NASA launches satellite to test space-time

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) -- Forty-five years in the making and 24 hours late, NASA launched a $700 million satellite into orbit on Tuesday to test Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity.

The Gravity Probe B, one of the most precise scientific instruments every built, was carried aloft by a Boeing Co. Delta 2 at 12:57 p.m. EDT from the rocket range at California's Vandenberg Air Force Base.


Space-Time Satellite

They were talking about this on NPR's science friday last week. Apparently the gyroscope sphere is the smoothest surface ever created by man.


Delta 2 Rocket Successfully Lofts Gravity Probe B

Housed in a thermos filled with liquid helium, the four ping pong shaped gyroscopes will be spun up to 10,000 revolutions per minute (RPM), then monitor how that spin direction is affected by Einstein's predicted principles




Pretty cool stuff!

I hope they are careful. I am thinking about "The Phildelphia Experiment". That dealt with time/space and the second experiment left a rift open.
No scientist there named von Neumann, is there?