A hybrid interstellar propulsion concept (QFHPS) — technical study, v5.0 (Koncepcja hybrydowego napędu międzygwiezdnego — opracowanie techniczne, wersja 5.0)

Abstract

Concept specification of a hybrid interstellar propulsion system (QFHPS), combining two complementary subsystems: a Casimir vacuum modulator as the main drive (reinterpreted geometrically as a controlled local deformation of the spacetime metric — “falling in spacetime”), and a magnetic Bussard scoop serving as power generator, maneuvering drive, and magnetic sail brake (Zubrin–Andrews, 1991). The study builds on laboratory-confirmed physics — the static and dynamical Casimir effect (Lamoreaux 1997; Wilson et al. 2011), Casimir cavities as the only laboratory-known state of negative energy density, neutrino cooling as the volumetric heat-rejection channel of every neutron star, and the hot CNO cycle of classical novae, in which reactor power scales with catalyst mass (hence Callisto as a candidate last oxygen-supply point before leaving the Solar System) — and marks every claim with an explicit certainty status: [F] confirmed physics, [E] engineering extrapolation, [S] speculation. It performs honest order-of-magnitude accounting (kinetic energy of milligram dust grains at 8% c, equivalent to ~100 kg TNT; stellar aberration of 4.6° at 8.1% c as a navigation signal), includes a reference ship design in the convention of Project Daedalus/Icarus, and formulates a falsifiable research program: ten staged experiments, beginning with a deliberately low-cost measurement of the net force from an asymmetric Casimir cavity, plus four observational predictions whose failure falsifies the corresponding elements of the concept. The concept was born during work on the author’s hard-SF trilogy “L3”; this study presents it as a self-contained technical treatment, stripped of the literary layer. This record is the English translation (October 2026, by the author with Claude) of the Polish original (DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.23302261).