The proposed MF-01 measurement
Caption-led silent film. All diagrams are illustrative.

00:00:00.000 — Light changes direction. The surface receives momentum.
An externally supplied beam carries momentum. Perfect reflection reverses the light and transfers twice its incident momentum.
Ideal model: F = 2P/c; c = 299,792,458 m/s.

00:00:15.000 — Absorption and reflection transfer different momentum.
For the same 2 W beam, ideal absorption gives P/c; ideal normal reflection gives 2P/c. Real surfaces require measured optical properties.
Single-pass, stationary surface in vacuum; ideal reference calculation.

00:00:30.000 — Shape the outgoing light. Change the recoil direction.
A patterned optical surface can redistribute outgoing light. Calculate force from the complete change in optical momentum.
Momentum accounting schematic. No device performance claim.

00:00:45.000 — Inside a material, boundaries can be extended regions.
Ladbrook and colleagues mapped unusually broad structural boundaries in a cuprate. The colored regions here are an explanatory drawing.
Ladbrook et al., PRL (2026), DOI: 10.1103/r62x-kt5j.

00:01:00.000 — A smooth map can hide unresolved structure.
Conventional graphene Raman maps average over the laser spot. Finer variations can affect spectra without being individually imaged.
Neumann et al., Nature Communications (2015), DOI: 10.1038/ncomms9429.

00:01:15.000 — Graphene can electrically switch an outgoing beam.
Han and colleagues demonstrated 57 degrees of electrical beam switching. This is an optical result, not a measured propulsion result.
Han et al., Light: Science & Applications (2025), DOI: 10.1038/s41377-025-01967-y.

00:01:30.000 — Two efficiency numbers use different denominators.
For one state, 7.8% of incident power reaches the selected beam. The 83.6% relative efficiency uses total measured scattered power instead.
Han et al. (2025). Other state: 8.4% absolute and 76.5% relative.

00:01:45.000 — First recover a force that can be predicted.
MF-01 is a proposed measurement program. Establish the known-force reference and calibrate the complete instrument before testing a new surface.
Metric Flight proposed protocol. This drawing is not built hardware.

00:02:00.000 — A moving readout is not enough to identify its cause.
Thermal expansion, residual gas, electrical coupling and vibration can affect a force measurement. Use controlled interventions to separate them.
Illustrative traces; no experimental data. See MF-01 proposed protocol.

00:02:15.000 — Record, reverse, repeat—and preserve the uncertainty.
The proposed four-window design helps reject linear drift. Settling time, correlations and exclusion rules must be established before a decisive test.
Metric Flight proposed commissioning design. No completed dataset claimed.

00:02:30.000 — Connect a measured material map to optical behavior.
Compare matched samples and repeated states. A useful improvement must survive uncertainty, cycling and a controlled rebuild.
Proposed research workflow; hypothetical sample comparison.

00:02:45.000 — The next result is a measurement—not a spacecraft.
The goal is a reproducible connection between structure, light and force. Alpha 1 remains a separate, unvalidated hypothesis.
Metric Flight / Christopher Hill / metricflight.com