Gary Stephenson
There are engineers who build systems for today’s challenges, and then there are visionaries like Gary Stephenson — people who work at the boundary between what we know and what we dare to imagine. For more than three decades, Gary has dedicated his career to aerospace systems engineering while simultaneously pursuing the mysteries of advanced propulsion, gravitational physics, and breakthrough technologies that could redefine our relationship with space.
Early Foundations: Physics and Curiosity
Gary’s journey began with a love of physics, first explored through undergraduate studies at Montana State University, where he earned his degree in physics, and later deepened at UCLA, Purdue University, and the University of Washington. Each step gave him another lens through which to view the universe — from astrophysics to geophysics, device physics to systems engineering. He eventually completed a Master of Engineering in Systems Engineering at Stevens Institute of Technology, grounding his scientific curiosity in the practical disciplines of large-scale engineering design.
This balance of imagination and rigor has guided his entire career: on the one hand, he’s the consummate aerospace professional, delivering spacecraft, life-support systems, and communications architectures. On the other, he’s an explorer of the deepest riddles of gravity, energy, and quantum physics — looking for ways to turn exotic theories into engineering reality.
Engineering Career: From Satellites to Spaceflight Systems
Gary’s early career took flight at Hughes Aircraft Company, where he contributed to the design and integration of airborne surveillance and aerospace systems. That foundation soon led to more than a decade at Boeing Satellite Systems, where Gary worked on a wide range of projects — from redesigning AWACS and E-6 airborne systems to the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS), and even the pioneering “Connexion by Boeing” project, which introduced broadband internet to aircraft long before it became commonplace.
From Boeing, Gary moved into critical roles at LinQuest, where he became a trusted leader in satellite systems integration for the U.S. Air Force. His projects ranged from the GPS IIF program, where he served as Space Vehicle Government Crew Chief, to advanced architecture studies for resilient satellite constellations and cloud-based satellite operations. These roles placed him at the nexus of national security and aerospace innovation, ensuring America’s space infrastructure remained secure and adaptive in an evolving technological landscape.
Later, at Collins Aerospace, Gary’s focus turned toward human spaceflight. As the Houston Systems Engineering Manager, he led teams supporting NASA on spacesuit upgrades, life-support systems (ECLSS), and the development of new EVA hardware — the technology that allows astronauts to safely survive and work in the harshest environment imaginable. His work ensured that complex, life-sustaining hardware could meet the exacting standards required for human space missions.
At Wisk Aero, Gary once again shifted gears, contributing to the rise of urban air mobility. As a Senior Staff Systems Engineer, he worked on cybersecurity, communications, and electric propulsion for eVTOL aircraft, helping define the safety and certification frameworks that will allow air taxis to become part of our daily lives.
Today, as the founder of Seculine Consulting, Gary is pursuing advanced research on his own terms, exploring new concepts in space propulsion, advanced communications, and human spaceflight technologies.
Gravity Modification: Exploring the Next Frontier
While Gary’s professional career stands firmly on the bedrock of aerospace systems engineering, his research into gravity modification and advanced propulsion places him at the outer edge of physics — a realm where engineering meets imagination.
On ResearchGate, Gary has published extensively on concepts that challenge our traditional understanding of propulsion. His work often revolves around high-frequency gravitational waves (HFGWs), exploring both how they can be detected and how they might be generated. One of his central ideas involves heterodyning pairs of GHz-range gravitational waves to produce low-frequency signals — potentially enabling new methods for propulsion, communication, or even spacetime engineering.
He has also explored electrogravitics and zero-point field (ZPF) propulsion, asking whether fluctuations in the quantum vacuum could be harnessed to produce artificial gravity or thrust. This line of research sits at the cutting edge of speculative physics, but Gary approaches it with the mindset of an engineer: not “if” it’s possible, but “how could it be built?”
In his analysis of the Gertsenshtein Effect, Gary examined how electromagnetic radiation could be converted into gravitational waves when passing through strong magnetic fields. While this remains largely theoretical, the implications are vast — it could open the door to a new form of energy transmission or propulsion, blurring the boundary between gravity and electromagnetism.
Engineering Gravity: Devices for the Future
Gary’s gravitational research isn’t just theoretical. In recent years, he’s proposed designs for actual devices that might demonstrate measurable gravitomagnetic effects.
One notable concept is a Superconducting Magnetic Energy Storage (SMES) toroid, embedded with high-permittivity materials to generate a gravitomagnetic field along its axis. This idea builds on Robert Forward’s early gravitomagnetic toroid designs but adapts them with modern superconducting nanowire technology — making experimental demonstration far more feasible today than in the 1960s.
At conferences such as the Marcel Grossman meetings, Gary has gone even further, laying out a taxonomy of gravitational propulsion technologies. This includes Forward coils, tokamak plasma quadrupole generators, warp-drive concepts, wormholes, gravitonic tractor beams, metamaterial quantum vacuums, stimulated graviton emission, and even quantum-triggered teleportation. Each entry in this taxonomy isn’t science fiction — it’s a structured framework for evaluating possible pathways into a propulsion future beyond rockets.
Patents and Innovation
Gary’s inventive streak extends beyond theory, reflected in a number of patents across aerospace communications and energy systems. His patents include methods for encryption of asymmetric data links, event correlation techniques for identifying interfering mobile terminals, and superconducting magnetic energy storage designs. Each one demonstrates his habit of turning speculative ideas into practical innovations that can shape the future of aerospace and defense.
A Visionary at the Crossroads
What makes Gary Stephenson remarkable isn’t just the breadth of his work — it’s the way he integrates seemingly separate worlds. He is as comfortable overseeing spacecraft integration for GPS satellites as he is sketching out theoretical pathways for warp drives. He treats gravity not as a mystery, but as an engineering challenge — one that can be approached with creativity, rigor, and a willingness to look beyond conventional boundaries.
His story is, at its heart, about exploration. Exploration of space systems that keep astronauts alive. Exploration of satellites that connect and protect our world. Exploration of gravitational and quantum physics that might one day carry us to the stars.
From Montana to NASA, from Boeing satellites to eVTOL aircraft, from superconducting toroids to speculative warp drives, Gary Stephenson’s life has been defined by one theme: reaching beyond the horizon.