The only problem is... there isn't enough energy in our solar sytem to power the thing.

As long as Fig Newtons don't surrender.....cause there damn tasty!

this was done a while ago by some others. go to http://www.americanantigravity.com to see their stuff. I think they have instruction on how to build your own lifter there.

anti-gravity my ass...
you can get a piece of copper wire to "float" because of the earth's magnetic field, that isn't considered "anti-gravity", it is considered electomagnetism.
anti-gravity...pshh...

Let me be the first to say-

REPEAT

What a load of crap. Electrostatic charge is hardly defying gravity. I think it takes more than a couple hundred volts, some tin foil, and some string to defy gravity. I've seen this contraption before on slashdot and cosmiverse, including directions on how to build one. I'm not impressed. Next, they will start selling popsicle stick bird houses that i made in summer camp as a kid as "recycled low-income housing."

Musta been written in Alabamese, 'cause very little of it made sense.

Lifter 2 - Has three times greater in mass and physical geometry

I get the gist, but they coulda phrased it better.

Sure it works over some stupid electromagnetic field or something but it will be real news when you can use one of these things out on the cement or pavement.

May I present my ANTI-anti-gravity machine!

I was expecting something involving drunken yokels, a big ramp and a pickup truck.

Not just an electrostatic lifter. These things don't use magnetism, and they do work over any surface but they're totally useless for anything practical because of the really high voltages and the tiny forces they produce.

All true "Alabama + Antigravity" stories should involve a pickup truck and at least one drunken yokel yelling "watch this!".

When I saw this headline, I immediately thought of this Bizarro cartoon:

its agreed then. when they can build a flying car that will carry my 200lb ass then we will all be impresseed. science has owed society a flying car since the '50's.

Lifters, pah. You can never have an anti-gravity machine on earth. You would have to shut off the mass of the planet somehow. Ain't gonna happen.

Old news and a kook site too.

You can do this at home. Get the high-voltage capacitor from your TV and attach the lead to a piece of aluminum foil wrapped around a book (or glued to a table. Your call). Scatter some strips of foil on the sheet, and hit the juice. All the strips will stand up. When you're bored with this (5 minutes), attach the cat. Not nice, but funny.

When this progresses beyond a cheap(actually probably quite expensive) parlor trick, then we can all get excited.

Check out the "Projects" page. It read's like Dr. Evil dexcribing his latest nefarious plan. Without the evilness.

Diogenes:

I want you to know I just spent the last 30 seconds trying to find farker "Bullseye" to see what he said that agreed with my statement. /slow

let me be the second: REPEAT

For those interested in reading more about this type of anti-gravity machine, check out this link:

http://jnaudin.free.fr/html/lifters.htm

Transdimensional Technologies has been awarded several contracts by NASA to validate this technique for propulsion. Luckily, they are better at developing hardware than websites. While "lifters" aren't new, this company has worked to prove lifters can work IN A VACUUM. I have little reason to doubt that if there really are UFOs, then this is the technology they use for propulsion.

Bleh, that didn't come out right at all. That's what I get for farking when I should be sleeping.

Downstairs

It's not an antigravity airplane. Its just a cargo plane with a padded interior. They put the plane into a long, steep dive which simulates zero gravity.

Little reason to doubt they use lifters? Lifters won't provide enough propulsion to travel after than the speed of light, and they'd be extremely dangerous because of all the electricity they need. Not environmentally freindly, OR efficient.

Downstairs
Would that be the plane where they fly really high, and then accelerate towards the ground and 9.8m/s^2?

I think that's what they do. The mechanics of the situation escape me at the moment, and I have to leave for work soon.

Gravity doesn't vanish in a poof, it vanishes according to the inverse square law. There is gravity in orbit, it's just really, really, *really* insignificant. That's why it's called microgravity.

Downstairs
astronauts are trained in an anti-gravity airplane, once you go high enough and fast enough, poof.... gravity is all gone...
That's not how it works. They climb the plane as high as they can, and then dive. The plane drops at 9.81m/s2, i.e. the force of gravity (remember, gravity is acceleration). Gravity is therefore kinda "cancelled" in the plane, and that's how they float. I think it lasts 30 seconds before they do it again: climb, drop, climb, drop, etc...
That's how they did the "weighless" shots in "Apollo 13". They built the set inside the plane. More than one actor did puke though. I heard that this is quite an unpleasant feeling. The feeling of weighlessness is identifical to the one of freefalling. I don't know if you ever when into this ride that dropped you in free fall. Just imagine that this 3-second feeling lasted 30 seconds, or worse, several weeks in the ISS.

Hey let's write up a feasability study for the government, we'll make a mint before they figure out it doesn't work!

hmmmmm... this is real old news. Deep space one was propelled thru the solar system with an ion engine. gave off about as much thrust as a piece of paper on your hand. the engine was developed in the 50's. but! there wasn't any way to power a craft to carry it's power supply. check out this site "http://www.markwilson.com/ioncraft/index.html" /a> if my mad html skills don't come thru, just copy and paste the thing! I really despise copy cats and those who modify one tiny aspect of something so they can claim uniqueness (is that a real word).

close!
"http://www.markwilson.com/ioncraft/index.html

nevermind
http://www.markwilson.com/ioncraft/index.html

Woodworx, from what I can tell from their web site, this company has gone to great lengths to prove their technology is NOT related to ion wind (used by Deep Space One). Otherwise, NASA would not have funded these new studies.

Bondith: please go to school.

Gravity is, indeed, ruled by inverse squares. To be precise, the inverse square of the distance between the gravity centers of the two objects.

Now, think: how much farther is the shuttle from the center of the earth than the earth's surface?

The shuttle is in free fall. Just like the vomit comet is in free fall.

Of course the shuttle is also in orbit, which can be simply described as a fall from so high, when moving horizontally fast enough that you don't hit the ground because it curves away from you.

Now, think.

Why is it that every time a headline mentions Alabama, people automatically assume it involves a redneck and drunkenness? The last time I was in New York, I stayed just outside the city and ran into more rednecks than I have ever encountered in Birmingham or Huntsville.

Diogenes:

will you (or someone else) explain to me how GRAVITY can have a particle?? (gravitons)

I mean, I know it hasn't been proven and all, but what makes people think that there might be particles drawing little masses to biger masses?

Anyone? anyone?

how about little asses to bigger asses?
Anyone?

Downstairs wrote - astronauts are trained in an anti-gravity airplane, once you go high enough and fast enough, poof.... gravity is all gone...

I assume you're talking about the infamous "vomit comet." If so, I've gotta say... The effects of the "comet" have nothing to with flying high enough and fast enough to cancel out gravity.

The plane flies in parabolas, up and down in arcs. As the plane begins it's level off and descent it simulates weightlessness. You appear to be weightless simply because you're free-falling slightly "slower" than the plane's powered descent. Your "floating" is really just relative to the interior of the plane. It's kind of like an extended version of that moment of "weightlessness" you experience when a roller coaster crests a hill and begins it's descent.

Sure, you've "risen" in defiance of gravity, but you're still just using plain old jet fuel as your means of propulsion. After that, you're still just plain old falling.

Kymry:

Why should gravitons exist... well, why not? They are convenient.

Science must propose SOME way for gravity to work. Gravitons are one. It is not even the only one.

Thomas Townsen Brown is the man that should be credited for this "anti-gravity" machine.

http://www.soteria.com/brown/

How many people are going to "invent" this?? Does putting it up on a different website mean you invetend it??

eagle- i saw the pic in the plastic box, but couldn't find an explanation. going back to the theory behind the first lifter they seem to be looking for ionic thrust from the emitter (the thin wire above the frame) to the collector (the tall aluminum piece hanging down from the frame). Thanks for bringing that up.

Rednecks of the future!

"You gat in tha ketchen and make me some of dem grits woman or I gonna use me that der anty gravity 'chine and 'Pow! Zoom! Right to the Moon!"

I don't know why Rednecks of the future quote Ralph Kramden but they always do and then they go rape there daughter.

Nothing like science and working tech to plumb the intellectual depths of the farker, which appears to be bottomless.

pakfish

rararepeat.

Kdeguy:

Oh, don't get me wrong, I am not putting the gravitron theory down, despite my silly manner.

Actually, I would really honestly like somebody to explain the concept to me. I know that there is a particle theory for light and I know how that works (rudimentarily) and all, but I have never (outside of star trek) heard of a gravitron.

Any brainiacs care to explain it to me in layman's terms?

any other theories are also welcome. All I know about gravity is that whole heavy-weights-on-a-tight-rubber-sheet theory of mass curving space. that was Einstein, right?

Ahh, why did I ever abandon my science education for an art major???

Kymry (only made it to page ten of A Brief History of Time)