This was the third and final day of the workshop, which took place at City University New York. This day was on the theme of 'Breakthrough Propulsion' and was chaired by Dr Harold 'Sonny' White of NASA Johnson Space Centre. After an introduction about the uncertainties in physics and cosmology that we are still to understand, Sonny kicked the days talks off by being the first speaker, and discussing pilot wave models for impulsive thrust from RF test device measurements in a vacuum. This was followed by Heidi Fearn of the California State University Fullerton who gave a comprehensive presentation utilising Einstein's General Relativity. Glen Robertson of GAResearch LLC then discussed entanglement and Chameleon acceleration. After the coffee break, the co-chairman for the workshop Professor Roman Kezerashvili gave an outstanding presentation on tests of fundamental laws of physics in interstellar flight, in particular discussing the effects of gravitational frame dragging on a solar sail mission close to the Sun.
After lunch David Hyland from Texas A&M University discussed Epitaxial devices for dynamic interaction with the vacuum state. There was also a talk from NASAs Ronald Litchford on Breakthrough Propulsion capability development strategy. Then, Remo Garattini, also i4is, but a Professor of physics from the University of Bergamo, gave a tour de force presentation on self-sustained traversable wormholes and Casimir energy. His talk was intellectually rigorous, but also inspirationally stimulating and although he travelled the furthest, his talk was worth the trip.
During the afternoon Ralph McNutt Jr from Johns Hopkins University gave an amazing talk on human exploration of the Solar System as a precursor to interstellar travel. As usual for Ralph, his talk was filled with fascinating facts, including that human beings had only sent ~25,000 metric tonnes into LEO or beyond from 1957 onwards, and that the US had spent a total of around $486 billion in over 57 years on human spaceflight, an average of $8.3 billion per year. Then their was a presentation from Louis Friedman of the Planetary Society and the California Institute of Technology on the subject of the Solar Gravity Lens focus. Lou advocated for such a mission as an essential demonstration before any full-up interstellar mission is attempted. A full report on these discussions will be compiled for the i4is Principium magazine.
