Matter-Antimatter Propulsion with on-board Schwinger electron-positron pair production via high power 10^16 volts per centimeter lasers are becoming...

Dr. Gerald Cleaver discusses Matter-Antimatter Propulsion and Icarus Interstellar.

Through a LinkedIn connection, Icarus Interstellar’s Dr. Gerald Cleaver was invited to present the February 12th colloquium for the SAIC Technical Speaker Forum at NASA-Johnson Space Center in Clear Lake, Texas.

Cleaver had been requested to speak on two topics:
(i) Icarus Interstellar, including its history, mission and ongoing projects, and
(ii) his related past research with Richard Obousy on theoretical string theory realization of the Alcubierre warp effect and on his present research regarding in situ matter/antimatter production for starship thrust.

Attendance at the talk was filled to capacity in the main NASA conference room in building 1. A few dozen more people from five different NASA sites participated through WebEx Meeting Center.

The audience was very interested in the range of Icarus Interstellar programs. The SAIC people appreciated Icarus Interstellar’s connection with SAIC via the Icarus Interstellar association with the Foundation for Enterprise Development, run by Mary-Anne Beyster, daughter of the founder of SAIC. After the one-hour presentation was over, another 90 minutes of related discussion continued between Cleaver and nine SAIC and NASA scientists and engineers at the NASA cafeteria. As part of a Baylor University research sabbatical, Cleaver plans to spend April through June at NASA-JSC working in its Eagleswork Lab with Icarus Interstellar’s Dr. Sonny White and his colleagues.

At 27 minutes in – theoretically if we could control 7 compact dimensional strings in size and shape then we could control the cosmological constant locally. Purely theoretically string theory is compatible with Alcubierre warp drive.

Matter/antimatter (MAM)-based propulsion systems are viable options for both intrasolar system and interstellar travel. For example, the feasibility and functionality of on-board Schwinger electron-positron pair production via high power lasers has received growing interest lately. In this talk an alternate in-situ MAM production method will be discussed. Production of quark-antiquark pairs via interaction of parallel electric and magnetic fields associated with chiral symmetry breaking will be reviewed. Emphasis will be placed on the physics involved in the quark pair production and in the basic design of a related propulsion system. Quark pair production rates as a function of electric and magnetic field strengths is presented.

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