Experimental results of Schlicher's thrusting antenna

(Maximum 200 words) Experiments were conducted to test the claims by Rex L. Schficher, et al., (Patent 5,142,861 ) that a certain antennageometry produces thrust greatly exceeding radiation reaction, when driven by repetitive, fast rise, and relatively slowerdecay current pulses. In order to test this hypothesis, the antenna was suspended by strings as a 3 m pendulum. Currentpulses were fed to the antenna along the suspension path by a very flexible coaxial line constructed from loudspeakercable and copper braid sheath. When driving the antenna via this cabling, our pulser was capable of sustaining 1200 Apulses at a rate of 30 per second up to a minute. In this way, bursts of pulses could be delivered in synch with thependulum period in order to build up any motion. However, when using a laser beam passing through a lens attached tothe antenna to amplify linear displacement by a factor of at least 25, no correlated motion of the beam spot could bedetected on a distant wall. We conclude, in agreement with the momentum theorem of classical electromagnetic theory,that any thrust produced is far below practically useful levels. Hence, within classical electrodynamics, there is littlehope of detecting any low level motion that cannot be explained by interactions with surrounding structural steel and theEarth's magnetic field.14. SUBJECT TERMSElectromagnetic theory; Propulsion; Maxwell's equations17. SECURITY CLASSIFICATION 18. SECURITY CLASSIFICATIONOF REPORT OF THIS PAGEUnclassified UnclassifiedNSN 7540-01-280-5500