https://patents.google.com/patent/US10144532B2/en
This uses an "inertial mass reduction device" for its core operation.
It was submitted right around the time TTSA were putting the team together
Thread about the patent here,
US Navy "UFO" patent by Salvatore Cezar Pais (also relevant post
#41 by
@FatPhil in the Meta Materials From UFOs thread).
In that thread,
@flarkey linked to
The War Zone article "
The Navy Finally Speaks Up About Its Bizarre "UFO Patent" Experiments", which itself links to other TWZ reports on the saga. The TWZ writer is sceptical of the work covered by the patents.
The patent describes a microwave resonant chamber-type device, similar in concept to (as far as I can tell), and possibly inspired by, the EmDrive (Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EmDrive), which almost certainly doesn't work.
Several groups/ agencies including NASA's Eagleworks and Boeing's Phantom Works have attempted to replicate claims for the EmDrive and other claimed resonant cavity reactionless drives; cut a long story short there were some apparently positive results in some trials but not in others. With more rigorous consideration of confounding variables, positive results dropped. Boeing stopped research. The NASA team, criticized for publishing results from low-power (in the physical
and statistical sense) experiments using a questionable and not fully transparent methodology
External Quote:
...announced a plan to upgrade their equipment to higher power levels, and to use a test framework subject to independent verification and validation at one or more major research centers. This did not happen.
(Wikipedia as above).
As of now, it looks like Pais' patent has expired because no-one was prepared to stump up the fees to the patent office, which seems a bit careless if you've published the details of a revolutionary technology in the public realm;
External Quote:
Status
Expired - Fee Related
(Google patents website, US patent US10144532B2 "Craft using an inertial mass reduction device", Salvatore Cezar Pais, filed by US Navy May 2016
https://patents.google.com/patent/US10144532B2/en)
Resonant cavity thrusters are now broadly accepted as pseudoscience. They conflict with conservation of momentum.
With no scientifically plausible reason why they
should work, and a lack of experimental replication of early claims by teams using more rigorous methodologies taking more confounding variables into account, serious interest has waned.
Fringe interest remains, just as it does for other mistaken claims (perpetual motion machines, cold fusion based on electrolysis, power acquired from the Casimir effect,, etc. etc.).
We are 25 years on from the EmDrive, 10 years after Salvatore Pais' patent. There are no indications of any practical development of these ideas.
In contrast: The first lab-based jet engines producing thrust were demonstrated in 1937. (Wikipedia, History of the jet engine
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_jet_engine). A jet aircraft flew 2 years later. 7 years from the lab tests they were in (highly visible) active military service. Within 10 years many nations had jet aircraft, it was clear jets would replace many military propellor aircraft and would be the future of commercial airline operations.
25 years from the first lab tests, scheduled transatlantic passenger jets had been flying for 4 years (since 1958) and several air forces had jets capable of Mach 2 flight in routine use.
I would argue that it is easier, and cheaper, to build (supposed) resonant cavity thrusters of the types represented by the EmDrive and Pais' patents than it is to build jet engines. But no-one is using them for any practical purpose; no-one has really demonstrated that they work.
Patents for technological applications in the US, UK and I'd guess in other nations should, in principle, only be granted for inventions that work, but there are well-known examples of this not being the case:
In 1980 a United States patent (US4215330A) was granted for a perpetual motion machine, described by inventor Emil T. Hartman as a "Permanent Magnetic Propulsion System", see Google Patents
https://patents.google.com/patent/US4215330, patent viewable as PDF
https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/cd/aa/49/3294ffac6e75ad/US4215330.pdf, Wikipedia article Simple Magnetic Overunity Toy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simple_Magnetic_Overunity_Toy
In 1973, British Rail, then the UK's nationalised railway (railroad) company, was granted a UK patent for a nuclear-fusion powered passenger-carrying flying saucer, description in
post #11, "US Navy "UFO" patent by Salvatore Cezar Pais" thread.
Interestingly, like Pais' patent (if I've understood correctly) the patent lapsed due to unpaid renewal fees (Wikipedia, British Rail flying saucer,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail_flying_saucer).
It is unlikely that British Rail were paving the way for disclosure of information about breakthrough technologies, or seeking to monetize hidden knowledge of metamaterials or revolutionary drive systems.
Patents (and other civil means of safeguarding intellectual property rights, e.g. trademarks, copyright) are not a good way to protect military secrets, though some developments from defense-related research have been patented (IIRC some of the ideas about aircraft geometries used to develop stealth aircraft were patented). China uses, and sells, clones of Humvee vehicles and some Western infantry weapons with no concerns about IPR. The USSR reverse-engineered Nene turbojets supplied by the UK as a gesture of friendship, on the (astonishingly naïve) condition they would not be used militarily. American (and British/ Commonwealth) pilots encountered MiG-15s over Korea, powered by Nene-derived engines. If claimed resonance cavity drives had practical applications, someone would probably be using them by now, regardless of patents.
It was submitted right around the time TTSA were putting the team together
The Pais patent was submitted in May 2016, TTSA was founded in 2017 (October?:
Rolling Stone "Tom DeLonge Announces Stars Academy for 'Outer Edges of Science' Research", Althea Legaspi, 12 October 2017
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/...y-for-outer-edges-of-science-research-125580/).
Whenever TTSA had been founded, it's likely we could find some claim of breakthrough technologies, or some interesting scientific discovery, within a year or two of that date.
There is no evidence that TTSA ever did any useful practical or realistic theoretical work relating to novel materials, drives or anything else.
Not one product, not peer-reviewed paper, not a single plausible research facility with relevant equipment.
Come to that, there's no evidence of any "mundane" contributions to science or engineering by TTSA; major research efforts often make many incidental findings that are written up and published.
The Salvatore Pais patent probably doesn't describe a useable technology. Ten years on "the Pais effect" has not been demonstrated.
Patents are sometimes granted for inventions that don't work.
If anyone at TTSA had any connection to Pais or the Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division, which I don't think has been shown, that wouldn't alter the fact that resonance cavity drives haven't been shown to work, and that there are very good reasons to believe they
can't work.
If Tom DeLonge or TTSA/ To The Stars Inc. are interested in something, that is not an indication that they have conducted relevant research or know of secret relevant research.
