THE GYROSCOPIC INERTIAL THRUSTER

*UPDATE 28*

November, Friday the 13th, 1998 - 12:30 pm

I really wondered if I should write this today, but as far as I know I'm not a triscadecaphobic (fear of 10 trisquit crackers I think!:). I'm not doing business letters today (caught myself writing a letter to the US Postal Inspector Service, Fraud division, to ask what's up with the intense interest (along with the Justice Department, uscourts.gov, and usps.gov)), but decided instead to write an update.

Ok, maybe I'm a LITTLE superstitious! I'm really curious about any complaints they've received (assumption, of course); wonder what the basis of inquiry was, might be REAL interesting! I'm afraid my imagination fails me there! Is there a crime of mental process sedition I don't know about? ;)

Things are progressing behind the scenes. Here is one letter of many between myself and James Bolstad (long time contributor to our effort), discussing ThorGIT experiments and analysis by 4 adventurous Marquette University mechanical engineering students, with the blessing of their professor.

Jim has also been discussing his own experinces of some of the reactions I get when "eminant" scientists (really should be enemant, if you know what I mean! ;), are absitively possolutely convinced their eyes are lying, after seeing any of the experiments that demonstrate the principles!

In a letter before this, a physics teacher, also a high muckity-muck in the local physics club, said the swing arm torque test wouldn't work. When James showed that it did indeed work, with a demonstration unit he had built, "Sir Eminant" went red in the face and insisted it was "experimental error". No how, no way, did HE see what his eyes "thought" they saw!

This project certainly tests mental flexibility! ;)

Here's one letter from Jim reporting on his efforts to get serious study done on the GIT:

From: Bolstad, James J 
To: davidc@open.org 
Date: Thursday, November 05, 1998 12:54 PM
Subject: Marquette Univ. Thor project - update



     Hi David,

     Met with the students and prof. again today.

     Not too much new this time.  Things are going slower than I thought
     they would, be that's not terribly surprising since they have a lot
     of other things to do.

     They won't be building a prototype until next semester.  They may
     not be able to run ADAMMS software until beginning of next semester
     or last part of this one.

     The math they did last week was not perfect.  A little difficult to
     explain exactly what the problem was, but basically, they forced it
     (the pivot arm) mathematically to have a constant angular velocity
     in one part of their equations, while in the other part, this
     needed to be more general.  So anyway, their conclusion from last
     week cannot be used.

     But not to worry, they are still on track and plugging away at the
     math, using software to solve the equations numerically.  We expect
     to get a positive thrust.  [In actuality, the way it is set up,
     they will end up plotting the displacement of the center of mass
     which results from the thrust.]  The only question is, how
     efficient it will be.  One thing I have realized, and I don't know
     if I related this to you last time, is that in the Thor, in order
     to get rapidly pulsating thrust, you're really asking a lot of the
     spinner motor (to be able to start and stop or start and then
     reverse so many times in rapid succession -- especially with a
     flywheel like thing attached!!!!)  It may only be good as a very
     slowly pulsating thruster -- but there may be nothing wrong with
     that for certain applications.

     Oh, also, that physics instructor called me after having argued
     with me that evening last week.  He said he had put the question to
     a number of other attendees at the state teachers' convention, and
     they "all agreed that what I was trying to do was impossible; and
     that I should stop working on it"!!  As if, since I was violating
     Newton's 3rd Law, that I might get a visit from the Physics Police
     if I continued.

     Needless to say, I told him that none of them understood what we
     were working on, and then said my good-byes.

     Jim B.

So... there you have it from Jim, a real soldier of intelligent effort indeed!

I did, of course, answer the letter, won't bore you with the details here, save for my own confirmation that driving the spinner motors in maximum torque mode (for conventional motors, the heavy startup "brown out" current draw), WILL be a problem needing attention.

Though with dual spinners, one dumping current by flywheel generation to the other, motoring up to max speed would require heavy LOCAL wiring for the between motor current ping-pong, only friction losses need be fed to the two, and regular wire can be used.

Ideally, a spin torque motor would be a real monster of a creation under current motor design theory, with very high impedence coils (instead of today's max current models), and the majority of turning mass on the OUTSIDE of a stationary axle/stator, to transfer as much magnetic force leverage to accelerate, as close to a ring mass as can be engineered.

Remember, we are wanting to INCREASE the rotor's moment of inertia, something we have to use more parts with today, and not anywhere near as efficient as a dedicated application design will be. Lots to do yet!

There are a large number of schools in my stats each month, including the "name" institutions like MIT and Purdue, pages of edu domains, and that is GOOD indeed!

I will be happy to assist anyone out there in cyberland to more fully understand and demonstrate the principle; special attention will be given to "official" school projects (uhmm... high school and above please). I get letters from anxious 8th graders wanting to make the GIT a class project. Unless it's an unusual school, certain knowlege and skills are needed and we don't have an experimenter's kit available to help.

My Hinge Thor still isn't built, fall season is rather busy for me in the "real world". Winter preparations can't be put off, and this year's garden harvest is getting special attention for longer term preservation (Y2K). Until I can justify doing "indoor sports" when the snows set in, my own contribution (mechanically) to the project is on hold.

We lost Amanda Gilbert's Stanford web site a few weeks back, and I haven't heard much from her as she moves out into the world after graduation (busy time!).

Amanda Gilbert's Geocities Web site is still active, but having graduated from Stanford, her school account has been closed (the one with her diary of Mars Con reports).

Here's a better picture of her, dang it, doesn't show her waist length hair! After she saw the previous update's poor quality photo, she swore it was her evil twin sister that got photographed in Colorado, and..... well, it WAS, so this is the REAL Amanda! ;)

OK, not totally accurate, if you noticed, I animated it with a second frame, I confess, I was messing with my paint program and made her blink, MY fault! Just winking around here! ;)

Hey Amanda, you're not answering my email, what's happening? Your copy of the test video was returned to us "undeliverable". Phone/e-mail home! ;)

Hopefully, Amanda can transfer her Stanford site files to Geocities in the near future when her life settles down a bit, I don't have a copy of the pages myself, lost in one of many browser temp file deletes.

To my friends in Greece that can't receive email, hey, if I could have my thoughts and web site all tidied up in a printed format, I'd likely sell it (at least for expenses), so you guys will have to limp along like the rest of us with what's on the net for now. Uhmmm... don't expect a package from me, BUT, if you'ld like to be notified when I DO have a book/CD (for the test videos, calculation programs and such), then ask to be added to my Publication notification list!

So far, only 5 others have indicated that they want notified, and they represent more who would want the information package once published, but since I've given away my patent rights on the invention itself, the publication will have to be a financially viable stand-alone project, and so far, even I wouldn't invest $ in it! I have no need for "vanity press" efforts (at least anything more expensive than jotting down my thoughts now and again to the web).

Given the real slow down in communications (and a lot of other stuff needing done that I really can't ignore), I wouldn't expect much to happen until after the holidays. The "big boys" in commercial aerospace are still downloading files with continued interest, and I LIKE seeing those NASA research centers keeping UP!

How 'bout one of you "establishment" viewers SPEAKing up? I fully expect a flood of "we did it first!" revelations, once the first lab reveals their successful testing. Should be fun, heck, I could have a blast on court subpoena's alone, jetting around the world to testify! ;) Anybody needing legal ammunition for public domain use of my invention(s), I'll be happy to!

OOH! OOH! My web site was chosen by my internet provider as "Web Site of the Month", November's featured site for the Open.org domain! Thanks! It's nice to see all those open.org file downloads, being local, I may be able to work more directly with those interested in furthering this area of exploration, just write me!

That's about it for now, not much I know, but it really seems that the lot of us are focused closer to home now, and the seasonal inward focus will continue for a pace, but if you have something to report on experiments, DO let me know, it's getting boring here!

DavidC - 13 November 1998 - 1:45 pm

I don't want to be added to this company's growing law suit list, so I'll just give you their link to see this horror for yourself. I don't want it said that I've defamed the company (they are doing a fine job themselves by revealing their hacker program's "strong points" on their web site)!

I've been burning the midnight oil since I found that my "worm" problems with remote computer tampering are now based in verifiable fact, and feel strongly enough about it to add this "off topic" subject to my web site. If you are at all concerned about computer communications security, you have to see Codex Data System's D.I.R.T page (Data Interception by Remote Transmission), to see if you're comfortable with it. You've been warned! Don't send me commentary about it, send it to your representitives! DavidC - 4:45 am (Yawwwwnn!!;)

David E. Cowlishaw

New Alphabetic listing of this site will be updated regularly

Use the Old News link to download previous updates, a LOT of good info is to be found there and nowhere else!

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