---
title: "Field propulsion"
chunk: 3/9
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Field_propulsion"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:55:18.670066+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

=== 1980s ===
In the 1980s, earlier classification frameworks began giving way to attempts to identify and organize specific physical coupling mechanisms capable of producing measurable thrust. In 1980, NASA scientist Al Holt noted that proposed models for field propulsion interactions in this era ranged from Albert Einstein's united field theory efforts to work by "serious 'amateurs'," reflecting how wide the speculative literature around such ideas had become by that period. That year, Holt was quoted by the Chicago Tribune in his advocacy of field propulsion: "One of the most important things to me is to help break down the inhibiting mental attitude that space-time field interactions will remain in the realm of science fiction for hundreds of years." Holt argued that progress toward field-dependent propulsion would require a dedicated "field physics laboratory" to quantify relationships among gravitation, electromagnetism, and spacetime structure, framing the potential payoff as performance beyond then-leading aircraft and spacecraft such as the Space Shuttle, SR-71A, and F-16.
Solar sail engineering also advanced institutionally during this period: JPL's Halley studies compared square and heliogyro sail architectures, with the latter using long rotating blades as sails and favored for deployment, while the World Space Foundation fabricated and ground-deployed a 20 m sail and built a 30 m sail stowed in a deployment structure. A backup solar sail mission to Comet Encke was also considered in 1983 as an alternative to intercepting Halley's comet.
The Huntsville Times reported on a program by TRW Inc.'s Defense and Space Systems Group researching magnetic field based field propulsion, called "force field propulsion", for vehicle launch applications. Robert L. Forward in 1984 extended beamed-sail studies to the interstellar scale, suggesting that phased solar-system lasers could impart sustained acceleration to ultralight sails across astronomical distances, and potential interstellar exploration within a human lifetime. By the late 1980s, magnetic sails emerged as a proposed propellantless concept that would use a superconducting loop to deflect the solar wind or interstellar plasma, and thereby generate thrust or drag without expelling onboard reaction mass. The 1980s were a major period of solar sailing research publication, with materials created by a variety of researchers globally, bookended by attempts in 1979 and 1992 by the World Space Foundation and the Christopher Columbus Quincentenary Jubilee Commission to promote a solar sailing race to the moon.

=== 1990s ===

Terrestrial electromagnetic propulsion concepts reached operational demonstration in the early 1990s. In 1990, the Daily Telegraph reported on Japanese development work toward a magnetohydrodynamic propulsion ship, including plans to install the magnetic propulsion equipment and conduct at-sea testing. By 1991–1992, the Ship & Ocean Foundation's experimental ship Yamato 1 had been completed and successfully propelled by superconducting MHD thrusters during harbor trials in Kobe. Parallel investment in magnetic field propulsion for ground transport was also accelerating: in 1992, the New York Times described U.S. investment in maglev development, noting that maglev trains would be lifted on magnetic cushions and propelled along a guideway by alternating magnetic fields that create a "magnetic wave". The report said Congress had authorized a six-year, $700 million demonstration program and noted existing demonstration systems in Germany and Japan, including a reported speed record of 273 miles per hour on a test track.
Electrodynamic work matured across the decade. The Plasma Motor Generator flight in 1993 was later described by NASA as the most sophisticated and most successful electrodynamic-tether mission yet flown. STS-75 in 1996 deployed the TSS-1R Tethered Satellite System payload aboard  Columbia, validating high-voltage electrodynamic behavior in orbit and proving the functionality of the space tether field propulsion concept; NASA described it as the first tethered-satellite mission and the longest structure yet flown in space. Beamed-energy propulsion concepts also reached flight-test maturity during this period. In 1997, the laser-propelled Lightcraft was successfully flown in a series of experiments at the High Energy Laser Systems Test Facility at White Sands Missile Range under a joint USAF/NASA flight demonstration program.
NASA's Breakthrough Propulsion Physics Project (BPP) in 1998 reframed field propulsion from a catalog of ideas into a research program defined by falsifiable physical requirements, establishing conservation-law consistency, measurable coupling mechanisms, and experimental reproducibility as the central benchmarks for evaluating advanced propulsion concepts. The program organized research around three goals: propulsion with no propellant mass, maximum physically possible transit speeds, and breakthrough energy sources. Marc Millis of BPP framed the related "space coupling propulsion" problem as requiring a tangible reaction-mass-like property of the vacuum and a controllable coupling mechanism that yields net external thrust. BPP raised the question of whether propellantless effects could exist without violating conservation of momentum and energy, and the more speculative end of the spectrum — concepts that couple to the environment without carrying reaction mass — remained in the research phase.

=== 21st century ===