NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS), 2026-10-04
URLs: https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/19950022472 (record), https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/19950022472/downloads/19950022472.pdf Saved: files/nasa-TM-106963-Millis-Williamson-1995.pdf (14 pp), files/nasa-TM-106963-fulltext.txt, files/nasa-ntrs-19950022472.json Search: Google "NASA TM 106963" OR "TM-106963" Hooper gravity electromagnetic coupling. NTRS API search "Hooper motional" found only this record. Result: positive. This is the only independent experimental test of a Hooper claim found so far.
Findings: Millis, M. G. and Williamson, G. S., "Experimental Results of Hooper's Gravity-Electromagnetic Coupling Concept", NASA TM-106963 / AIAA-95-2601, 31st Joint Propulsion Conference, San Diego, 10-12 July 1995 (2nd ed. also cited) [web] https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/19950022472
NASA Lewis was screening propulsion ideas, so this is a government agency's characterization, from a group whose interest was a large, propulsion-useful effect.
What was tested - The weight-reduction assertion of US 3,610,971 (FIG. 4: a non-ferrous object under a self-cancelling flat coil). They also checked surface charge and gravity with an accelerometer. - Their reasons for choosing Hooper: cheap to build; "documented well enough to allow duplication"; and "no report of Hooper's claims or anything similar being rigorously tested".
Setup - Self-cancelling coils. - Magnetometer: resolution 0.0001 G. - Servo accelerometer above the coil: threshold about 40 micro-g. - Test mass: 555 g acrylic disk (30.5 cm diameter) on a balance beam with an electronic scale. Resolution 0.001 g; whole-apparatus threshold 0.02 g. - Surface-charge capacitor: a circuit-board blank on the coil, 0.0014 microfarad, read with a 0.001 mV voltmeter. They used Hooper's inside-grounded convention on one capacitor and the opposite on another. - Readings were taken by quick on/off toggling, without warm-up. Coils were also run encased in ice.
Results - "No weight changes or confirmed alterations of the gravitational field were observed with any of the coils at any of the tested current levels. Freezing the coils made no difference." - The surface-voltage readings were "too erratic to reach definite conclusions", and they did not correct this, since the charge effect did not matter for propulsion. - So Hooper's actual measured claim, the capacitor charge, was not settled by this test.
Their interpretation - Hooper "routinely allowed his coils to warm-up before taking readings". Any rise of the disk may have been convection from coil heat. - "Hooper may have misinterpreted thermal effects". - "a genuine, but minuscule effect" below their thresholds "would be too small to be of practical value for a propulsion mechanism".
Theory note - They note that drift velocity in normal conductors depends only on current: the resistivity and voltage terms cancel. On this point they disagree with Hooper's low-temperature enhancement (claim 3). - They state that the behaviour in superconductors "is uncertain".
Sources they used - Their source for Hooper's measurements is Gibson's monograph (ref. 12). - Their reference list includes Cravens' Electric Propulsion Study (AL-TR-89-040, Aug 1990) among the Air Force studies; the OCR text is too garbled to match each number to its reference with certainty [web] same PDF.
How it bears on the claims
- Claim 5 (weight change): one controlled test, negative within a 0.02 g threshold on a 555 g mass. It is not a test at superconducting temperature.
- Claim 2 (capacitor charge outside a grounded shield): attempted but inconclusive. This is still the open experimental point.
- Claim 3 (drift velocity vs temperature): the authors give the mainstream counter-argument but did no measurement.
- Hooper's own reported controls (quick-reading thermal test, balanced-supply test; see 2026-10-04-rexresearch.md) were aimed at the same thermal explanation Millis proposes. Reviewers should weigh the two side by side.
Further lead from the reference list (OCR garbled)
The background references to the TM include the earlier Air Force propulsion surveys [web] files/nasa-TM-106963-fulltext.txt, references section: - F. B. Mead Jr. et al., Advanced Propulsion Concepts - Project Outgrowth, AFRPL-TR-72-31, June 1972; - Mead, "Exotic Concepts for Future Propulsion and Space Travel", JANNAF/CPIA Publ. 528, 1989; - R. A. Evans, BAe University Round Table on Gravitational Research, 1990; - Cravens 1990; - R. L. Forward, 21st Century Space Propulsion Study, AL-TR-90-030, 1990, with an addendum. A 1972 USAF Rocket Propulsion Laboratory survey dated about a year after Hooper's death may record an early government look at Electrodynamic Gravity's claims. It is not yet confirmed that Hooper is named in it; check at DTIC when the site is back up.