Judge won't force NASA to look at area man's interstellar drive

When NASA wouldn't speech to Henry Ivers of Swampscott astir his revolutionary method of powering spaceships to the stars, helium sued.

In a ruling this week, US District Court Judge William Young dismissed Ivers's self-filed petition that helium unit NASA to astatine slightest admit his plans. Young said Ivers had nary "standing" to bring the suit, due to the fact that it's the benignant that would person required the authorities to let itself to beryllium sued and, arsenic a section adjunct US Attorney wrote aft conferring with NASA, nary specified support has been granted.

Young said helium was dismissing the lawsuit based strictly connected ineligible grounds, surely not connected immoderate technological reappraisal of Ivers's proposal, successful which Ivers claims that the usage of energy generated by star cells and thing astir revolving and rotating alternatively of pushing and pulling (Ed. note: Damn it, Jim, I'm a reporter, not a rocket scientist) could regenerate the chemic rockets NASA has mostly relied connected to this constituent to determination things from Earth orbit elsewhere.

Ivers unsuccessfully argued that the 1958 enactment that created NASA required the bureau to, if not boldly spell wherever nary 1 has gone before, astatine slightest lend to "the enlargement of quality cognition successful the ambiance and space," and that fewer things could amended pb to that than a trans-stellar thrust and that by not adjacent acknowleding his plans, the bureau was placing an alleged "not invented here" doctrine supra its ain stated crushed for being.

The US Attorney's bureau responded:

Simply put, Plaintiff cannot writer NASA simply for declining to instrumentality actions that, successful his view, mightiness assistance further its mission. Although the substance of NASA’s enabling statute sets distant wide and high-minded objectives, it does not remotely authorize claims against the bureau for failing to fulfill those objectives.

Even if the authorities consented to beryllium sued, which it hadn't, Ivers has nary lawsuit due to the fact that the 1958 enactment does not necessitate it to judge thing that comes implicit its virtual transom, "let unsocial a wide nondiscretionary work to measure [Ivers's] propulsion technology," the US Attorney's bureau added.

Iver's statement of his revolutionary propulsion system (2.2M PDF).