AAWSAP DIRDs

George Knapp just published the list of DIRD papers that were produced as part of the AAWSA program as required by the solicitation documents.

My earlier analysis indicated that the public AAWSAP solicitation and those DIRD documents seemed to have been something like a smokescreen for concealing questionable use of money on UFO/paranormal research, which was arranged between a small circle of friends. The now released list of titles and authors doesn't seem to give any reason to chance that opinion.

Only a few of those documents are publicly available, but the select few that are indicate those documents are nothing special, and similar information is widely available elsewhere, and already was when those documents were written.

We know the program(s) spent some $22 million tax dollars, but it's still very much an open question if the taxpayers got anything of value in return. Those documents are one part of that equation, and hence here are some of the questions that are of interest here:

• Are these documents relevant for the publicly stated goals of the AAWSAP program?
• Were they worth it? Especially in comparison to what was already freely available.
• Do they have anything to do with the UFO/paranormal research that seemed to have been the actual purpose of the AAWSAP and AATIP programs?
• Who are the authors and why were they chosen to write these?
• How are those authors connected to Hal Puthoff and Eric Davis, the key players for that part of the program, who seem to have made the decisions of the authors for those documents?
• Do those authors have interests in UFOs, paranormal topics and pseudosciences, like those key players mentioned above?

The documents

Here's the list of those documents, modified to contain the full names of those authors, some more exact names of their employers, and DIA identifiers and links to documents where available. Note that Knapp didn't reveal one of those papers, which might be because it is classified, as reportedly one or two of them were.

#	Document	Author	Employer
1	Inertial Electrostatic Confinement Fusion	George Miley	Univ. Of Illinois
2	Advanced Nuclear Propulsion for Manned Deep Space Missions	Friedwardt Winterberg	Univ. Of Nevada-Reno
3	Pulsed High-Power Microwave Technology	James Wells	Northrop Grumman
4	Space Access	Paul Czysz	HyperTech Concepts LLC
5	Advanced Space Propulsion Based on Vacuum (Spacetime Metric) Engineering (DIA-08-1003-015)	Hal Puthoff	EarthTech International
6	BioSensors and BioMEMS	Bruce Towe	Univ. Of Arizona
7	Invisibility Cloaking	Ulf Leonhardt	Univ. Of St. Andrews
8	Wormholes in SpaceTime (Probably the same as "Traversable Wormholes, Stargates, and Negative Energy", DIA-08-1004-004)	Eric Davis	EarthTech International
9	Gravity Wave Communication	Robert Baker	GravWave
10	Superconductors In Gravity Research	George Hathaway	Hathaway Consulting
11	Antigravity Studies (Probably same as "Antigravity for Aerospace Applications", DIA-08-1003-018)	Eric Davis	EarthTech International
12	Field Effects on Biological Tissues	Kit Green	Wayne State Univ.
13	Positron Aerospace Propulsion	Gerald Smith	Positronics Research, LLC
14	Vacuum Energy Applications (Probably same as "Concepts for Extracting Energy from the Quantum Vacuum", DIA-08-1004-007)	Eric Davis	EarthTech International
15	Improved Statistical Approach to Drake Equation (Probably closely connected to "The Statistical Drake Equation")	Claudio Maccone	International Academy of Astronautics
16	Maverick vs. Corporate Research Cultures	George Hathaway	Hathaway Consulting
17	Biomaterials	Bruce Towe	Univ. Of Arizona
18	Metamaterials	Gennady Shvets	Univ. Of Texas – Austin
19	Warp Drives, Dark Energy, and Dimensions (DIA-08-1004-001)	Richard Obousy	Obousy Consultants
20	Brain-Machine Interfaces	Richard J. Genik	Wayne State Univ.
21	Materials for Advanced Aerospace Platforms	James Williams	Ohio State Univ.
22	Metallic Glasses	Todd C. Hufnagel	John Hopkins Univ.
23	Programmable Matter	Wil McCarthy	Programmable Matter Corporation
24	Metallic Spintronics	Maxim Tsoi	Univ. Of Texas – Austin
25	Laser Weapons	John R. Albertine	Directed Technologies (probably this)
26	Quantum Entanglement Communication	John G. Cramer	Univ. Of Washington
27	Aneutronic Fusion Propulsion	V. Teofilo	Lockheed Martin
28	Cockpits in the Era of Breakthrough Flight	G. Millis	Tau Zero Foundation
29	Cognitive Limits on Simultaneous Control of Multiple Unmanned Spacecraft	Richard J. Genik	Wayne State Univ.
30	Detection and High Resolution Tracking of Vehicles at Hypersonic Velocities	William G. Culbreth	Univ. Of Texas – Austin
31	Aneutronic Fusion Propulsion	William G. Culbreth	Univ. Of Texas – Austin
32	Laser Lightcraft Nanosatellites (DIA-08-1011-001)	Eric Davis	EarthTech International
33	MHD Air Breathing Propulsion and Power for Aerospace Applications	S. Macheret	Lockheed Martin
34	Quantum Computing and Utilizing Organic Molecules in Automation Technology	Richard J. Genik	Wayne State Univ.
35	Quantum Tomography of Negative Energy States in the Vacuum (DIA-0801102-007)	Eric Davis	EarthTech International
36	Ultracapacitors as Energy and Power Storage Devices	J Golightly	Lockheed Martin
37	Negative Mass Propulsion (Probably more or less the same as this published in JBIS)	Friedwardt Winterberg	Univ. Of Nevada-Reno
38	?	?	?

Apparently some of those documents have modified titles in comparison to what Eric Davis has published on his EarthTech page.

DWO-3 and DWO-4

There's one curious detail in the list of publications by Eric Davis. Some of his reports are marked to "Defense Futures" and "Technology Warning Division (DWO-4)" while others have "Acquisition Threat Support" and "Acquisition Support Division (DWO-3)".

Davis has said earlier that "AAWSA is the specific program task force or division within DW0-4 that Jim [AAWSAP program manager James Lacatski] specifically worked in." The three currently available documents are for DWO-3 but nevertheless also list Lacatski as the contact.

Relevance to AAWSAP

Here's a reminder what the AAWSAP and the produced documents were supposed to be according to the official public solicitation documents:

STATEMENT OF OBJECTIVES FOR THE ADVANCED AEROSPACE WEAPON SYSTEM APPLICATIONS PROGRAM
18 July 2008

1.    BACKGROUND: The Acquisition Support Division (DWO-3) of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) has the responsibility to provide guidance and oversight to the Department of Defense (DoD) acquisition process along with leveraging the DoD Intelligence Community to coordinate, produce and maintain projections of the future threat environment in which U.S. air, naval, ground, space, missile defense and information systems operate.  In order to accurately assess the foreign threat to U.S. weapon systems, a complete as possible understanding of potential breakthrough technology applications employed in future aerospace weapon systems must be obtained.
2.    OBJECTIVE: One aspect of the future threat environment involves advanced aerospace weapon system applications.  The objective of this program is to understand the physics and engineering of these applications as they apply to the foreign threat out to the far term, i.e., from now through the year 2050. Primary focus is on breakthrough technologies and applications that create discontinuities in currently evolving technology trends. The focus is not on extrapolations of current aerospace technology. The proposal shall describe a technical approach which discusses how the breakthrough technologies and applications listed below would be studied and include proposed key personnel that have experience in those areas.
3.    REQUIREMENTS:
a) The contractor shall complete advanced aerospace weapon system technical studies in the following areas:   

1. lift    
2. propulsion     
3. control
4. power generation
5. spatial/temporal translation
6. materials
7. configuration, structure
8. signature reduction (optical, infrared, radiofrequency, acoustic)
9. human interface
10. human effects
11. armament (RF and DEW)
12. other peripheral areas in support of (1-11)

b) It is expected that numerous experts with extensive experience (minimum of 10 years) in breakthrough aerospace research and development will be required to meet the demands of the above program. The offeror should clearly identify their approach to obtaining the services of and their utilization of these scientific and technical experts. Management personnel must include a lead integrator to oversee the work of the various analytical teams, and to integrate their findings into final coherent products. At least one member of each analytical team must have a PhD, although that member can be on several teams. A technical plan for conducting the advanced aerospace weapon system studies described above must be included in the offeror’s proposal.
(c) Offeror must be able to produce integrated finished assessments in each of the above advanced aerospace weapon system technical areas. Finished reports and presentations, while highly analytical and technical, must be in a format suitable for dissemination at the highest levels of the federal government. In addition to the main technical section of each assessment, an executive summary utilizing clearly understandable (non-technical) language must also be contained in each report.
(d) To assess relevant experience, offerors shall submit at least three (3) references, including a POC name and phone number, with a brief description of the business relationship with the Government or other corporations. In addition, offerors should provide examples, conducted within the past 7 years, of having performed, as a prime contractor, the analysis, design, construction, and flight testing of high performance aircraft and/or satellites. Success in this program is dependent upon this capability and experience.
--- AAWSAP solicitation

So basically they were asking the offerors to assess future (from now through the year 2050) threats and technologies and report those in a way their leadership could understand.

And here's how theoretical physicist Sean Carroll commented the few papers that have been made public:

"It's bits and pieces of theoretical physics dressed up as if it has something to do with potentially real-world applications, which it doesn't," Carroll said. "This is not crackpot. This is not the Maharishi saying we're going to use spirit energy to fly off the ground — this is real physics. But this is not something that's going to connect with engineering anytime soon, probably anytime ever."

"There is something called a warp drive, there are extra dimensions, there is a Casimir effect, and there's dark energy — all of these things are true," he said. "But there's zero chance that anyone within our lifetimes or the next 1,000 years are going to build anything that makes use of any of these ideas, for defense purposes or anything like that."

"It's possible in the sense that I can't actually rule it out, but I don't think it's actually possible," Carroll said of warp drives and faster-than-light travel. "I think if we knew physics better, we'd just say, 'No, you can't do that.'"

I concluded before that "maybe there were other DIRD documents that are not quite so out there, but the ones we have seen so far seem to have been more about funding the personal interests of Puthoff, Davis and others than something that would be relevant to the objectives of the program". Now that we can see at least the titles of the other documents as well, is there any reason to change that opinion?

Based on the titles, a portion of the documents no doubt match to what the solicitation called for. However, many also seems to be more about deep space and highly speculative ideas that seem highly unlikely to have much practical military relevance through the year 2050. Take the one about Drake Equation for instance. It might be the closest thing to UFOs in that list, but how's that relevant for the objectives in that solicitation?

The authors

Much of the media attention towards the AAWSAP/AATIP has concentrated on what seems to have been a very questionable funding between a small circle of friends. Senator Harry Reid was friends with Bigelow whose BAASS won the contract, and he in turn was closely associated with Puthoff and Davis. They in turn apparently made arrangements for contracting the authors for the DIRD papers. Did they choose the best available people for the objectives of the program, or was it one more step of friends handing out contracts for friends?

The following table summarizes the connections I have found so far between the authors of those documents and their possible interests in UFOs or other fringe topics (to be updated when new information is found).

Author	Connections to Puthoff&Davis and their research
Hal Puthoff
Eric Davis
George H. Miley	Puthoff introduced Miley to Richard Dell Jr., with whom he was developing nuclear fusion propulsion. Miley is also a cold fusion/LENR researcher and claimed to had constructed a LENR device that produced continuously several hundred watts of energy, which apparently was untrue.
Friedwardt Winterberg	Icarus Interstellar team member like Davis. Keith Basterfield found out that Winterberg presented a paper in 1976 CUFOS UFO conference.
James Wells
Paul Czysz	Like Puthoff, has given a testimony (testimonies next to each other on page 86) in the Technology/Science category for Steven M. Greer's Disclosure Project. Claims to have been involved in tracking UFOs while working at Wright-Patterson AFB.
Bruce Towe	Published an article called "Analysis of Technically Inventive Dream-Like Mental Imagery" in the pseudo-scientific Journal of Scientific Exploration, referring to Puthoff's remote viewing work as an example of a report that "imply that the ability to see imagery during altered states is not necessarily the daydreaming of an undisciplined mind but rather a common, and maybe even useful human capacity"
Ulf Leonhardt
Robert M. L. Baker Jr.	GravWave LLC team member like Davis
George D. Hathaway	Wrote a chapter to a book authored by Millis and Davis. Authored at least one paper with EarthTech employee Michael Ibison. Thanked by Davis on his 2003 Ball Lightning Study for extensive help. Self-proclaimed interest in "fringes of science", supporter of John Hutchison and his pseudo-scientific "Hutchison Effect", which was supported by fraudulent footage and is connected to zero point energy. Hathaway wrote a book about Hutchison, reviewed as a must-read by Puthoff, who (as well as John B. Alexander) apparently also supported Hutchison and wanted to collaborate with "potential backers with big dollars". Hathaway Research International, founded by George Hathaway, is affiliated with Puthoff's EarthTech. Their past projects include "field investigations of anomalous aerial phenomena for private research institute" in 1992-1994 and 1997, "Development of high pulsed-power supply and radiator for tests of Puthoff Polarizable Vacuum Theory", and "Analysis of material allegedly from Anomalous Aerial Phenomenon for private research institute", apparently around 2012-2013 based on where its listed.
Kit Green	Closely connected to Hal Puthoff and other ufologists and "remote viewers". Listed in Davis' 2004 Advanced Propulsion Study among the people influential and instrumental in his life and work.
Gerald A. Smith
Claudio Maccone	Wrote a chapter to a book authored by Millis and Davis. Authored at least one paper with Puthoff and Davis. Listed in Davis' 2004 Advanced Propulsion Study among the people influential and instrumental in his life and work.
Gennady Shvets
Richard Obousy	Icarus Interstellar team member like Davis
Richard J. Genik II
James Williams
Todd C. Hufnagel
Wil McCarthy	Wrote a science fiction novel "The Collapsium" in 2000, which refers to Puthoff's zero-point energy research as an inspiration.
Maxim Tsoi
John R. Albertine	Directed Energy Professional Society (DEPS) member like Davis. Albertine "joined the Navy’s High Energy Laser Program Office where he led the development, integration and test of the first megawatt-class laser system in the US" and Davis' "contributions include:develop megawatt-class laser propulsion physics".
John G. Cramer	Wrote a chapter to a book authored by Millis and Davis.
Vincent L. Teofilo	Authored at least one paper with Puthoff and Davis
Marc G. Millis	Authored a book with Davis. Tau Zero Foundation member like Davis. Listed in Davis' 2004 Advanced Propulsion Study among the people influential and instrumental in his life and work.
William G. Culbreth
Sergey Macheret
Justin S. Golightly

Was it worth it?

So, how much does that bunch of documents matter? How much did those cost and did they bring some real value for someone, especially in addition to what would have been available elsewhere anyway?

We have seen the AAWSAP solicitation documents, which basically describe those documents as the primary results of the program. We have also seen some glimpses of the contracts that awarded BAASS an initial $10 million, and probably another for the first option year, specifically for that program. So was that set of documents supposed to be worth some $20 million?

But then we have also heard how BAASS actually did something completely different during that program, and those studies and documents seem to have become more like a sidetrack managed by EarthTech (Puthoff & Davis) as their subcontractors.

For all that I can see, these documents continue to look like a smokescreen for a program that had a pretty shady arrangement of funding that was mostly spent on something very different than the public solicitation documents contained. And that's clearly a problem, especially if only one bidder knew what the deal really was all about.