Interstellar Now! Missions to Interstellar Objects with Near-Term Technology

A paper in Advances in Space Research, “Interstellar Now! Missions to and Sample Returns from Nearby Interstellar Objects” (full text [PDF]), explores the feasibility of fly-by, rendezvous, and sample return missions to interstellar objects such as the recently discovered 1I/'Oumuamua and 2I/Borisov and the suspected captured interstellar asteroid 514107 Kaʻepaokaʻawela, which is in a retrograde orbit around the Sun synchronous with Jupiter. It concludes that in many cases, particularly when the object is discovered before perihelion, that a probe which could be launched by a Falcon Heavy or SLS would be able to investigate such objects using technologies such as a Solar Oberth maneuver, solar sail, or nuclear thermal propulsion could investigate such objects at close range. Sample missions plans are included. Here is the abstract:

The recently discovered first high velocity hyperbolic objects passing through the Solar System, 1I/'Oumuamua and 2I/Borisov, have raised the question about near term missions to Interstellar Objects. In situ spacecraft exploration of these objects will allow the direct determination of both their structure and their chemical and isotopic composition, enabling an entirely new way of studying small bodies from outside our solar system. In this paper, we map various Interstellar Object classes to mission types, demonstrating that missions to a range of Interstellar Object classes are feasible, using existing or near-term technology. We describe flyby, rendezvous and sample return missions to interstellar objects, showing various ways to explore these bodies characterizing their surface, dynamics, structure and composition. Interstellar objects likely formed very far from the solar system in both time and space; their direct exploration will constrain their formation and history, situating them within the dynamical and chemical evolution of the Galaxy. These mission types also provide the opportunity to explore solar system bodies and perform measurements in the far outer solar system.

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This paper ignores the evidence for warp drive UAPS posing a current military threat to the US Navy.
UAP military threat
This metric engineering technology whose basic principles I now think I understand renders all missions based on rockets obsolete.

Anything you can share about those basic principles?

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In a nutshell
Einstein’s 1916 GR gravity field equation is

Guv = 8pi(G/c^4)Tuv

Guv is the gravity field generated by a source field whose stress energy tensor Tuv.

Both Guv and Tuv are second rank symmetric tensor fields under all the local frame transformations of both special and general relativity. The pure mathematics of tensor calculus then allows the coupling of these two tensor fields to be a variable zero rank tensor field (aka scalar field) that is still locally frame invariant at a fixed event, though it can be different at different events.

The source field Tuv is mostly from the electromagnetic field generated by electric charges in the low energy region relevant to the UFO phenomenon now made official reality by the US Military. In fact I have been told by James Angleton III to expect a call from Senator Marco Rubio’s Chief of Staff to advise the Senator on this very topic. So this is good practice for that. :wink:

G is Newton’s gravity constant, and c is uncritically taken to be the speed of light in vacuum even though Tuv is inside source matter.

Now it turns out that c cannot be the speed of light in vacuum when we are inside matter for two independent reasons.

First, classically, although the speed of light in vacuum is invariant under the inertial frame Lorentz transformations of Einstein’s 1905 Special Theory of Relativity, it is not invariant under the more general non-inertial frame transformations of Einstein’s 1916 General Theory of Relativity. Technically, this is because of the mixed space-time g0i terms in the metric field, e.g. Sagnac effect in rotating interferometers. Also, in vacuum Tuv = 0, so that G/c^4 as a coupling of matter to gravity does not even appear in Einstein’s vacuum field equation Guv = 0 for the obvious reason that there is no matter in vacuum.

In addition to the above classical objections, there is a quantum objection from the Hawking-Unruh effect that Einstein of course did not know about.

The speed of light in vacuum is caused by the scattering of real photons off the virtual electron-positron zero point vacuum fluctuations (other charges also but they are small corrections). The problem is that the boundary between virtual particles inside the quantum vacuum and real particles outside the quantum vacuum is contingent on the proper G-force acceleration of the particle detector.

Therefore, I made the ansatz that Einstein’s equation INSIDE matter should be of the form

Guv = 8pi(G/c^4)Re{STuv}

S is now a dimensionless complex scalar field with an amplitude and phase. Tuv for the electromagnetic stress-energy field inside matter is also complex because of dissipation from photon electron - ion inelastic scatterings generating irreversible Joule heating.

Under the inertial frame Lorentz transformations of Special Relativity

c = c’ and S = S’ separately for local frame observers O and O’.

However, in non-inertial local frame transformations

c → c’ =/= c and S → S’ =/= S

but S/c^4 = S’/c’^4

S is the scalar susceptibility electromagnetic response of the material to the external applied EM field inside matter, it includes the effects of the real charges in addition the virtual charges.

The idea is that in a resonance the amplitude |S| >> 1 which makes Tuv small for a fixed desired warp drive field Guv. Furthermore, by controlling the phase of STuv we can switch from attractive induced gravity to repulsive antigravity i.e.

Re{STuv} has a cosine of a phase shift. Controlling the phase shift can change the sign of the coupling.

This idea is then able to explain the actual evidence now admitted by the US Pentagon in the form of the “Five Observables”