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The T.T. Brown lifter, cannot work in vacuum, which means it works on thrust (at least that?s
what they showed in ?Mythbusters?).

And like is so often the case in Mythbusters, they got it wrong.
Those guys get things wrong more than half the time. According to them, "ice bullets" can never work,
you always get less wet when you run through rain, etc. But in reality, the US army actually developed
ice-shooting guns for arctiv environments, and at least two seperate universities had shown that
on average you tend to get less wet when you walk through rain, depending on the amount of
rainfall and the size of the drops of course. And those are only two examples. Wink
But to get back to the Lifters, it is a recurring misconception that they do not work in high vacuum.
They most certainly do work in a high vacuum. They just work a little less well. But they still work.
Check it out: http://jnaudin.free.fr/lifters/ascvacuum/index.htm
And please keep in mind that, although that test did not use a perfect vacuum, the high vacuum
of 1.72 x 10^-6 Torr they used in those tests is almost as close to the perfect vacuum as we can get,
and certainly comparable to the type of vacuum found in interstellar space. So yes they work in space.

That has not only been verified by mythbusters (who really are a bad source of verification) but independently by many other researchers including myself.  The website you linked Koen1 talked about a lifter set on a rotating wheel - of very low friction.  The ONLY reason it rotated was because there were particles in the 0.000001 torr vacuum.  These devices use ionic wind to develop their lifting power.  Typically in air they require about 25kV to lift (if made of balsa wood and aluminum foil).  Reducing the pressure would require higher voltage, hence the 45kV needed to move the lifter in the NASA experiment.  If you set that device up so that it was like a standard lifter, it would not leave the chamber ground because the thrust it produced in vacuum is so weak due to the lack of particles.  In space, its ability to move would be even worse (since space is 1x10^-14 torr roughly).  You might get some movement at 100kV or greater but at some point you would produce field emission between the capacitor plates and then you would have a much different effect causing it to move (basically you would have an ion thruster like what NASA is developing - field emission is very different from ionic movement). 

I've never heard or seen an electrogravitational effect with high voltage.  If something is moving in a high vacuum due to electricity it is because the voltage is so high its producing field emission at the high voltage terminal and electrons (or metal from the electrode) are flying away from the electrode, imparting momentum to the device as they leave (every action has an opposite an equal reaction).  It would be a very slow, accumulative affect but could get a space ship moving pretty quick after months or even years. 

That is interesting.  Do you know what voltage they were using?  I have access to a lab that has 50-100kV power capacitors, I could repeat the experiment.  That way I could make sure there was no corona (i.e. ionic wind) associated with the mass change. 

@Charlie: I don't recall the voltages used, but I do seem to recall it was charged
using a high voltage power source... I would guesstimate you'd need something
like the Lifter- and Biefelt-Brown voltages, so that's at least 20+ kV.
I have tried to dig up that video on the web but have not been able to find it so far.
But I'm sure it must be around somewhere...
Indeed, the capacitors did not have much of a contact surface like the Lifters do,
so one would assume that eliminates most of the ion wind...
If you have caps lying around that can handle such high voltages, and if you have a
simple oldschool balance scale, you should indeed be able to replicate that experiment.
You could even video it and put it on youtube or whatever... meanwhile I'll keep
looking around for that footage.

@Pyrodin: Yes, I seem to recall the same story about a gyroscope falling slightly slower
than an object of the same mass, size and shape... Wasn't that another one of those
experiments done at Boeing?
I have been told that a similar experiment was done using two strong magnets that were
bolted together tightly, while their fields were in opposition, and that object also fell
slightly slower than the control object. I haven't read a source on that claimed experiment, though.
... May be interesting to try and combine the three? So if we make an object that consists of two
opposing magnets, as well as two highly charged plates with a very good dielectric around them,
as well as having the entire setup spin very fast like a gyroscope, would the difference in drop
speed be three times as large too?

I've built and tested my own lifters.  I've actually felt the wind that comes off them.  Its the same mechanism that gives a helicopter its lift.  Your right, ion movement alone does little to contribute to their thrust.  As a matter of fact, it was calculated long ago that the speed and amount of ions would not contribute to any appreciable thrust and for many years the design was abandoned.  However, what was overlooked was the fact that those ions impart a large momentum to neutral air molecules - which do not get ionized, only accelerated.  Like the wind felt near a waterfall from the water molecules colliding with the air.  It is the acceleration of the neutrals that contributes to the increased thrust.  Take away the air molecules and the lifting force drops significantly.  Take them away all together and there is no more force. 

There could be other forces at work, I don't doubt that.  But they are very very minute.  On the whole, I would say that 99% of the force that allows a lifter to fly comes from the gas that it is in, the other 1% are forces like field emission, PERHAPS electrogravitational stuff (although I've never seen anything like that - but I was never looking either), thermal gradients, etc.  Place a lifter in a vacuum and watch what happens, it will just sit at the bottom of the chamber because any force developed cannot lift its weight - to me, that is a significant sign that they need gas to fly.  Place them on a frictionless wheel so they don't have to fight gravity, and sure they might spin around a little.  But its going to be an extremely weak force because there are extremely low amounts of particles in the chamber.  Start bringing the vacuum up to standard air pressure, and you will see they will spin very well! 

In NASA's experiment, they had the lifter on a wheel of low friction, suspended.  They did not have a triangular lifter sitting on the bottom of the chamber floor.  If they had, at 45kV they would of saw no movement.  At 100kV they would of saw no movement.  I bet that the voltage required to lift the device would need to be so high, you would get breakdown before you reached it. 

To sum up, lifters need a gas environment for them to produce any PRACTICAL amount of force.

On a sideline, what remain seem to be reports of masses experiencing slightly
lower drop speeds when they are rotated fast (like a gyro), and possible explanations
suggesting the decrease of inertia in a zone close to and inside the spinning masses.
The TR31b "flying triangle" "UFO" was claimed to be a USAF prototype with 3 swivelable
jets for a high degree of thrust vectoring, and two large rings inside which mercury plasma
is rotated at high speed, in opposite directions. It is said this mercury "gyroscope" setup
generated a sort of field inside of which the inertia was decreased significantly, which effectively
made everything inside the rings lose mass, and made the thing lighter and able to achieve
much higher speeds, without much discomfort for the passengers at all.
How much of that is actually true remains to be seen, but at least it does seem to indicate that
counter-rotating gyroscopes or flywheels may be worth investigating. Wink

I greatly agree.  There is a 1970s Christmas lecture (the same place Faraday gave his lectures) on gyroscopes.  The most interesting part to me is when the guy placed a gyroscope on one end of a see-saw.  If the gyroscope was not spun up, it weighed more than the little weight at the other end of the see-saw.  But when he spun it up and allowed it to precess (not sure if the precession was necessary or not), the entire device was much lighter than the opposing weight and the gyroscope was actually lifted upwards! 

Perhaps with a plasma you can spin the media up so fast that it would not only become weightless under the forces of gravity, but actually "oppose" gravity (aka generate a force exceeding the mass times gravitational acceleration).  You would need a way to negate the precession though - otherwise the passengers would get really dizzy haha. 

About what you said earlier, anti-gravity to me is a way of generating a gravitational force that opposes (like two same-pole magnets) an object's gravitational pull.  This is different from generating any force that would lift an object.  Even if spinning mercury at high speeds did create a lift force, if you turned the device on its side, it would move you horizontal instead of vertical.  A true "anti-gravity" setup would probably still produce a lift force (just weakened since it was no longer parallel to gravity).  What I mean is, an anti-gravity device would only repel from a gravitational field, if placed in a region of space void of any gravitational lines of force, it would just sit there doing nothing.  We don't want true anti-gravity, we want a method of producing a linear force without expelling any substance - an external action generated from an internal action.

ADD: by the way, here is a link to the 1970 lecture I was talking about.

http://www.gyroscopes.org/1974lecture.asp

Hi guy's.
I was reading this site last night....it covers alot about the gyro's ect...
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/dp5/gravity.htm
I made lots of lifters as well...lifter rep No 276 on JLN Labs...
---------------------------
Koen..you mentioned the triangle U.F.O.....
Some people in my suburb that i know, actually filmed the same type of U.F.O.
It was on the local news so i rang them and went over there and gave them a tape to put the full clip on.
A few month's after that, my stepson went out to feed the dog and called us outside.
To the South of my place was an ORANGE ORB.
I got my video camera to film it, but the result was not so good as the orb was travelling away from me and my camera had to be on full zoom to see it.
On full zoom you can't keep the picture still without a tripod. 
I went through my film and found some interesting frames...The orb even dissappeared and re-appeared in the sky....it flickered and pulsed .....it also expanded and decreased in size.
-----------
The best clip is the one with the triangles...there are 2 triangle formations (6 lights)
I have edited the clip to show others without giving the peoples identity away...
Maybe I can put it up on leedskalnin.net
--------------------
A few weeks ago i was playing with dry ice and high voltages (from my wimhurst)
Here is the clip i made.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYqX4Y4tVh0
I got the idea from W Beaty.
Scotty

Now back to petroleum:

About 1/2 half the US imports come from Western Hemisphere, then 16% from Middle East, and the rest from "other" such as North Sea, Asia, etc.  58% of our petroleum is from imports to cover the over 26% of world petroleum use by our guzzling 4.6% world Population.  All the new technology we have make us more and more dependent on petroleum.  For example:  It takes about 3:1 ratio of petroleum product to make a gallon on biofuels.  It takes 10 calories of fossil fuel to make each calorie of food in fast food restaurants.  Pesticides and agro-chemicals are made of oil, commercial fertilizers from ammonia which are from natural gas.  most farming equipment is constructed and powered by fossil fuels.  food storage systems (refridgerators, freezers) manufactured by oil-powered plants,run on electricity from gas, & coal fuels, average food is shipped 1500 miles before it gets to a US plate (Canada average is 5000 miles). the production of one pair of cotton jeans takes 3/4 pound of fertilizers and peticides (then energy to weave and sew them).   A car takes energy equivalent of 20 barrels (840 gallons) of oil to manufacture, then runs on gasoline. and also consumes 120000 gal of water to produce.  each gallon of gasoline requires almost 2 gallons of water to refine (so there is the added problem of using up the only 1% of water available for use and drinking of the world's water supply...1% is the fresh water of the world)  The construction of a desktop computer takes 10 times its weight in fossil fuels and one gram microchip takes 630 grams of fossil fuels, plus 32 megabyte DRAM chip consumes 3.5 pounds of fossil fuel and 70.5 pounds of water (during processing they have to be washed at least twice).

Modern medicine, including ventilators, surgery equipment, Swanz Ganz, defibrillators, IV pumps, plastics for syringes, metal for needles,and other equipment take up fossil fuels to make and run the electrical equipment. 

Solar panels and Wind turbines take fossil fuels to make, then it takes an average of five square miles of solar panels to make 1000 megawatts of energy. This is do-able in the desert, but not where I live.  Solar is only about 10-13% efficient, and wind not a whole lot more (I've seen up to 35% the most, but some research varies).  Geo-thermal would be great at the Yellowstone State Park, but the environmentalists would balk because it's a park, but that would not take care of USA  (Information from Dr. G. Mason, Geologist, 2008, Sept. 22).  Producing one ton of copper takes 17.8 barrels of oil, aluminum takes 20 times higher amount.

Dr. Mason states our only true answer to this issue is in finding new, better technology.  The current technology does not hold the answer.
USA hit Hubbert's peak in the 1970's and since then we've climbed in our need for imported fuel sources.  We hold only about 3% world's resources but are 4th highest petroleum producer...in other words we are producing and using up all our resources as fast as possible.  Imagine if you had 5 apples, to last 5 days, and ate 4.5 of them in the first hour. 
Here is something scary:


Two years ago this prediction was made concerning the consequences of Peak Oil in the Chicago Tribune, Paul Salopek:  July 2006

"...the consequences would be unimaginable.  Permanent fuel shortages would tip the world into a generations-long economic depression.  Millions would lose their jobs as industry implodes."  (already happening)  "Farm tractors would be idled for lack of fuel, triggering massive famines.  Energy wars would flare." (think of Iraq/ Georgia) "And careless suburbanites would trudge to their neares big box stroes, not to buy Chinese made clothing transported cheaply across the globe, but to scavenge glass and copper wire from abandoned buildings." (Already occurring in our county, someone stripped the copper from some houses)
 "...when the truth can no longer be obscured, the price will spike, the economy nosedive, "(happening here now and we're going into 11.3 trillion dollar public debt bailing out banks and AIG) "..and the underpinnings of our civilization will start tumbling like dominos." "The price of houses will collapse." (happening now here) " Stock markets will crash. "(Stock market is in a panic right now reports say...)" Within a short period, human wealth- the confidence about the future hight among traders--will shrivel." "There will be emergency summits, diplomatic initiatives, urgent exploration efforts, (Congress/ president/ Treasurer doing that now) " but the turmoil will not subside.  Thousands of companies will go bankrupt, and millions will be unemployed."  " Once affluent cities with street cafe's will have queues at soup kitchens" (people are putting up tents around Utah now...refugees and homeless) " ...and armies of beggars.  The crime rate will soar.  The earth has always been a dangerous place, but now it will become a tinderbox."  (I know this sounds a little 'doomsday' here, but he hit some good points).
"Democracy will be on the run...economic hardship will bring out the worst in people.  Fascists will rise, feeding on the anger of the newly poor and whipping up support.  These new rulers" (Think Amadinijad and Chavez) "will find the tools of repression--emergency laws, prison camps"(think Gitmo) "a relaxed attitude toward torture--already in place, courtesy of the war on terror.  And if that scenario isn't nightmarish enough, Leggett predicts that 'Big Oversight Number One' --climate change--will be simultaneously making its presence felt 'with a vengeance.'  On the heels of their rapid financial ruin, people 'will now watch aghast as their food and water supplies dwindle in the face of a climate going awry.'  Prolonged droughts will spread, decimating harvest'" (Salopek, P. 2006)

"If you are focusing solely on the price at the pump, buying a hybrid car, or getting some of those energy efficient light bulbs, you aren't seeing the bigger picture"  (Dr Mason, 2008 Sept 22 lecture).

Ken Deffeyes, Princeton professor of geology predicts total economic shut down when oil reaches $300 per barrel, or 15% world's income. 

Is Bush administration aware of this Oil production peak ? 
The answer is YES!  Even the CIA has been aware since the 1977's and now you can find them on website their discussion (now declassified) on the Hubbert's Peak hit the US in 1970's. They have been obviously studying this very carefully for some time.  This is from the 1982 State Department report:
"...world petroleum production will peak in the 1990-2010 interval "(goes with Hubbert's Peak geologists prediction was 2005-2008) " at 80-105 million barrels per day, with ultimate resources estimated a t 2,100 billion barrels." 

1999 Dick Cheney at Halliburton:
"...There will be an average of two-percent annual growth in global oil demand over the years ahead, along with, conservatively, a three-percent decline in production from existing reserves.  That means by 2010, we will need on the order of an additional 50 million barrels a day."  (He was wrong..we need more than that)

the nations are currently struggling to pump more than 85 million barrels per day .     Dr. Mason describes Cheney's statement as "tacit admission of the severity and imminence of Peak Oil as the possibility of the world raising its production by such a huge amount is borderline ridiculous." (Mason,G., 2008)
Cheney was asked "so where is this oil going to come from."  He answered "from the Middle East, of course."

Iraq's Council of Ministers is expected to to supply from thier oil reserves (the 3rd largest in the world) and to private companies.  This will be the first time a major Mid East producer has done so...(from Mason, G. 2008 lecture but came from report on Halliburton speech 1999).

Information from lecture: Mason, G. Professor of Geology, IUS, 2008 September 22.

buy opec, bleed some, then buy more opec