Musings on and from Chariots of the Gods

 Erich Von Daniken died recently and I realised I hadn't read The Chariots of the Gods or any of his works.

So I picked up a copy and read it through.

The following is a set of notes I jotted down after reading the book.  They represent my thoughts, my interpretations.  Yours may be different.  Don't have a hissy fit if they are different.

My first impressions were that it rambled on and jumped about a lot.  It was hard to follow and made a lot of claims without any evidence. It tried to link different Ancient Cultures together and wondered where their technological advances came from.  The Author could not believe that Mankind could actually invent things themselves.

The style was sort of chatty, like a friend trying to convince you of something odd.  He also phrased his suggestions in a way that we had to open our minds to these possibilities, almost like we had to disprove them and not the other way round.

It was a hard read, as I say, it was jumping round and avoiding any detail.  How could the Mayan's have such a detailed calendar, how could the Ancient Egyptians build such well aligned pyramids etc.

I then googled a lot of his claims to find they had been rebutted many times over.

1. He thinks ancient humans were not clever enough to invent things so they must have come from Space.

2. He misrepresents the use of ancient sites claiming them to be created by or for Ancient Space farers.

3. He interpreted things using modern ideas and not ancient customs.

4. Books: "The Space Gods Revealed", "Crash go the Chariots" and a TV Documentary: "Ancient Aliens Debunked" counter most if not all of his assertions.

This got me thinking...

First: the "Facts"

Newtons Third Law ("For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.") defines all current Flight and Stellar Space Flight.

Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity (1905) and his General Theory of Relativity (1915) defined Spacetime for Interstellar Travel.

Flying with Propellers

Propellers spin airfoil-shaped blades to drag air or water from in front of them to behind them.  This creates a lower pressure in front and a higher pressure behind which pulls and pushes the propeller forwards following Newtons Third Law. The engine does not spin in the opposite direction as the water, land or air pressure around the vehicle prevents this (Wheels, Wings etc).

Propellers in Space

Propellers do not work in Space as there is no atmosphere to drag through the blades and all that would happen is that the engine would turn in the opposite direction of the blades due to Newtons Third Law.

Flying with Rockets

Rockets burn fuel to turn liquids and solids into gas.  The gas has a much larger volume and escapes through a nozzle at supersonic speeds creating Thrust. The thrust produced pushes the Rocket in the opposite direction as per Newton's Third Law.

Rockets do not push Energy out, they push Matter (gas).

Rockets in Space

Rockets work in space, better than they do in an atmosphere as there is no friction from the atmosphere or gravity to slow the rocket down.  If the rocket is turned off, it will keep on travelling.  If you switch it back on you will accelerate it as long as the rocket is burning and get faster and faster until you run out of fuel, hit the speed of light or switch it off.  To decelerate you need to thrust in the opposite direction.

The numbers (From the Internet)

To get a rocket to space requires a payload ratio of approximately 17:1.  That's 17 lbs of propellant to get 1 lb of payload to space.  That's 85-90% of a rocket's weight.

The Saturn V rocket used 4.5 Million lbs of fuel, that's almost 2,300 TONS of fuel.

Energy-wise it takes over 900 GJ (Giga-Joules) of energy to get a small payload into 100+ Km orbit.  This is comparable to using 1.1 power stations for a day.  

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New York City  consumes, at a low estimate, 5,500 MW of Power per day;

Convert to Giga-Joules gives 19,800 GJ; 

Divide 900 by 19,800 to get the fraction of energy used above compared to New York City, which gives 0.045 or 4.5%

24 Power Plants supply New York City, with another 16 for peak consumption, so 4.5% of 24 is 1.09.

So it takes the output from 1.09 Power Stations for a day to launch a small payload into a 100+ Km Orbit.

That is comparable to 2,000 - 3,000 acres of solar panels. (Variables are: Location, Panel Efficiency, Daylight Hours, Daylight Intensity)

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Once in space there are various theoretical and practical methods of interstellar travel that would not require large amounts of fuel, but may or may not require large amounts of time. (Rocket Power, Nuclear Pulse Propulsion, Radioactive Decay/Alpha Particle Sail, Photon Rockets & Sails...) Google them!

Drawbacks

Einstein's theory of Special Relativity (1905) states that "As an object's speed increases, its observed mass increases, and time slows down (time dilation) relative to a stationary observer" which still makes Space Travel unfeasible.  If it takes you 6 years to travel to a close by Star and back, but Millions of years have passed while you were gone, what's the point.

When you get to a so called 'M' Class planet and land on it, how are you going to take off again without all that fuel?

Second: Science Fiction Solutions to Space Travel

So Science Fiction has invented various options to circumvent this.  Often referred to as Handwavium Technology* or Techno Bable*.  They all seem to involve a different space/time continuum (Hyperspace, Subspace, Wormhole) to get around Einstein's Theories. However most of them have no detail of how it is done or what fuel they use. (Star Trek uses energy from Antimatter focussed through Dilithium Crystals into the Warp Nacells to generate it's Warp fields. It just works *waves hand dismissively*)

Hyperdrive/Jump Drive/Faster than Light Drive (FTL)

(Star Wars, Asimov's Foundation, Warhammer 40K, Lary Niven's Known Space, Perry Rhodan)

You enter Hyperspace (a parallel dimension) and bypass the Speed of Light restriction of normal space.

Wormholes 

(Babylon 5, Stargate, Deep Space 9)

Similar to Hyperdrive, you create an artificial wormhole between two points in the Universe (possibly through Hyperspace) and travel through it to your destination.

Warp Drive 

(Star Trek, Superman)

You create some sort of warp bubble (a Spacetime Distortion) around your spaceship (possibly from Hyperspace) that allows you to bypass the physical laws of the universe and travel faster than the speed of light, but in normal space.

Space Folding 

(Dune, Battlestar Galactica)

Similar to Wormholes you fold the fabric of Space and Time to allow ships to move a short distance but cover a long one.

Teleportation 

(Battlestar Galactica, Perry Rhodan)

Instantaneous jump form point A to point B without travelling between. Possibly using Hyperspace.

Others

Infinite Improbability Drive.  

(The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy)

Be in all places in the Universe at the same time. 

Tachyon Drive 

Uses Tachyons (particles that travel faster than light).

Extra Dimensional Travel 

Move your ship to the 5th or 6th Dimension at super speeds. (Perry Rhodan)

Graviton Drive

Bends Spacetime using Artificial Gravity.

A lot of these technologies overlap and all are based on either using another dimension to bypass our Spacetime constraints or manipulating our Spacetime to remove the constraints.

Third: Von Daniken and Ancient Alien Theories

Erich Von Daneken quotes ancient texts, legends etc. depicting the gods travelling across the sky in flaming chariots.  He then claims these were rockets or jet propelled craft.

I have a few questions about that:

Where did they get the fuel to do that on a world that didn't have high octane fuels?

If they had some form of the above Handwavium Technology* that did not require burning fuel, why are they depicted as flaming chariots?

Also laws of physics say they must be using energy to get to orbit, where did they get that from and in what form was it?

If the fuel is 'energy' of some sort, how is it stored and how is it converted into thrust? (Handwavium Technology*?)

One of the point's in his book is that the Mayans were visited by ancient Astronauts who got them to build Palenque as a city for their return and gave them an accurate calendar to calculate that day, but they never did return. Why not? Well, if they were travelling close to the speed of light, then it will be a few years to them, but Millions of Years to everybody else. So they won't be returning for a few million years more. Surely Ancient Spacefarers should have known that, especially ones who gave them such a good calendar?  We know it and we have only been to the Moon.

It seems that a lot of the Ancient Alien's theories rely on Handwavium Technology* or Unobtanium* type materials, or some sort of unknown Energy Field*, or even misreading or interpretation of ancient scripts and wall frescos.  Just because Star Trek has a Techno Bable* that allows plots to work, does not mean they work in real life.  Just because a wall fresco has a figure that looks like a NASA Astronaut's Space Suit doesn't mean it is. And why would an Ancient Alien Spacesuit look like that?  Sci-Fi has given us lots of different style spacesuits over the years.

A lot of the Ancient Alien Theories match up with the 10,500 BC Empire Theory that a lost progenitor civilisation existed around 12,000 or so years ago and has vanished without leaving a trace apart from mythical knowledge and alignments of structures and similarity of structures between ancient civilisations.

12,000 Years!  Just think about that. Just look at what we have forgotten and had to re-discover in the last 2,000 years.  When the Roman Empire left Britannia in 400 AD we lost the art of Stoneworking and reverted to Wattle and Daub and Wooden buildings with Thatched Roofs.  We had to re-learn it and many castles were built by European Stonemasons until we has re-mastered the techniques.  How could information be retained from 10,500 BC until the Egyptian Empire or Mayan Empire around 6 - 7 Thousand years later and not be written/carved down anywhere?  And don't say 'Word of Mouth', have you ever played Chinese Whispers?  These whispers would have had to last thousands of years.

Another of Von Daniken's theories is that there are no trees on Easter Island so the natives must have used Alien Technology to carve the stone figures and move them about the island.  You need trees to provide logs for rolling heavy objects on.  A bit of Googling tells me that Easter Island used to be covered in dense sub-tropical forest.  This was deforested by Human activity and Rats.

Yes there are some things we do not understand.  But there have always been geniuses who invented things.  Leonardo Da Vinci made many inventions ahead of his time, Galileo pioneered modern Physics when most people thought the sun rotated round the earth.  We didn't need Aliens to move forwards in technology.

I'm not saying we were not visited by Aliens in the past, it's just the level of proof required has not been met yet.  And it's up to the Ancient Alien Theorists to prove it, not the other way round.

Fourth: My Conclusion

Having read Chariots of the Gods and seen many Ancient Alien programs on the TV, and having Googled about a lot of these things I personally do not believe any Ancient Alien Theories.  For me the Burden of Proof has not been met.

I am entertained by these theories, but not convinced.

*Note*  My Googling involves searching the internet and reading from _several_ sites (not just the first on the list) and making a judgement call.

Appendix: Glossary of Pulp Sci-Fi Terms:

*Handwavium Technology - Technology that is unknown and not understood and, when asked about, the question is dismissed with a wave of the hand.  It just is, and it just works.

*Reallyhardium - A metal so dense that nothing can damage or distort it.  Ideal for Spaceship Hulls.

*Some sort of Energy - We have no idea but it is required for this plot point or ability to function.

*Techno Bable - Some technological sounding words that are used to explain plot points and Handwavium Technology.

*Unobtanium - An element that has almost magical properties for Technology and Space Travel, but nobody has ever found any.

I cannot take credit for these terms as they have been circulating around in Sci-Fi nerd and geekdom for years.