A smart rock

Phil Pressel

doi:10.1117/12.2065765

5 December 2014 A smart rock

Phil Pressel

Proceedings Volume 9197, An Optical Believe It or Not: Key Lessons Learned III; 91970E (2014) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2065765
Event: SPIE Optical Engineering + Applications, 2014, San Diego, California, United States

Abstract

This project was to design and build a protective weapon for a group of associations that believed in aliens and UFO’s. They collected enough contributions from societies and individuals to be able to sponsor and totally fund the design, fabrication and testing of this equipment. The location of this facility is classified. It also eventually was redesigned by the Quartus Engineering Company for use at a major amusement park as a “shoot at targets facility.” The challenge of this project was to design a “smart rock,” namely an infrared bullet (the size of a gallon can of paint) that could be shot from the ground to intercept a UFO or any incoming suspicious item heading towards the earth. Some of the challenges to design this weapon were to feed cryogenic helium at 5 degrees Kelvin from an inair environment through a unique rotary coupling and air-vacuum seal while spinning the bullet at 1500 rpm and maintain its dynamic stability (wobble) about its spin axis to less than 10 micro-radians (2 arc seconds) while it operated in a vacuum. Precision optics monitored the dynamic motion of the “smart rock.”

Citation Download Citation

Phil Pressel "A smart rock", Proc. SPIE 9197, An Optical Believe It or Not: Key Lessons Learned III, 91970E (5 December 2014); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2065765

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