the earth's atmosphere can better be done slowly also. The friction of high-speed re-entering is so extreem; it can destroy the craft. There really is no need for high-speed re-entering (there is a need to equal the speed of the craft relative to the Earth, but that's an other story).


Horizontal take-off into space
One does not have to lift off vertical to escape from earth: the earth is round so flying horizontal (or less curved) real fast is fine too, accelerating only 0.1 G for some time. The "1G problem" is then solved: by simple small suppersonic wings and a lifting body that together provide 1G of lift (adding only little weight and drag). Accelerating at very high altitude is smart too, because there is less atmospheric drag (air-resistance).
The speed relative to the Earth's center needed to get to orbit is about Mach 26 (about 8 kilometers / second).
Because most launches are near the equator and in the same direction, horizontal take-off can have a dangeres.. disastrous effects on the long term. When IF lots of craft go into space using a system that repels on the earth for the first part of acceleration (like a magnetic launch rail does), then the earth will slow down spinning -and that will have terrible effects on this blue planet's life.


The Key
Thus: the key for future planet/space travel is: a new propulsion technology. Therefore is needed a better understanding of the most fundamental elements and what useful combinations can be made with them.

After Tomorrow
Ideas for after tomorrow: to not accelerate mass, but to sent an object its information with maximum speed (beyond light speed if possible) to a location where the information (lossless or near lossless compressed information) can be transformed into the same object, using nanotechnology and if necessary energy-to-mass converters. If all this is impossible, we can always try to remove the space between A and B, so there is no distance to travel.

The earth will be destroyed some day, and probably sooner will it be not be able to support life. If life is worth preserving, and not already present all over the universe, we'd better start going into space today!
One condition though: let us not bring war into space, let us first learn how to live in peace and care for life on earth. Otherwise we'd be similar to a spreading disease (and more developed aliens won't like that).


Giesbert Nijhuis
2006/02/04

Multiple energy generators can together be an efficient and safe energy system. Just 1 energy generator can not be efficient because the demand for power varies. For example: If an IFO needs 100 KiloWatts for cruise speed, one could design an engine that produces 100 KiloWatts very efficiently. But when the demand during VTOL on Earth is 1000 KiloWatts; the small engine can not deliver that. An efficient 1000 KiloWatts engine can deliver it, but is not at all able to produce only 100 KiloWatts in an efficient way. When using two engines: one just for VTOL and one just for cruise, than there is always one being useless weight. But when building two engines that can combine their power, one optimized for 100 KiloWatts and one optimized for 900 KiloWatts, than they can work together during VTOL & acceleration.

In case of an engine failure there is trouble of the emergency kind. One can therefore build the energy system from 10 x 100, or 2 x 400 + 2 x 100, or what ever combination that makes 1000 KiloWatts together. If one engine fails, an emergency landing can be made safely.

The power for cruise speed must be created in an energy efficient way because this power demand is there almost almost all the time. But the maximum power generated at VTOL & acceleration may be less energy efficient IF it is from an engine that has less mass. Less mass = less mass to thrust = energy efficient.

One more option is to NOT use a powerful engine for VTOL, but to store a lot of energy produced by a small light fuel efficient engine, and be able to use all of it during VTOL or acceleration. Some Gyro-planes take-off like that.


The engine
A VTOL aircraft is often build around its propulsion system. We need an energy efficient system that creates linear gravity for lift/thrust. But we don't have that yet, so we have to use the best of what's around today.
VTOL, especially the taking off part, is extremely power consuming. During cruise flight, lift better be produced by a lifting body or such, otherwise you'll be out of fuel soon. And a VTOL with no rotor can't land safely without power, like a helicopter can with auto rotation.

An aircraft's engine needs to be/have:
- Powerful
- Lightweight (a good power to weight ratio)
- Realible
- Energy efficient (fuel = weight, money, polution, dangerous)
- Small
- Minimal vibrations
- Responsive
- Variable power output
The best of the best at this moment are:
- Gas turbine engines
- Wankel rotary engines (like the Freedom's Rotapower engine and Mistral Engines)
- Radial diesel piston engines (like the ZOCHE aero-diesels)


The power source
Extreem amounts of energy are stored in mass.
Some think that vacuum space is also loaded with energy.
Matter-Antimatter reactions -if possible- seems to be the most powerful energy source.
But the aircraft engines we use today, use chemical energy, with a very poor weight to energy ratio, relative to nuclear power.
Stars know how to free energy from mass, and we have solar panels, so that is one good option. Solar energy is free and without mass, but not very powerful.