Last year in November, NASA, MIT, DARPA, and Air Force scientists had a video conference to discuss something that could defy gravity, reports The Debrief. The inaugural Alternative Propulsion Energy Conference (APEC) was formed to enable scientists to discuss something far-fetched or ideas that do not actually follow mainstream science.
There have been 22 meetings since then, as per The Debrief’s report, with researchers talking about topics ranging from Non-Newtonian Em Propulsion to Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) sightings. Ron Kita, the founder of a startup called Chiralex, said that his company is reportedly working on “gravitational shielding” materials.
NASA showing interest in offbeat technologies
“The Alt Propulsion community is highly intersectional, and we’re sandwiched between the aerospace, defense, electrical engineering, physics, UFOs, and ‘frontier science’ cultures,” conference moderator and organizer Tim Ventura told The Debrief.
“We have folks from all of these cultures who visit the conference and present and despite the fact that these various communities don’t always agree on some topics. We’ve been able to avoid conflict,” he added.
Despite the topic being offbeat, 16 of 71 attendees at the November event were current or ex-NASA scientists and engineers, as per the report, and 14 were associated with reputed institutes including MIT and Harvard. The UFP topics made ripples at November’s conference.
The topic also gave birth to pop-culture resurgence this year, with military pilots openly speaking about UFO sightings and the Pentagon releasing a report on such encounters.
NASA foraying into new segments
“In the past, everyone had an awareness of UFOs, but they weren’t highly relevant because they aren’t well understood,” Ventura told The Debrief, stating the scientific community is taking interest in the topic more than ever.
Despite several efforts, gravity is still undefeated – though it’s good that researchers are actually taking it seriously and discussing how it could change.
Besides, NASA has also entered the eVTOL space. The premium space agency is testing an aircraft developed by California-based Joby Aviation, with the hopes of establishing an entirely new form of city-to-city travel. We might soon see flying taxis from NASA for public use.
