In a recent National Public Radio interview with the new Administrator of NASA, SeanO'Keefe, he was asked what the most pressing problem they face for future space exploration? "Propulsion," he told the interviewer. "We are still traveling at the same 17 to 18,000 miles per hour that we have used since John Glenn's Friendship 7 Mercury mission. The same velocity that took us to the Moon and back, and that propels the Space Shuttles to the International Space station. We must study and build a new propulsion system in the next decade," O'keefe said.

Since the recent discovery of water/ice on Mars last May the next interplanetary target will, of necessity, be the red planet. Although there are many propulsion options under study at NASA currently, O'Keefe favors a return to atomic powered drives at a projected cost of $1 billion over the next five years. The goal is to perfect a safer more efficient nuclear drive to take manned missions, and robot landers to Mars and other planets and their moons. The nuclear alternative would probably be the cheapest and easiest choice, and plans are already in place to send a nuclear powered unmanned mission to Mars in 2009. Many other data gathering robotic missions are scheduled starting in 2003 to prepare for a possible manned mission in 2014.

NASA's Advanced Space Transportation Program is studying Solar Thermal Propulsion to drive vehicles through space by significantly reducing weight, complexity and cost, while boosting performance over conventional upper stages. Solar Electric Propulsion demonstrates ion propulsion is suitable for long duration planetary missions. The ASTP Program is also studying the use of magnetic levitating sleds, rockets that ride in laser beams, and many other new technologies.

But there is something else to consider. In the last week Jane's Defence Weekly broke a story by Nick Cook saying that "Boeing, the world's largest aircraft manufacturer, has admitted it is working on experimental anti-gravity projects that could overturn a century of conventional aerospace propulsion technology if the science underpinning them can be engineered into hardware." These theories a re based on the work of a Russian materials scientist, Evgeny Podkletnov who claimed to have developed hardware that can shield the effects of gravity, announced in 1992. Since then NASA has also taken a serious interest in Podkletnov's theories, and experiment being conducted at Marshall Space Center has been delayed, but project head Ron Koczor is confident that it will take place by the end of 2002.

Boeing, has also said that Lockheed Martin and BAE have also contacted Podkletnov,"and have some activity in this area. It is also possible, Boeing admits, "classified activities in gravity modification may exist." Believe me, they should know! Dr. Steven Greer, head of the Disclosure Project has been saying this for as long as I've known him. In Greer's second book, Disclosure, one of the Disclosure Project's witnesses, Mark Mcandlish relates how a colleague, Brad Sorenson, had visited a private display at Norton AFB where he witnessed ARVs (alien reproduction vehicles) that were fully operational and hovering. They were developed, in part, by the study of ET vehicles over the last 50 years. Think about that.

If this is true, and all these big aerospace companies and NASA,"have interests in this area," just why is NASA wasting all the taxpayers money still using 18,000 mph rocket vehicles and trying to develop nuclear and other alternative space drives? Why do we have to wait until 2014 to send men to Mars? In 2003, Mars will be at its closest point to Earth. Piece of cake for an ARV!

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