For some time, however, it should
be noted, that a certain number of engineers and scientists have wondered why the
trajectories of spacecraft are slightly different than expected from the calculations.
Thus Wernher Von Braun, when he was in charge of NASA research, had made
observations of this kind. Thus, when he heard about the work of French Professor Maurice
Allais on this subject, he urged him to publish a series of articles in the USA, in the
Aerospace Engineering review, under the title "Should the Laws of Gravitation Be
Reconsidered?" (September / October 1959).2. PROFESSOR MAURICE ALLAIS'
EXPERIMENTS
2.1 The
experiments of Professor Allais on pendulums
2.1.1 Since 1954, Professor Allais, who received the Nobel Prize in Economics
in 1988, has had physics as a hobby. He quickly came to believe that the propagation
of gravitational and electromagnetic actions is gradual and thus implies the existence of
an intermediate medium : the "ether" of Fresnel.
Allais deduced that one would
be able to establish a connection between magnetism and gravitation while observing,
for example, the action of a magnetic field on the movement of a pendulum.
At first, he observed the movement of a
pendulum (of 83 cm) under only the action of the magnetic field of the Earth. To his
great surprise, he noted that the movement was by no means limited to the Foucault
effect (1851), but that it presented very important anomalies, that varied
with time. The study of these anomalies has constituted the essential subject of his
experiments from 1954 to 1960.
2.1.2 Professor Allais carried out many experiments, consisting of seven
series of uninterrupted monthly tests . These experiments showed in a decisive way the
existence of a direction of ANISOTROPY of space, which varied with time.