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submarines in space
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I've previously blogged about John W. Campbell and his early (1950) support for
Dianetics. By 1952, Campbell dropped Dianetics from the pages of
Astounding, apparently annoyed by the lack of evidence for Hubbard's new "science" of the mind. I've also previously blogged about Campbell's published support for the idea (in 1956) that there exists a mysterious force ("eloptic energy") that can be detected by a "
Hieronymous Machine". Here in this blog post, I'll comment on Campbell's 1960 infatuation with the "
Dean Drive", what Campbell's proclaimed to be a "true space-drive" that would open up the Solar System.
Fact and Fiction. Early science fiction story tellers imagined how chemical rockets and atomic energy might be used to send people on adventures into outer space. Later, people actually did ride chemical rockets into space and even began using atomic energy.
Isaac Asimov was delighted to have made up and published stories about robots (
example) and then watch as an industrial robotics industry came into existence. Given these intriguing linkages between fact and fiction, it was easy to imagine that the science fiction genre had an important role to play in exploring imaginary technologies that would later become actual fields of technological advancement.
As editor of Astounding, Campbell was in the entertainment business. How could he be expected to resist the temptation to stir up his readers with provocative ideas at the fringe of science? Campbell asked his readers to imagine the "emotional problems" that would arise should some maverick inventor discover a "true space-drive" (something better than rocketry). Campbell implied that the rocketry industry would resist such an advancement just as buggy-whip manufacturers had resisted the rise of the new-fangled automobile.
By 1960, it was clear that rocketry was not going to allow people to effortlessly traipse around the universe as depicted in many science fiction tales. Something new, some as-yet-unknown method was needed to speed people to the stars.
When Campbell latched on to Norman Dean and his claim that he had demonstrated a new physical principle that could be used to make a "reactionless spaceship drive", Campbell told readers that rocket engineers would resist recognition of this new discovery. My entire life I've had to endure people telling me that there were cures for cancer, a design for a car that gets 100 miles to the gallon and evidence for space aliens, all of which had been covered up by "them" (or They).
Drive me crazy. Campbell's imagination was quick to leap from Dean's power drill space-drive (see the image to right, above) to the specter of Russians attaining the ability to send a spaceship to Mars in three days, negating "
mutually assured nuclear destruction" and thus destroying the current world political balance.
Campbell not only told readers that politicians and scientists would lie in order to "cover up" a "true space-drive", but he, Campbell, was a rebel who not only believed that Dean had invented and patented a "true space-drive", but Campbell was also going to make sure that the whole world knew about it. All this ranting came rushing out in Campbell's article before he could be bothered to explain exactly what Dean's space drill actually was and how it worked. This was a sorry "who needs evidence?" performance by Campbell and we can easily imagine a trained scientist like Asimov reading Campbell's essay on the "Dean drive" and shaking his head in dismay.
Campbell had first chummed the waters with hints of a "true space-drive" in the
December 1959 issue of
Astounding. In his editorial for that issue, he claimed to have seen a photograph showing a power drill configured in a device so that it was able to cancel Earth's gravitational force. He waxed poetic about a new version of the
Laws of Motion that would theoretically support the idea that a 25 horse-power motor, correctly configured to power a "true space-drive", could lift a 3,000 pound vehicle into space against Earth's gravitational attraction.
Campbell rather breathlessly promised to report back to his readers as soon as he knew more about this amazing new space-drive technology. He could not end his 1959 editorial without commenting that "authorities in the field" were causing trouble for the inventor of the "true space-drive".
In the June 1960 essay that identified Mr. Norman L. Dean as the inventor of the "true space-drive", Campbell claimed that Mr. Dean had previously built a device that could self-levitate (the photograph mentioned by Campbell in December 1959 was taken as proof of that claim). In June, Campbell's essay provided a set of photographs (shown on this page) illustrating features of Dean's "space-drive demonstration model".
Not content to merely state his belief that the future of space travel would come from showing that the Laws of Motion were wrong, Campbell condemned the "authorities" for not taking Norman Dean seriously. Campbell listed NASA, the Office of Naval Research and an unspecified Senate Committee as all having failed to even look at Dean's "space-drive demonstration model".
After Campbell's long-winded account of the gravity-defying "Dean drive" in June 1960, you might wounder why
NASA continued spending billions of dollars on gigantic chemical rockets. Just in case any of Campbell's readers were still wondering about that, the
May 1962 issue of
Analog contained an essay by Dr. William O. Davis titled "The Fourth Law of Motion". The essay included several photographs from "Huyck Laboratories" such as the one shown to the right.
The essay by Davis claimed that there was evidence to support the idea that the three Laws of Motion as learned by school children were not complete. Davis assured readers that there was a cutting edge research program into the Laws of Motion being carried out by "Huyck Corporation" of Stamford Connecticut. Readers were told about the "Huyck Laboratories" of the "Huyck Research Center" in Milford Connecticut where Davis and his team were full speed ahead on the "Huyck Dynamic Systems Project".
In Campbell's editorial that month (
May 1962), he stated that he thought that Davis had correctly discovered and described a new 4th Law of Motion that would revolutionize human civilization. Campbell lamented the sad state of affairs by which "authorities" in
American Science™ were ignoring this revolutionary breakthrough. Campbell said that the Russians were more open-minded than Americans and Campbell predicted that when Humanity used a "true space-drive" based on the 4th Law of Motion to spread out into space, everyone would be speaking Russian. Campbell also condemned his own science fiction magazine readers for having written so many letters to him telling him to abandon his fantasies about the "Dean Drive".
Feedback. In the
September 1960 issue of
Analog, Campbell's editorial was an update on the "Dean Drive". Campbell reported that a Mr. Cal Isaacson of "Wellesley Engineering Inc." in Waltham Massachusetts claimed that after contacting Dean, the crakerjack team at Wellesley Engineering had built their own "demonstration model" of the Dean contraption and were able to reproduce the claimed gravity-nullifying effect that had been described by Campbell in June. So, you might ask: what is "Wellesley Engineering Inc."? Don't worry about that, Campbell assured readers that to his certain knowledge, "seven of the nation's greatest corporations" were investigating the "Dean Drive".
The December 1960 issue of Analog contained "Final Report On the Dean Device" by John W. Campbell, Jr. in which he predicted it might take five more years before then on-going secret research on the "Dean Drive" would yield practical results.
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The other Dean Drive! image source
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The May 1962 article from "Huyck Research" was not the last word on the Laws of Motion and the "Dean Drive" in Analog. In the September 1963 issue of Analog was a letter from G. Harry Stine, stating that the team at "Huyck Laboratories" could not confirm the claims made by Dean in May 1963 for his rotary device. This was followed in January 1964 with a rebuttal by Dean saying that the Huyck device did not conform to Dean's specifications. It seems that by this point in time, Campbell had lost interest in the whole issue of a "true space-drive" and he simply said: "O.K. boys, you settle the argument between you."
I suspect that Norman Dean viewed Campbell's interest in promoting "new science" as a way to make money. According to
this webpage, Campbell and Dean did such a good job of hyping the "Dean Drive" that Jerry Pournelle went to visit Dean with a check for half a million dollars in his pocket. Pournelle was ready to buy the gravity-defying technology, but sadly (for Dean) he could not get his hands on the money. Pournelle actually wanted proof that Dean's gizmo worked before he would hand over the cash.
It is good advice in general... if someone is selling you the Brooklyn Bridge or a "true space-drive", before you hand over your money make sure that the salesman can deliver the goods as promised. It would be interesting to know if Campbell's promotions of Dianetics, the "Hieronymous Machine" and the "Dean Drive" attracted more readers to his magazines than were driven away.
Related Reading: reactionless drives
Coming Soon: Chapter 12 of Meet the Phari.
Next: Searching for ancient aliens in 1951
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