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June 27, 1992
TORCH.ASC
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FROM THE BOOK: IMPOSSIBLE POSSIBILITIES (1971)
PAGES: 122 - 125
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WITH THE FLYING TORCH TO THE STARS
This question was answered by Professor Stanioyukovitch of Moscow
in the following way: man kind will conquer the stars! This
scientist and his collaborators in his research institute have
formulated plans for a space satellite powered by anti-matter, and
have begun the research work necessary for its constriction. They
have christened their spaceship The Flying Torch.
In such spaceships, which travel almost at the speed of light,
mankind could explore the entire universe, or at least all the
heavenly bodies in our galaxy and perhaps other galaxies. The Flying
Torch is based on the following principle: the greater the velocity
of the particles emitted from the engine, the faster the
acceleration.
Professor Stanioyukovitch has postulated that if a spaceship could
be constructed that emitted light instead of burning gases, that is
to say a sort of flying torch, it could attain speeds which thanks
to the contraction of time resulting from the theory of relativity
would permit mankind to travel even to the most distant heavenly
bodies.
Early on, however, a significant impediment manifested itself. A
mirror never reflects light or other electromagnetic rays one
hundred per cent. A tiny portion of the energy is absorbed by the
mirror. And through the accumulation of billions and billions of
calories even such a tiny portion would be enough to cause a mirror
to melt.
Stanioyukovitch and his collaborators have solved this problem.
They have demonstrated that there is one instance in which the
radiation is REFLECTED ONE HUNDRED PER CENT for all practical
purposes, the reflector absorbing less than one-billionth of the
radiation. That happens when the waves are one-tenth of a
millimeter, the borderline between radio and infrared rays, and when
the reflector consists of a thick block of polished copper.
Readings of extreme precision have shown that a bundle of rays of
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the approriate wavelength and of an intensity five million times
that of the sun can be reflected VIRTUALLY IN TOTALITY by such a
copper mirror.
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Vangard Note...
Remember the attack by the Greeks using the sun to burn up
invading ships in the harbor? Perhaps they used COPPER MIRRORS
to reflect the majority of the suns rays...so everything old is
new again...
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The second obstacle in the way of The Flying Torch is the problem
of converting the energy released by the destruction of matter by
anti-matter into rays with a wavelength of one-tenth of a
millimeter. Stanioyukovitch and his team seem, however to have
solved this problem too. I do not believe that some kind of
expedient optimism is at work here.
The third obstacle is cosmic radiation. A spaceship traveling at
close to the speed of light will be bombarded with significantly
more cosmic rays and particles than a spaceship traveling at eight
or ten miles per second, as will be easily appreciated. Since the
force of cosmic radiation remains more or less constant throughout
the universe, a space ship traveling at high velocity will be struck
by more rays than a spaceship traveling more slowly over the same
span of time. The radiation dose would very rapidly be fatal for the
occupants of the spaceship. Some kind of equipment is therefore
necessary that protects the occupants against the danger from
outside. The answer is an artificially generated magnetic protective
wall.
The Flying Torch would of course have to be constructed in space
and fired in such a way that its beams never reach the earth's
surface; otherwise large areas of the earth's surface would be
burned or would even melt. In Professor Agrest's opinion tektites
were caused by the reactors of such "flying torches" that visited
the earth in the distant past or were dispatched into the cosmos by
very early cultures who had attained an unmanageably lofty level of
evolution. A relatively simple formula can be used to calculate the
length of the space journey in the time dimension of the occupants
of these flying torches.
Applying the formula to a spaceship that travels half its journey
with an acceleration corresponding to the pull of the earth's
gravity and the other half braking to the same acceleration rate
right up to the moment of arrival, the results are fantastic. The
occupants of such a flying torch would notice nothing unusual.
Gravity in the spaceship would be the same as on earth. Time would
seem to be passing normally and smoothly. Yet within a few years
they would have reached the most distant stars. After 21 years
(measured in the time of which they are conscious) they would be in
the innermost center of our Milky Way, 75,000 light-years from
earth.
In 28 years they would be at the constellation of Andromeda, the
galaxy nearest to us; its distance is 2,250,000 light-years.
Please note that we are not talking here of science fiction. The
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formula under discussion has been verified experimentally in the
laboratory. Using this formula everyone able to handle logarithmic
tables can check our calculations. Mistakes are hardly possible, and
the results obtained on this subject agree. It is therefore
important to reflect on the importance of this development for
mankind.
The scientists who traveled to the constellation of Andromeda
would be returned to earth in 56 years; added to the figure should
be the years of their stay on whatever planets they investigated.
Let us assume that they take 65 years-but that is 65 years measured
in their time dimension.
Back on earth 4,500,000 years have gone by in the meantime.
Traveling at a velocity close to the speed of light is a conquest
not only of space but also time. Not only the universe but also the
future becomes accessible to man. Only science-fiction authors have
so far thought of the consequence. But it is now high time that
scientists too reflected on the consequences of such an undertaking.
Once the travelers are in the future, a return to the past
becomes impossible. We are in the real world, not the world of
fiction. Wells's time-machine is not realizable and will never be
realized. But even the possibility of exploring the universe and
returning to earth centuries, thousands of years, or even millions
of years later is sufficiently staggering.
If, as many believe, history is cyclical, if cultures decline and
are reborn, the flying torch could contribute to the conservation of
continuity, provide blood transfusions to a declining culture from
the bank of a highly evolved science from their past, and also give
to it the benefit of all the knowledge collected by the occupants
of the spaceship on the planets of other solar systems.
Such a colonization not only of space but also time would be
something completely new in the history of mankind. There has been
much talk of working for posterity, of preparing a glorious future,
of working for the men of the future. The flying torch, the
spaceship fueled by anti-matter, would provide us with real,
physical possibility of communicating with posterity.
The men of the future will probably undertake journeys into space
not only to explore the galaxies but also to communicate to future
cultures what they were able to accomplish. The reason alone would
make discovery of anti-matter as significant as the discovery of
fire long ago.
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Jerry W. Decker.........Ron Barker...........Chuck Henderson
Vangard Sciences/KeelyNet
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