Getting Bent | Aero-News Network
Aero-News Network
RSS icon RSS feed
podcast icon MP3 podcast
Subscribe Aero-News e-mail Newsletter Subscribe

Airborne Unlimited -- Most Recent Daily Episodes

Episode Date

Airborne-Monday

Airborne-Tuesday

Airborne-Wednesday Airborne-Thursday

Airborne-Friday

Airborne On YouTube

Airborne-Unlimited-04.01.24

Airborne-Unlimited-04.16.24

Airborne-FlightTraining-04.17.24 Airborne-Unlimited-04.11.24

Airborne-Unlimited-04.12.24

Join Us At 0900ET, Friday, 4/10, for the LIVE Morning Brief.
Watch It LIVE at
www.airborne-live.net

Mon, Apr 05, 2004

Getting Bent

NASA Orbital Experiment To Test Einstein's Theory

When Gravity Probe B was first proposed by NASA, Dwight D. Eisenhower was president. Cuba was still considered a friendly country and Vietnam was a place few Americans could point to on a map. Manned space flight was still an unrealized dream.

Now, 45-years later, Gravity Probe B is finally being prepared for lift-off at Vandenberg AFB (CA). It's mission: test two linchpin theories first proposed by Albert Einstein. In 1916, Einstein figured a planet like Earth could actually mold and twist the fabric of space and time. Think of a lead weight resting in the middle of a soft mattress and you'll get an idea of what he had in mind. That very effect, he proposed, is directly responsible for gravity.

Since 1959, the probe has survived -- barely, in some cases -- cancellation, technical problems and launch delays. But April 17th, Gravity Probe B will finally launch.

The probe is built around four perfectly spherical balls, about the size of ping-pong balls. They're made of quartz and touted as the most perfect spheres ever created by man. They're packed in vacuum thermoses and cooled to near absolute zero.

Here's how Stanford University puts it: "The experiment will check, very precisely, tiny changes in the direction of spin of four gyroscopes contained in an Earth satellite orbiting at 400-mile altitude directly over the poles. So free are the gyroscopes from disturbance that they will provide an almost perfect space-time reference system. They will measure how space and time are warped by the presence of the Earth, and, more profoundly, how the Earth's rotation drags space-time around with it. These effects, though small for the Earth, have far-reaching implications for the nature of matter and the structure of the Universe.

FMI: http://einstein.stanford.edu

Advertisement

More News

ANN's Daily Aero-Linx (04.15.24)

Aero Linx: International Flying Farmers IFF is a not-for-profit organization started in 1944 by farmers who were also private pilots. We have members all across the United States a>[...]

Classic Aero-TV: 'No Other Options' -- The Israeli Air Force's Danny Shapira

From 2017 (YouTube Version): Remembrances Of An Israeli Air Force Test Pilot Early in 2016, ANN contributor Maxine Scheer traveled to Israel, where she had the opportunity to sit d>[...]

Aero-News: Quote of the Day (04.15.24)

"We renegotiated what our debt restructuring is on a lot of our debts, mostly with the family. Those debts are going to be converted into equity..." Source: Excerpts from a short v>[...]

Airborne 04.16.24: RV Update, Affordable Flying Expo, Diamond Lil

Also: B-29 Superfortress Reunion, FAA Wants Controllers, Spirit Airlines Pulls Back, Gogo Galileo Van's Aircraft posted a short video recapping the goings-on around their reorganiz>[...]

ANN's Daily Aero-Term (04.16.24): Chart Supplement US

Chart Supplement US A flight information publication designed for use with appropriate IFR or VFR charts which contains data on all airports, seaplane bases, and heliports open to >[...]

blog comments powered by Disqus



Advertisement

Advertisement

Podcasts

Advertisement

© 2007 - 2024 Web Development & Design by Pauli Systems, LC