Quote: "...if the spacecraft does not exhibit the effects predicted by Einstein's theory, scientists would want to fly a second spacecraft to check the results."

Response: Can this spacecraft be used to see if earth affects space or space affects earth? It's the same crafty game as the chicken and egg, god and satan, male and female, dark and light, Einstein or Lorentz, falling elevator or falling occupant.....this time the question is,

Article:

Levity and gravity: behind the story of Gravity Probe-B
by Dwayne A. Day
Monday, April 19, 2004

Just about every space scientist will agree that Gravity Probe-B is a survivor. Scheduled for launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base on Monday atop a Delta 2 rocket, it will orbit 400 miles over the Earth's poles and test Einstein's General Theory of Relativity. However, it already has cost $700 million, $300 million more than originally estimated and nearly as much as both of NASA's Mars rovers combined, and is four years late. The stubborn little spacecraft has survived numerous hardware setbacks and delays and congressional scrutiny that should have killed it years ago. One astronomer on a different NASA space science program, who for obvious reasons wishes to remain anonymous, has joked that the Stanford University scientists who built the probe's instruments either have amazing political skills, or are somehow blackmailing members of Congress, because they have miraculously survived significant problems and cost overruns.

Dr. Robert Cannon tells the story of Gravity Probe-B's origins over four decades ago. Cannon was a guidance and control expert, a wizard with gyroscopes and related systems for guiding submarines, planes and missiles with precision over long distances. He had worked on such systems for North American Aviation, among other places, before becoming a professor at Stanford University in the late 1950s. According to Cannon, one day in 1959 William Fairbank, an expert in low-temperature physics, invited him to have lunch at Stanford's original men's swimming pool, where the rule was that nobody wore swimsuits. There he met Leonard Schiff, the physics department chairman and an expert on Einstein's General Theory of Relativity.

After swimming laps, the three naked men sat in a row along the side of the pool with their feet in the water while Schiff described what he called a "gedanken experiment" (or thought experiment). He proposed that in principle, a gyroscope could prove in a new way the General Theory of Relativity, which posits that space and time are distorted around a massive gravity source, a phenomenon known as "frame dragging." It would require a gyro drift rate of less than one degree per million years. Cannon and Fairbank wondered whether there might be a way to actually do the experiment. Schiff asked Cannon what the best gyroscope ever made had achieved and Cannon said that would be the gyros used in submarine navigation systems, which had drift rates of about one degree per year, nowhere near the required precision. "Well, that's why it's just a gedanken experiment," Schiff conceded, in apparent defeat.

The three men sat there for awhile thinking and finally Cannon suggested that if the experiment was done in orbit, then the primary cause of gyroscopic drift, gravity, could be reduced by a million. Fairbank noted that by working at temperatures of one degree above absolute zero, having a near-perfect sphere spinning in a near-zero atmosphere and a near-zero magnetic field would essentially eliminate other drift sources.

This is how the Gravity Probe-B experiment was born,with three nude men dangling their feet in a swimming pool pondering Einsteinian physics and spacecraft. In 1960 Schiff wrote up a more formal proposal of the idea, and he and Cannon pitched it for the next several decades. Gravity Probe-A, which was launched on a suborbital rocket in 1976, carried a precise clock to test one part of Einstein's theory, but could not prove the rest.

The problem was that in 1959 all of these instruments for conducting the experiment were almost impossible to build. Small, highly precise gyroscopes and a container that could bring temperatures down to near absolute zero required technological leaps that took decades. It was not until 1995, over the protests of many scientists, that NASA finally developed a formal design for the spacecraft and a plan to launch it by 2000. The satellite would use a telescope to precisely focus on the star IM Pegasus. Four small gyroscopes attached to the telescope would spin in a vacuum and any changes in their spin rate would be precisely measured by highly sensitive magnetometers known as SQUIDS.

But in 1999 the project experienced major development problems when the large thermos bottle, called a dewar, which holds the supercold helium surrounding the instruments, did not cool down as quickly as expected. It had to be redesigned. Testing the instruments also raised problems as well. The launch was delayed again because of a booster rocket problem. The spacecraft was scheduled for launch in December 2003 when a problem with a control unit for the experiment package caused yet another delay.

Even if Gravity Probe-B does make it into orbit and works as advertised, a negative result could present more problems than a positive one. As a review group warned in 1995, if the spacecraft does not exhibit the effects predicted by Einstein's theory, scientists would want to fly a second spacecraft to check the results. But nobody will want to pay for it, and Stanford has regrettably rescinded the no swimming trunks rule. Dwayne A. Day is a Washington, DC based space policy analyst.

Quote: "If it works as planned, Gravity Probe B will measure how space and time are warped and dragged along by the gravity of the spinning earth - one of the stranger implications of Einstein's General Theory of Relativity."

Response: Earth is not the source of gravity. How can earth, therefore, drag space? Gravity is what space does. To the degree you cannot tell if it is a falling elevator or the occupant that is moving, to that same degree, you will not be able to tell if earth drags space or that space drags earth, except this theory tells you it is space which drags earth, while Einstein didn't, or couldn't. If reality is that spinning space drags earth and scientists send a precise measuring instrument to measure how spinning earth drags space....what result do you think will be recorded? Reality?

Quote: "Jerry Ostriker, a theoretical physicist at Princeton University says, "Today, there's no real point of going through with Gravity Probe B; other measurements have defined the nature of gravity well enough."

Response: Oh really? Jerry, what is the nature of gravity? You might have to select which kind of gravity before you make a decision. You might also insure that your instruments are measuring one and only one kind of gravity. You might also review Bearden when he points out that space IS the charge and when this "direct radiation", the type Einstein analyzed, is misinterpreted, because you still believe that an accelerated "source" moving through this space, is the source of the charge, then you will have made the same mistake as all others.

"They (Science) break down the gravitational radiation into 5 types."

"The first type is direct radiation (the type Einstein analyzed), generated by the source when it accelerates through space. The second type is "whump" radiation, generated when the source is gravitationally stressed. The third type is transition radiation, generated by time varying delays in the propagation of the source's ordinary nonradiative gravitational field. The forth type is focusing radiation, which arises when one part of the source focuses the nonradiative field of another part of the source. The last type is tail radiation, emitted when the nonradiative field is scattered backward in the region of focusing".

Scientific American
Nov. 1975, pg. 60

Are there one, two, three, four or five kinds of gravity? Which kind is being tested here? No one knows, yet, you will be absolutely sure that Einstein was correct when the first announcement is, "We have our results that confirm Einstein, but we still don't know what kind of gravity we measured nor do we care".

Quote: "Their ground-based measurements will be combined with those from the satellite to determine precisely how the Earth's mass and rotation affect the fabric of space and time."

Response: They're doing things backwards again. They'll surely get a backwards answer.

Quote: "At the heart of the GP-B experiment are four gyroscopes, each holding a precisely fabricated spinning mass the size of a ping-pong ball. They are kept nearly free from disturbance, so that they provide an almost perfect space-time reference system."

Response: Let's mention that there are at least 4, documented, reference systems in universe. Which reference system is the right one? Let's ignore all 4 of these natural reference systems and invent our own?

Quote: "By measuring, very precisely, tiny changes in the direction of spin of those four gyroscopes, physicists will calculate how space and time are warped by the presence of the Earth, and how the Earth's rotation drags space-time around with it."

Response: Even if the earth disappeared, the space around that center will still be "frame dragged" and "twisted". Don't believe it? You may not understand yet.

Quote: "The presence of any massive object like the Earth will bend the space-time fabric, essentially warping space."

Response: Precise, decisive, incisive and backward.

Quote: "One prediction of the theory of general relativity is that starlight will be bent by gravity."

Response: Stars exist NOW. Starlight exists in no time. Stars have no past. Electrons are spheres of light that see no time units so they exist forever. Electrons have no past. Gravity is what space does. Space spirals. Gravity and space implode to a spatial center. Gravity and space also explode. Space travels in two opposite directions at the same "time". Space has almost infinite velocity and no time unit under the de Broglie wavelength. Space has a light velocity limit beyond the de Broglie wavelength. Space is an optical medium. Space seems to act as a lens. The optical space medium appears to bend light. The lens effect of space seems to bend light. Space distortion is a myth. Space merely contracts tighter as it approaches its own center. The closer to the center of the spatial spiral, the more every other phenomena appears to be bent or be distorted. Space is the first cause of this bending and distortion. Matter can never bend nor distort space. Light does not travel. Light does not travel through space. Light manifests where conditions are right for light to manifest. There is no light in deep space. You will never see a flashlight work in deep space. Gravity in deep space is space expanding and pushing itself apart in what we might call a "repulsion gravity or the cosmological constant". Gravity, in our world, is center seeking space and contracts to its center, toward the center of earth. Gravity is what the optical medium, space, does. Gravity-space, has superior control over any other physics phenomena. Therefore the optical medium, space, bends the optical phenomena, light. A massive object, in space, can never bend light, space or gravity because matter is inferior to light, space and gravity.

It's strange to me that there are so many that absolutely know that starlight is bent by gravity but no one quite knows what gravity actually is, how many types there are of it, where it resides, what it associates with and what is the source of it. One must know these things before stating gravity bends starlight. Even the Gravity Probe B scientists have already shown me that they are not too familiar with these answers. Even Al was quite sure that common, dead-matter pulled all-superior light, space and gravity around, or did he know better and just didn't say?

Article:

To Test Einstein's Theory of Relativity

When NASA's Gravity Probe B (GP-B) satellite launches on April 17th, it will begin a rigorous test of Einstein's general theory of relativity. The result will either support or challenge one of the fundamental tenets of modern physics. This seminal test would not be possible without a key contribution by scientists at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA). Their ground-based measurements will be combined with those from the satellite to determine precisely how the Earth's mass and rotation affect the fabric of space and time.

"This NASA mission is the culmination of 45 years of work at Stanford University. Here at the CfA, we are providing a key piece of astronomical information that Stanford needs to complete its test of Einstein's theory with the full intended accuracy and reliability. The satellite measurements have to be adjusted for at least one very significant astronomical effect. We are using radio telescopes to measure the required adjustment," says Smithsonian radio astronomer Michael Ratner (CfA), who works with CfA Director Irwin Shapiro on the project.

Testing Einstein

At the heart of the GP-B experiment are four gyroscopes, each holding a precisely fabricated spinning mass the size of a ping-pong ball. They are kept nearly free from disturbance, so that they provide an almost perfect space-time reference system. By measuring, very precisely, tiny changes in the direction of spin of those four gyroscopes, physicists will calculate how space and time are warped by the presence of the Earth, and how the Earth's rotation drags space-time around with it. These effects, though small for the Earth, have far-reaching implications for everything from the nature of black holes to the structure and evolution of the universe.

"Our understanding of cosmology is based on the interpretation of astrophysical data and assumes that general relativity is correct. If general relativity were found to be substantially wrong, it would have a profound effect on our description of the cosmos and its history. Even a small discrepancy found in a local measurement, like the one to be made by GP-B, could strongly affect our understanding of the universe," says CfA Associate Director Robert Reasenberg, who serves on the GP-B Science Advisory Committee and has worked on tests of general relativity for three decades.

According to general relativity, we live in a four-dimensional universe. Space and time are interwoven and inseparable. The presence of any massive object like the Earth will bend the space-time fabric, essentially warping space.

One prediction of the theory of general relativity is that starlight will be bent by gravity. That effect was first measured in 1919 during a total solar eclipse. Other predictions are not so easy to confirm.

One of the more unusual predictions of general relativity is the phenomenon of frame dragging, in which the rotation of a massive object like the Earth causes a twisting of the local space-time fabric. A visible result of this effect is that the direction of the spin axis of each gyroscope on the spacecraft turns very slowly toward the east.

Each spin axis also will appear to turn at a faster rate in the north-south direction, as a result of the spacecraft's polar orbit through the warped space around the Earth. Gravity Probe B will measure both effects during its approximately 1-1/2 year mission.

Extreme Precision

In order for GP-B to measure any "twist" or curvature of local space-time, it must use gyroscopes that are nearly perfect, which will not wobble or drift while spinning. Using ultrastable gyroscopes ensures that any angular change to the gyroscope's spin axis is due to relativistic effects.

Gravity Probe B carries a telescope that focuses on a guide star in order to provide a reference point for measuring tiny deflections in the gyroscopes' spin axes. The whole spacecraft is continually kept aligned to this star. Yet the star shifts its apparent position as both it and the Sun independently orbit the center of the Milky Way. As seen from the GP-B spacecraft, the apparent position of the guide star also is affected by the spacecraft's orbit around the Earth and the Earth's orbit around the Sun.

To compensate for those effects, Shapiro and his colleagues have monitored the GP-B guide star for the past 7 years using a variety of radio telescopes. That monitoring will continue through the lifetime of Gravity Probe B. Only after all of the spacecraft data have been collected will the calculations be made that will test Einstein's theory.

"If the predictions of general relativity are confirmed, I personally would feel a sense of satisfaction that not only Einstein's historic theory of gravity, but also the many years of work on the GP-B project, had all succeeded spectacularly. Conversely, if the Gravity Probe B results are inconsistent with Einstein's theory, I would be excited about the prospect of what might come next. It certainly would motivate a fresh look at the foundations of physics," says Ratner.

He adds, "No matter what the outcome, the Gravity Probe B program will stand as a testament to the determination of scientists to subject even their favorite theories to empirical tests. It is this process of testing that gives science its ongoing validity, even while driving science unpredictably onward."

Quote: "Einstein proposed that space-time is curved by mass and energy, which accounts for the familiar gravitational pull experienced by objects on Earth's surface."

Response: Are you still convinced that mass can curve space? Are you still convinced that earth has a gravitational pull?

Quote: "According to Einstein, the objects are slipping down the curved sheet of space-time toward Earth. Imagine a bowling ball on a mattress: The depression caused by the ball will cause other objects on the mattress to fall toward it."

Response: Instead if imagining a bowling ball rolling down a rubber sheet, imagine tornadoes of space all directing matter to their common centers.

Quote: "Because a moving object will continue moving unless a force acts upon it, the gyroscope's axis will not move unless something acts upon it, like gravity or a curved space-time."

Response: There is gravity, curved space, intense plasmas, intense magnetic fields of the Van Allen Belts, Solar magnetisms coming into the North pole and exiting the South pole, solar storms of unprecedented magnitude, twisting Birkland currents and longitudinal earth magnetic fields and latitudinal earth electric fields 90 degrees to magnetism that will affect the gyroscopes and variable earth masses under the polar orbit affecting gravity's "constant status" by 5 dynes from equator to pole, not to mention the internal electric field built into the gyroscopes. A very dirty and unavoidable environment.

Quote: "They want the gyro to be essentially falling freely, so there are no forces acting on it. It is just detecting what space-time is doing."

Response: This free-fall is enigmatic. Free-fall with what? Space itself. Free-falling through spinning space is becoming exactly compatible with the velocity of spinning space....which is what "force-free" means....no force of space acting on the gyros, therefore the gyro's will not be able to detect any spatial measure. If there is no detection of space, what can the gyros conclude about space? It will detect something but it may not be the space they want.

Article:

Probe To Aid Understanding of Space-time.
By Ben Krasnow- Staff Writer
Tuesday April 20, 2004

NASA will put Albert Einstein's theory of gravity to the test today with a satellite scheduled to launch at 10 a.m. from Vandenberg Air Force Base.

The satellite, called Gravity Probe B, will measure the warping of space-time predicted by Einstein's theory of general relativity. The probe, which has been in the making for over 40 years, is now a reality because of technology and engineering developed at NASA and Stanford University. For two years the probe will measure properties of space-time and will provide the most definitive evidence in testing general relativity.

The concept of space-time describes how physical distances in space are inextricably related to time. It treats time as a dimension, just as left, up and forward are dimensions. In space-time, an event's location must include spatial and temporal information. Many people refer to the "fabric of space-time" because it is convenient to imagine all events in the universe occurring on an underlying sheet of fabric of space and time.

Einstein proposed that space-time is curved by mass and energy, which accounts for the familiar gravitational pull experienced by objects on Earth's surface. According to Einstein, the objects are slipping down the curved sheet of space-time toward Earth. Imagine a bowling ball on a mattress: The depression caused by the ball will cause other objects on the mattress to fall toward it.

Measuring Curved Space-time

Gravity Probe B will use a device called a gyroscope to test whether space-time is really curved by mass. A gyroscope consists of an axis about which a mass spins. Because a moving object will continue moving unless a force acts upon it, the gyroscope's axis will not move unless something acts upon it, like gravity or a curved space-time.

UCSB Physics Professor James Hartle said that a gyroscope is like a toy top.

"Think of a top you might spin," Hartle said. "If you put it in the gravitational field of the earth, its axis will move around in a circle. That's called precession."

A top wobbles, or precesses, because the Earth's gravity pulls on it. The top stops spinning only because the force of friction opposes the motion, which is unrelated to the precession.

This precession is common in many applications of physics. The Earth itself is like a giant gyroscope, as are tiny subatomic particles. The reason that all spinning things are able to precess is because an external force acts on them. In the case of a spinning top, if the axis deviates even slightly from vertical, the earth's gravity pulls unevenly on it, which causes the top to precess.

The gyroscopes in the gravity probe are made of quartz spheres 1.5 inches in diameter. They are claimed to be the most perfect spheres ever created, with surfaces accurate to within .5 microinches (12 nanometers). The spheres are supported by electric fields and rotate in a vacuum to virtually eliminate friction. The extreme precision is required because the magnitude of the effect being measured is extremely small. Any bumps or irregularities would affect the gyroscope's ability to detect small forces.

Such precision does not come cheap. The entire project has cost NASA $700 million dollars and has suffered numerous setbacks and cost increases due to the complexity and novelty of the parts.

Free Falling

Objects in orbit, such as the gravity probe, are in a state of free fall. They do not feel gravitational acceleration like objects on Earth's surface. Because of this, the gyroscopes on the orbiting gravity probe should not precess as they would on Earth's surface.

On the other hand, if space-time really is warped, as predicted by Einstein, then the gyroscopes should precess a very small amount because of the warping caused by earth.

"These people aim at detecting precession specifically due to general relativity," Hartle said. "In fact, their effort is to get the gyroscope as free of forces as possible."

Any of these unexpected forces would cause the probe to be inaccurate. Hartle said these forces might be caused by random flying particles in space.

"That's the real technological achievement - what's called 'drag free'," Hartle said. "They want the gyro to be essentially falling freely, so there are no forces acting on it. It is just detecting what space-time is doing."

The drag-free system means that the gyroscopes are surrounded by a protective housing which orbits in lock step with the gyroscopes. There is no connection between the housing and the gyroscopes, so very responsive sensors and thrusters are needed to guide the housing along with the free-falling gyroscopes.

If the gyroscopes do precess because of space-time curvature, the theory predicts a contribution from the Earth's mass and another from the Earth's rotation, causing two types of precession. Hartle said the first type, geodetic precession, is caused by the presence of the Earth's mass.

"The geodetic precession is something that would happen whether the Earth was rotating or not," Hartle said. "Just because the space-time outside the Earth is slightly curved."

The second type of precession, frame dragging, is caused by the rotation of Earth pulling space-time along with it, Hartle said. Instead of just curving the local space-time, a rotating planet should also twist it.

If the probe measures the expected amount of precession, then substantially more credit would be given to Einstein's theory.

The angular amount of precession that theory would predict can be accurately calculated, and it is extremely small. The contribution from frame dragging is 42 milliarc-seconds per year. The size of this angle is equivalent to the width of a human hair viewed from 10 miles away. The satellite will collect data for two years in order to get an accurate reading.

Important Results

"I think by now people have had certain expectations, and it would be very surprising if it gave back a different [result], but it would also be very interesting," Hartle said. "You would have to have a different theory of gravity. That's how you do physics - propose a theory, check it, if it doesn't check, change the theory."

NASA spokesman Don Savage said that the designers of the probe are not making any assumptions.

"The scientists are not going to make any predictions," Savage said. "However, they expect it to get very good data."

The choice to launch the probe from Vandenberg was not a random one. Its position on the Earth is beneficial for satellites that will assume the type of orbit preferred for the gravity probe.

"That is the location from which we launch satellites that go into polar orbit," Savage said. "It's more advantageous for the satellite to travel north-south."

A polar orbit is one in which the satellite passes over the north and south poles of the Earth.

It is not uncommon for Vandenberg to participate in science missions such as this one. Vandenberg spokesman Jack Hokenson said the base typically launches five scientific instruments a year.

Article:

A NASA spacecraft designed to test two important predictions of Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity is set to launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California on Monday April 19th 2004 at 10:01 AM Pacific Daylight Time. NASA's Gravity Probe B mission, also known as GP-B, will use four ultra-precise gyroscopes, orbiting the Earth in a unique satellite, to experimentally test two extraordinary predictions of Einstein's 1916 theory that space and time are distorted by the presence of massive objects. The two effects being tested are: The geodetic effect, the amount by which the Earth warps local spacetime in which it resides, and the frame-dragging effect, the amount by which the Earth drags local spacetime around with it as it rotates.

"Gravity Probe-B has the potential to uncover fundamental properties of the invisible universe, a universe which seems very bizarre and alien to our everyday perceptions yet one that Einstein tried to show us almost a century ago," said Dr. Anne Kinney, director of the Astronomy and Physics Division in NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington. "Testing the key aspects of Einstein's theory, such as GP-B will do, will provide crucial information to science just as it has already helped America by pushing technological progress in developing the tools needed for these ultra-precise measurements," she added.

Once placed in its polar orbit of 640 kilometers (400 miles) above Earth, GP-B will circle the globe every 97.5 minutes, crossing over both poles. In-orbit checkout and calibration is scheduled to last 40-60 days, followed by a 13-month science-data acquisition period and a two-month post-science period for calibrations.

To test the general theory of relativity, GP-B will monitor any drift in the gyroscopes' spin axis alignment in relation to its guide star, IM Pegasi (HR 8703). Over the course of a year, the anticipated spin axis drift for the geodetic effect is a minuscule angle of 6,614.4 milliarcseconds, and the anticipated spin axis drift for the frame-dragging effect is even smaller, only 40.9 milliarcseconds. To illustrate the size of the angles, if you climbed a slope of 40.9 milliarcseconds for 100 miles, you would rise only one inch in altitude.

During the mission, data from GP-B will be received a minimum of two times each day. Earth-based ground stations or NASA's data relay satellites can receive the information.

Controllers will be able to communicate with GP-B from the Mission Operations Center at Stanford University.

Data will include space vehicle and instrument performance, as well as the very precise measurements of the gyroscopes' spin-axis orientation. By 2005 the GP-B mission will be complete, and a one-year period is planned for scientific analysis of the data.

"Developing GP-B has been a supreme challenge requiring the skillful integration of an extraordinary range of new technologies," said Professor Francis Everitt of Stanford University, and the GP-B principal investigator. "It is hard to see how it could have been done without the kind of unique long-term collaboration that we have had between Stanford, Lockheed Martin, and NASA. It is wonderful to be ready for launch," he said.

NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala., manages the GP-B program. NASA's prime contractor for the mission, Stanford University, conceived the experiment and is responsible for the design and integration of the science instrument, as well as for mission operations and data analysis. Lockheed Martin, a major subcontractor, designed, integrated and tested the spacecraft and some of its major payload components. NASA's Kennedy Space Center, Fla., and Boeing Expendable Launch Systems, Huntington Beach, Calif., are responsible for the countdown and launch of the Delta II.