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There is more information on Michael Minovitch's website: http://www.gravityassist.com/ http://www.gravityassist.com/ He sounds rather bitter that his story h
by EvanMiller 14y ago
There is more information on Michael Minovitch's website:
http://www.gravityassist.com/ http://www.gravityassist.com/
He sounds rather bitter that his story has not made him more famous, and comes off as something of a crank at that ("How Did Minovitch Discover (Create) His New Theory Of Space Travel?"). I think Minovitch is basically an engineer at heart, and is resentful that all of the attention seems to go to the scientists, i.e. people who come up with the actual physical theories about mass and energy and so forth.
Our culture does value scientists more than engineers. You could argue that this is good because theories are universally applicable and represent fundamental understanding, or that this is bad because many theories have absolutely no applications and that it's the engineers who deliver value to society. You could also argue that the amount of prestige that we heap on scientists tends to go to their heads and they stop doing good work. But whatever. Stay sharp, do what you're best at, and don't pay attention to other people's benefits packages.
- mturmon 14y agoThanks for that link. Minovitch seems to still live in LA. He also mentions his solution as addressing the three-body problem, so maybe that's where the writer of the linked article got misled on that point. Too bad the writer of TFA didn't check this out with an independent expert. The group at JPL that Minovitch mentions is still intact (http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/ http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/). They provide the highest-quality ephemeris available anywhere (AFAIK) to all NASA missions.