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DEAN HARTLEY

The Stories, Science, and Speculative Science in the Sense of Gravity Series

Under Construction

  • Sense of Gravity Series - 7 books:  What if you could produce the warped space that is called gravity without having any mass at the center of the “gravity well”? Could you build a space drive with this capability? Where would you go if you had such a space drive?

    Dr. Charles J. Anderson (Chuck) creates an artificial gravity well through the use of superconducting möbius loops. With the help of Catherine Anderson (Cathy) and her family yacht-building business, Chuck creates a space drive and spaceships.

    • Earth: Mathematics leads to a space drive

      Dr. Charles J. Anderson (Chuck) creates an artificial gravity well through the use of superconducting möbius loops. With the help of Catherine Anderson (Cathy) and her family yacht-building business, Chuck creates a space drive and designs a spaceship. He also creates a weapon that he calls a blaster using the same technology. They plan to go to the Moon and perhaps beyond.

      The spaceship has to provide a safe environment; space is dangerous. However, the dangers of space are nothing compared to the dangers of a drug gangs on Earth.

    • Moon: The space drive leads to a Moon base

      Chuck and Cathy are married and have been to the Moon several times in Puck, their spaceship. However, one of the drug gangs was intent on killing them and shot up their house and destroyed Puck, their spaceship. However, Chuck and BGen Fred Hughes fought them off and ended up demolishing the gang’s local presence.

      Now, the house is repaired and Chuck is ready to build a new, larger spaceship. Their company, C&C Space Explorations, needs one for exploration and to aid Bill and Anna Cooper’s scientific research. Further, BGen Hughes wants to buy a spaceship for testing at the Defense Intelligence Agency. He is also considering constructing a Moon base. There are also countries that object or want their own Moon base.

    • Mars: Aliens were on Mars before us

      Chuck, Cathy, and their friends, Bill and Anna Cooper, have learned how to catch meteoroids and extinct comets for science and for profit. Chuck and Cathy’s company, C&C Space Exploration, has sold spaceships to the government and built a Moon Base for the government. When Iran attacked the space station and the Moon base, the US destroyed the attacking Iranian spaceships. Then the US and Israel attacked Iran, severely damaging its space and nuclear capabilities. In the meantime, a European company was working to become a major factor in space and stole Chuck’s technology.

      Now, Chuck is thinking about building a bigger spaceship and exploring the planets of the Solar System. However, the European company and the Chinese were set on owning the Moon.

    • Asteroids: Space wars are matters of minutes

      Chuck and Cathy have led scientific expeditions to the Moon and Mars. Meanwhile, the Chinese and the Europeans had built their own Moon bases, but China used its base to attack the European base and the American Moon base. The American’s defeated the Chinese and destroyed their presence on the Moon, but that didn’t quell the Chinese lunar ambitions.

      The expedition to Mars yielded evidence of an alien species, which excited the imaginations of people everywhere. C&C Space Explorations was selling lunar modules to hotel chains to build hotels on the Moon. Now Chuck is thinking about an expedition to the asteroids.

    • Jupiter: An FTL hyperdrive changes things

      Despite being forbidden access to the Moon, China built a hidden Moon base. NASA mounted an expedition to Phobos where the alien tunnels had been found. Then Chuck and Cathy had taken an expedition in Puck 3 to Ceres and Psyche in the Asteroid Belt. There they had found more of the mysterious aliens’ tunnels.

      When a European spaceship discovered the Chinese Moon base, the Chinese panicked and shot it down. During the ensuing space war, the US had defeated the Chinese spaceships and destroyed its Moon base.

      Now the government wants more C&C spaceships and the commercial installations on the Moon are growing. Chuck has created a faster-than-light (FTL) drive and wants to know if it is safe for humans.

    • Colonies: Colonizing the Moon and Mars

      NASA has mounted another expedition to Mars and Chuck has found that the FTL hyperdrive is safe. That allowed for a reasonably short flight to Jupiter. However, before the Jupiter expedition took off, the US had to deal with Iran. C&C had built Space Force One, a very large spaceship for the President. On a trip to Riyadh, the Iranians had attacked the President’s spaceship. The President ordered a response that obliterated the Iranian airfield and then the US proceeded to remove all of Iran’s nuclear facilities and most of its military capability.

      When the Jupiter mission left with three large spaceships to investigate the moons of Jupiter. Again, they found tunnels left by the mysterious aliens. Now Jupiter is as close as next door and the stars are a possible destination. However, before attempting an interstellar trip, Chuck will be investigating the outer planets and working on colonizing Mars.

    • Centauri: The stars are in reach

      The Moon colonies are growing and the Mars colony won't be far behind. Chuck’s spaceships have been bringing carbon dioxide from Venus to increase the greenhouse effect there and bringing ice from Callisto, one of Jupiter’s moons. Chuck’s fusion plant has been cracking the water to produce oxygen for Mars. In a few years, Mars will have a breathable atmosphere. The Saturn expedition has brought back more scientific information, along with more evidence of the tunnel builders. A Uranus expedition was planned; however, before it could take place, North Korea decided to attack South Korea and had to be dealt with.

      Now, the planning is underway for a visit to Alpha Centauri, with four civilian spaceships and a fleet of six military spaceships. However, several other expeditions within the solar system are planned to take place first.

    • Sciences used and abused:  Physics - gravitation, special relativity, orbital mechanics; mathematics - topology; military science; planetary sciences; astronomy; geology; astrogeology; chemistry


    space war 1space war 2
    Initial situation of space war                                                                                   Snapdragon gambit

    space war 3
    Ready for second pass
ChuckCathy

Chuck and Cathy

FrankDot

Frank and Dot

JoeSophie

Joe and Sophie

BillAnna

Bill and Anna

Gravity-Well
Gravity-well representations

Spaceships
Plan view of various spaceships
 

Addendum:

These novels are science fiction. That means they are stories with some connection to science, particularly speculative science. 

Physics

Superconductivity is a fact; a current sent through a superconducting loop doesn't lose energy and continues indefinitely.  And because superconducting wire - or tape - can carry much higher currents than conventional wire, superconducting magnets can be much stronger than conventional electromagnets.  Among other things, this fact permits effective magnetic levitation - maglev (see here.)

Gravity is a fact, although how it relates to the other basic forces of nature is currently unknown.  However, all known instances of gravity-wells (see figure below) are connected to masses, leading to the obvious conclusion that they are inseparable.

gravity-well

Mathematics

Euclidean manifolds (things that look like Euclidean n-space locally) come in two varieties, orientable and non-orientable.  The orientable manifolds have unsurprising features; however, the non-orientable manifolds are different.  The simplest example is the Möbius band.  The example on the left shows a single twist, simple example.  It only has one side and one edge!

moebius band

Fiction

A simple loop of superconducting tape will create a magnetic field.  The science fiction here is that a Möbius band of superconducting tape will create a gravity-well.  And two such loops add control to the creation.  The rest of the fiction follows from this assumption.

 


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