LIGO and LISA – The # 1 Cosmic Money Pit...

Although Albert Einstein predicted the existence of gravitational waves in 1918 in his general theory of relativity, to date no one has ever actually detected or measured a gravitational wave. Gravitational waves, emitted by accelerating masses, are believed to be ripples in the fabric of spacetime produced by violent events in the universe, such as the collision of two black holes or the explosion of a supernova.

The Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO) was built to detect and measure these passing waves.  LIGO is a group of three earth-grounded gravity wave telescopes; one is located in Livingston, Louisiana and two are located in Hanford, Washington.  

The Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) is to be the outer space version of these gravity telescopes, with three spacecraft spinning freely (not connected to each other) more than three million miles apart, in an equilateral triangle. The spaceships will carry delicate instruments to hopefully track each other and, in concert, measure passing gravitational waves as the three craft follow the distant earth around the sun.

The cost of LIGO has quadrupled from its original estimate to over 500 million dollars. Therefore, it can be assumed that, at that rate, the cost of LISA initially estimated at 1 billion dollars, will be closer to 4 billion dollars in the next decade.

Caltech began promoting LIGO — the un-movable non-focusable gravity-wave-detecting telescopes — way back in the ‘70s.  But it wasn’t until Caltech finally hired a silver-tongued lobbyist in 1991 that Congress was convinced by the heavy lobbying, in the name of Albert Einstein, that the world really needed this unproven strange ‘new’ science project.  According to MIT’s Rainer Weiss: “But if you say you’re measuring something that’s proving or disproving Einstein’s theory, then all sorts of doors open. There’s a mystique.”

Both LIGO and LISA are bells-and-whistles updated versions of the old Michelson Interferometer (1887): Light from a laser passes through a beam splitter and travels down two right-angled vacuum tubes. The laser beams are then reflected back by mirrors at the far end of the tubes and hopefully "interfere" with each other. When they recombine the waves should cancel each other out. Any slight change in arrival time (or wave phase) reveals a faint beam (interference) that will be detected by the optical sensors.

On September 9^th, 2002, after 11 years of costly construction and constant tweaking, LIGO completed its first observation attempt at registering cosmic gravitational waves.  All three of LIGO’s U.S. interferometers worked in sync for nearly three weeks.  The ultra-powerful lasers, the 2.5-mile-long vacuum tubes, the high-speed data recorders — all functioned perfectly. 

To be successful, the laser interferometer gravitational wave instrument, and its companion detectors in Washington State, must be isolated from all of shaking of the real world.  Even background noise, which has constantly plagued this facility from the start and can easily drown out any of the anticipated gravitational wave signals, had been reduced by an impressive factor of 3,000 since LIGO first noisily powered up in 2000.

But LIGO didn’t detect anything -- except for:

a.)  The inherent background noise level that remained 100 times "louder" than acceptable.

b.) The local logging operations which threw the interferometer lens out of whack during daylight hours.  The facility was forced to work only at night during logging season when the trees were being harvested;

c.)  The crashing sounds of distant ocean waves which need to be corrected for every seven minutes at the Hanford facility; 

d.)  The seismic quakes reverberating throughout the earth’s crust; occurring at a much too constant rate each and every day;

e.)  The sun and moon’s constant tug, elongating the earth’s surface as the traveling waves traverse the planet;

f.) The frequent distant deep-ocean storms — which no one really ever contemplated – “They are thought to originate in the pressure from counter-propagating ocean waves against the ocean bottom near the coasts of the land masses”;

g.)  The nearby freight trains that pass daily at midnight and 6 a.m. — vibrating the ground beneath the facility for about 40 minutes each and every day. Another unexpected environmental factor seriously affecting the noise levels registered by the instruments; 

h.)  The noisy whistling wind gusts pressing against the sides of the buildings;

i.)  Seismic noise, usually referred to as ‘secondary microseisms’ — often observed during the frequent coastal storms.

j.)  The rumble of heavy trucks at the nearby Hanford DOE plant for processing nuclear waste.

k.)  Hanford traffic: “Investigation in the field established early on that the noise comes primarily from automobile traffic on highway 240. Resurfacing the highway would help reduce the noise.”  — And lastly;

l.)  The people of Livingston Louisiana, who are much nosier than anticipated — according to the LIGO Seismic Noise Long Term Study – a problem that cannot be paved over.

Physicist Mark Coles, a director at the Louisiana LIGO facility said: “The ground motion is really higher than we had anticipated from the original site surveys.” Of course it couldn’t be their strange contraption that requires absolute silence in a very noisy world — a telescope that won’t move and can’t be focused.

The LIGO scientists’ answer to these perplexing noise problems was to make the Michelson interferometer more and more sensitive. The team installed a vibration-damping system that would actively adjust the detector mounts from moment to moment to further prevent unwanted motion and ambient noise.

With that came still more problems — such as humans walking, causing serious disruptions of signals.  The interferometer has now reached such a degree of sensitivity that the atoms banging around inside of the mirrors have to be filtered out of the equations.  

The LIGO scientists, including Barry C. Barish, a Caltech physicist and director of the project, have now put together decades of equations, plus thousands of graphs, charts and excuses for why they have never even once detected a single gravitational wave.

Dr. Barish, renowned as the Pied Piper of NSF grants and an ex-manager of the now-defunct boondoggle, the Superconducting Super Collider (read Herman Wouk’s satiric “A Hole In Texas”), sheds such criticism with a shrug: "It's going about as well as we could want at this stage.”

At a recent conference of the National Science Board, of which Dr. Barish is now a member, Winston Churchill was quoted: "Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm." No statement can better describe the half-billion dollar LIGO project.

Caltech’s latest news release states: “Realistically, detections are not expected at the present sensitivities. A second data run is now underway with significantly better sensitivity, and further improvements are expected over the next couple of years.”  While MIT is listed as the second half of the Caltech/MIT team, it has been from the start a somewhat reluctant bride — always troubled by the unproven science and those wait-till-next-year promises releases.

Now, after 30 years have passed since the concept was first conceived and aborted by Dr. Joseph Weber, Dr. Barish proudly sta gravitational waves while the other will used to measure the higher frequencies of the gravitational waves.  “LISA will be complemented by ground detectors.” If LISA complemented LIGO, one could thereby assume that neither of the costly systems would be working.

While it is admittedly impossible, according to the Caltech/MIT team, for LIGO to measure the low-frequency range of gravitational waves because of the unshieldable background of seismic noise and local noise as previously mentioned; LISA should have no problem, assuming it actually works, measuring both the low-frequency range and the high-frequency range

Some critics look upon this costly duplication of like-purpose projects as an effort to conceal the fact that LIGO has always been a terrible waste of hundreds of millions of dollars that should have been better used.

Still other critics look upon this duplication as a make-work for a scientific community of more than 45 institutions and 450 scientists from around the world who will be involved in research at LIGO and LISA — plus it will now include multi-national observatories located in Italy (VIRGO), Japan (TAMA), Germany (GEO600) and Australia (ACIGA); proving that group think and bad science are extremely contagious.

How Pseudo-Science Gets Funded…

Of course, as noted above, using the name of Dr. Albert Einstein goes a long way; but to get major funding from the NSF (National Science Foundation) the project has to be first approved by the NSB (National Science Board), a 24-member panel that oversees the NSF and advises the President and Congress on what the next new thing is in realm of science. Plus the icing on the funding cake would the blessing of the NAS (National Academy of Sciences).

Barry C. Barish is the Director of LIGO.  Barry C. Barish is a member of the board at NSB. Barry C. Barish is a member of the board at NAS. It would appear at first glance that Barry C. Barish, LIGO, only has to talk to Barry C. Barish, NSB, and Barry C. Barish, NAS, to get major funding approved for all of his pet projects – up to and including billions of dollars, while other more worthy projects, such as the Hubble replacement, languish in the wings (Note: Dr. Barish is also on the Hubble transition board controlling those purse strings.). It would appear at first glance that there might be the slightest perception of a conflict of interest.  It would appear at first glance that this is both an alleged and actual case of one hand washing the other.

This ongoing problem lies squarely at the doorstep of the National Science Board.  Their 24 board members are frequently board members on other advisory committees such as the National Academy of Sciences and are heavily draped in serious conflicts of interest, fostering mutual academic relationships that are scientifically incestuous. This causes present and future damage to our whole nation by stifling young scientists who are deprived of their rights to test innovative ideas and cutting edge concepts.

We cannot afford to rely upon any of these scientific advisory institutions for effective planning and oversight of their self-serving programs and scientific misconduct.

When Congress asked National Science Fund director Neal Lane how NSF could finance LIGO and still continue to support other research programs. Lane replied, “We would not be able to do all of this… Some science doesn’t get done.”

Now Caltech/MIT is asking Congress for an additional 150 million dollars in funding for a needed upgrade – the ‘Advanced LIGO’.

What this country has now ended up with is a 650 million dollar test trial that has hopelessly failed: But still, because of the nature of incestuous science, a 4 billion dollar offspring, LISA, has now been spawned.

Issues…

1.)  While it has been generally accepted that passing gravitational waves affect the shape of space, the LIGO scientists go a step further and state that passing gravity waves affect the shape of the objects residing in space; while, according to Dr. Albert Einstein, the gravitational waves affect the spacetime relationship of the objects to each other. The LIGO misconception of Einstein’s theory is similar to a man bobbing about the ocean in a small boat trying to measure the rising tides.

The LIGO-LISA scientists postulate that, “While electromagnetic waves offer a surface impression of their astronomical source – the surface of last scattering – gravitational waves cut to the high density core.” Suppositions such as this can only be made through actual observation of gravitational waves – something no one has ever done.

These misconceptions led the LIGO scientists to believe that they could let their gravity telescope be bolted to the planet Earth and then measure itself rather than measuring the actual passing effect of gravitational waves on bodies moving through space. The LIGO scientists are all crowded around each other, weaving to and fro, in that bobbing boat.

2.)  Gravitational waves, according to Einstein, are generated at a ninety-degree angle in relationship to the axis of the massive rotating body. Therefore these waves spread across the Universe in a plane determined solely by the wave source — unlike light and sound waves, which spread out in all directions. A gravitational wave passing through our solar system creates a strain in spacetime that changes the distances between all bodies in its path in a direction that is on the plane of the direction of the gravitational wave propagation. In order for a gravitational wave to be detected, the mechanism for detection must be within the same plane as is the wave form. The LIGO scientists never address this issue since it negates any probability of them ever detecting gravitational waves.  The vast majority of gravitational waves arrive way ahead of any visual or electromagnetic clues being observed – the gravity bang comes first; long before the plane of the gravitational wave can be determined; long before any detectors can be moved within the gravitational wave plane.

3.) Since gravity and gravitational waves are the fabric of spacetime, it is probable that there is no defining signature for any singular gravitational wave.  Therefore a weak nearby gravitational wave could have exactly the same characteristics as a strong distant gravitational wave.  The wave form information, consequently, would not have any relevance to its original distant or nearby source.

4.) Since the plane on which each of the LIGO observatories rests upon differs due to the curvature of the earth, it is not possible for them to ‘lock’ in concert upon any specific cosmic gravitational wave form. The only thing they can ever ‘lock’ on to is stochastic background noise – random gravitational waves.

5.) The years of LIGO tests appear to show that the shape of matter is not affected by gravitational waves; only the fabric of space is changed; and therefore the positions of the celestial bodies that reside in space in relation to each other.  Like light waves and all other electromagnetic waves, the passing gravitational waves could not pierce through the thick concrete and steel bunkers in which the LIGO telescopes resided.

6.)  The LIGO Laboratory Charter Overview states: “LIGO detectors will use laser interferometry to measure the distortions of the space-time between free masses induced by passing gravitational waves.” The concept of “free masses” is critical for this concept to function – it is also impossible to levitate free masses on the planet earth.  It can only be accomplished in outer space.  What they have done is hang the mirrors from wires – which constantly transmit seismic vibrations.

One very perceptive scientist realized this very fact.  LIGO had hired a theoretical physicist from Glasgow University – considered to be one of the most creative gravitational wave scientists in world – Dr. Ronald Drever. When Dr. Drever noted the free mass problem to the LIGO director (he was proposing that the free masses be suspended in magnetic fields) he was quickly removed from the LIGO project and unceremoniously locked in a Caltech dungeon – actually a small lab with a part-time assistant – never to be heard from again.

It has also been stated that Dr. Drever’s early departure was surprisingly due to his breakthrough concepts – which were slowing down the construction process.  It also should be noted that Dr. Drever has been credited with 80% of LIGO inventions; making his departure all the more costly to a floundering project.

7.)  Gravitational wave astronomy at the LIGO facilities will be an “all-sky affair,” meaning that they will not be able to tell the origin of the waves by the use of any known astronomical measurements.  As far as most astronomers are concerned, LIGO would be deaf and blind as to where the gravitational anomalies originate.  To counter these negative realities, the promoters of gravitational radiation observatories go around the country holding seminars playing “pretty sounds” – embarrassingly fake audio recordings which they state are expected gravitational-wave events (www.ihmc.us/movies/bBarish.qtl). The unquestioning audiences are obviously slack-jawed with interest – not a single “What makes you think?” or “How do you know?”...

The LIGO group argues that a gravity wave’s source might be determined by mathematical calculations of the generated data – a true computational nightmare – rather than pointing the gravitational wave telescope in the direction of the plane of the wave source. To-date they have been unable to show that this new-science concept is in the least bit functional.

8.)  The constant nemesis for the LIGO project has been the unrelenting noise problem.  According to a recent unpublished internal document; Mach-Zehnder interferometers have been installed to eliminate real-world sub-sidebands of noise. While the MZ interferometer eliminated the sub-sideband problems, it introduced additional noise on the frequency; thereby completely negating the hopeful solution. The noise problems to-date have been unsolvable.

9.)  A revealing statement that showed -- at the very least -- a lack of full disclosure, on January 22, 2001, Caltech physicist and unofficial chief theoretical astrophysicist of the whole enterprise, Kip S. Thorne stated that, after having spent over 300 million dollars in the previous years on constructing 3 LIGO’s, he knew that it was “not probable that gravitational waves will be detected” (LIGO Doc # P-000024-00-D). Since they knew it would not work from the onset, why did they waste over 500 million dollars to-date on building 3 complete LIGO systems? Why not just construct an inexpensive test facility at Caltech to first demonstrate that their unproven controversial theories might actually detect gravitational waves?

10.)  At Kyoto, Japan (7/4/2003), Dr. Barish admonished his fellow scientists: “A field as young and discovery-oriented as gravitational wave detection bears a special burden to come forward with results that are convincing… Refrain from discussing results with the press…” – a statement that obviously frowns upon transparency and full disclosure about the constant failures of LIGO.

11.) While LISA, unlike LIGO, is a seemingly viable concept that theoretically could measure gravitational waves, it presently has many insurmountable problems such as:

a.) Solar winds have always had a measurable effect on the flight paths of spacecraft; Therefore, these significant plasma blasts from the sun will keep the three spacecraft out of the necessary ‘lock’ for the laser interferometer to function;

b.) The modern laser interferometer systems need constant attention, adjustment, updating, repair and reprogramming. One LIGO scientist stated: “Every time we make a change in the interferometer… we spend six months trying to figure out why it doesn’t work. To me that indicates that the whole art of interferometry is not yet well enough understood.”

c.) The millions of miles that will separate the three spacecraft from earth make any space shuttle repair visits impossible;

d.)  Presently the three craft are to be sent out flailing about space in such a helter-skelter manner that would make any attempt at either direction or focus of the gravity telescope impossible.  LISA will be like a woman in the dark aimlessly swatting at unseen flies.

In Conclusion…

The question needs to be asked: What is the probability that we can ever detect a single gravitational wave even if actual working wave detectors could be created? And what would be that cost?

While LIGO’s director, Dr. Barry C. Barish, a sins-of-omission type of guy, constantly answers this question in an artful dodge that dwells between ambiguous hopes and fog-shrouded dreams; Only Professor van Putten has been straightforward with the unvarnished honest truth. According to Prof. Maurice H.P.M. van Putten, Member of the LIGO Group at MIT, at the most, we can expect one gravitational wave each year and, at the least, one gravitational wave every 450 years.

Assuming Dr. van Putten’s best scenario of one wave per year; and that this unproven science actually worked without a hitch; and taking into consideration that the planned life span of the LISA constellation is 5 years: Taking into consideration the fact that 13 months will have elapsed during the process to position the three craft, the cost per gravitational wave would be at least one billion dollars each.

The probability of LISA realistically being pointed in the right direction in order to actually detect a single passing gravitational wave is truly astronomical.  Dr. van Putten’s gravitational wave worst-case-scenario of 450 years for the LISA group now becomes the most probable result.

According to Bonny L. Schumaker at JPL, the LISA “goal is nearly one million times more ambitious than ever demonstrated in space.”  She really makes it sound like mission impossible.

The LISA project should be sent back to the drawing boards. The issue of the Michelson Interferometer (1887) concept being used should be re-addressed. A demonstration mission in an Earth orbit would be the best way to prove its capabilities.  Such a test program, shielded from the solar winds, could be installed on the space station to verify all of these unproven theories. The LISA-Pathfinder test mission (formerly SMART-2) is intended to check-out only the technical issues involved.  It will not check-out the basic science of the concept.  It will not attempt to read gravitational waves. 

Besides the basic technical control problems, the LISA concept itself needs to be analyzed thoroughly first before the costly full-blown triple spacecrafts are launched into probable failure, wasting billions of dollars.  If LIGO, using the same concept, can’t detect anything except seismic noise, how can we expect LISA to do any better?

Technically we know that we can build just about anything – but if the science is wrong, what is the purpose?  Funds of this magnitude should be reserved only for proven science with a more certain outcome.

The LIGO promise, according to Dr. Barish, states: “New space-time dimensions can be mapped by studying the emission of gravitons into the extra dimensions, together with a photon or jets into the normal dimensions.” Dr. Barish appears to be quoting Mr. Spock.

Albert Einstein said: “Many people say that it is the intellect which makes a great scientist.  They are wrong: It is character.” At LIGO the impression given is one of hype, not character.

Due to the constant failures – not a single success over the past thirty years – and the evident un-workability of this pseudo-science, the LIGO project should be shut down as soon as possible before many more millions are wasted – just as Dr. Barish’s last major boondoggle was shut down – that 8 billion dollar hole in Texas.