Translated material
“We are not inventing a perpetual motion machine”
— Let me make it clear right away: we are not inventing a perpetual motion machine. For the Soyuz-Sat-O spacecraft, which is part of the multifunctional space system (MFSS) of the union state of Russia and Belarus, we developed four types of new engines at once: laser-plasma, water, inertial and ablative. We are creating the latter together with a full member of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Department of Energy, Mechanical Engineering, Mechanics and Control Processes) Garry Alekseevich Popov. In this engine, under the influence of a high-voltage discharge, the working fluid, fluoroplastic, evaporates and thrust is formed. It is this that will be installed on the Soyuz-Sat-O.
— How far have you come in creating an engine without jet mass emissions?
- First we conducted an experiment with mercury. We got a very good result. But, unfortunately, mercury is dangerous and capricious, so we moved on to experiments with massive solid bodies that move along a certain trajectory, either with acceleration or deceleration. A device for continuous movement without consumption of working fluid has already been tested in terrestrial conditions.
-Did you give it a name?
- Conventionally - “gravitsapa” (as in the famous film by Georgy Danelia “Kin-dza-dza”. - Ed. ). It is designed for any spacecraft, especially nanosatellites. In this case, the mass of the propulsion device will be reduced to several tens of grams. The main thing now is to prove that it works.
-- It turns out?
-- In May 2008, the Rokot launch vehicle launched the small Yubileiny spacecraft into space from the Plesetsk cosmodrome. The “gravity gear” is installed on it. For a year and a half, new devices and systems were tested. Recently these experiments ended, and we were finally able to begin testing our propulsion unit. It will work for at least 15 years, and the maximum number of starts can reach 300 thousand.
— How did the idea to create a “gravitapu” come about?
— Around 2000, Spartak Mikhailovich Polyakov, a scientist and talented engineer, came to me. In one of the poems written a few months before his death, he identified himself with an “interstellar wanderer.” All his life he worked on creating a gravitational engine. Together with his son Oleg, Polyakov tried to supplement Newtonian mechanics with a simple equation connecting the rotational motion of a mass with its own gravitational field. I saw from Polyakov that there is a certain force that allows one to maintain a structure weighing 40 kg in a suspended state, and I realized that it was necessary to deal with this problem.
- However, Newton, as is known, did not find the source of the universal gravitational field.
- As a scientist, I understand perfectly well that the potential of chemical engines has been exhausted. We will not fly to distant planets on it. You need to do something different, use gravity, nuclear energy or a resonant engine or something else - there are many options.
-- Member of the commission to combat pseudoscience and falsification of scientific research of the Presidium of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Academician Evgeniy Aleksandrov once said: “New discoveries cannot deny what is already known”...
-- The basis of the new method of movement is strict adherence to the law of conservation of energy and its transformation from one form to another with a non-equilibrium redistribution of the kinetic energy of translational motion between parts of the system. In this part of physics, I do not deny what everyone already knows. But I also work in an area where no one knows anything.
Our country has always shown considerable interest in gravity. Back in 1960, a closed resolution was issued by the Council of Ministers of the USSR and the Central Committee of the CPSU, where science was given, in particular, the following tasks: to develop new energy sources and new principles for generating thrust without releasing mass. If science copes with the first task at the very least, then in solving the second it is marking time.
— They say that you spent billions of rubles from the Ministry of Defense on your “gravitas”...
— We carried out all our research, one might say, on a voluntary basis. The experimental setups were made by enthusiasts with their own hands. We can now again calculate the cost of kilowatt-hours, strips of iron and electric motors spent on experiments. The amount is small and is taken from the profit we received from performing our main work. Our engine is now the last operating unit on the platform of the Yubileiny small spacecraft. It's time to test it in space conditions.
— Is anyone interested in your developments?
— I was officially invited to the USA, Thailand, Sweden, so that I could continue to work there on creating engines based on new principles for obtaining thrust without ejecting mass. But over decades of service in the army (from a platoon commander at a cosmodrome to the head of a cosmodrome and the head of an institute), I became accustomed to the idea that I needed to work in my own country, so I did not seriously consider these offers.
—What is your institute working on now?
-- We have four main areas: ensuring launches of the Proton and Rokot rockets, creating a multifunctional space system for the union state of Russia and Belarus, space navigation, diagnostics of launch and technical complexes at cosmodromes, as well as construction buildings and structures.
However, I have great doubts that, given such rabid resistance from people who do not want to dare, we will achieve success, but we must try. If we had the money and time, I'm sure we would already have a new engine for spacecraft.