Jamie Childress will kick things off with “Space-Time is a Material,” a paradigm-shifting look at the vacuum as an active medium with real, testable physical properties. Next, Douglas Miller presents “ZPE Field Density, SED, and the Miller Framework,” exploring stochastic electrodynamics and a proposed engineering roadmap for vacuum metric effects and propellantless thrust. Daniel Davis follows with “Warp-Assisted Hypersonics: Engineering the Shock Layer,” examining how controlled plasma and shock-layer physics might reduce hypersonic heating/blackout—and serve as a disciplined testbed for more speculative spacetime effects. We’ll also hear updates from our lab partners, then close with an open discussion and Q&A with attendees. Aerospace engineer Jamie Childress (Boeing Technical Fellow, retired; former DoD research engineer) argues that what we call space-time shapes what we think is possible—and therefore what gets funded. He revisits the “ether” lesson (Michelson–Morley) but flips the usual conclusion: space-time can still be a material even if it doesn’t interact with photons, while clearly interacting with matter via gravity (curvature, lensing, black holes) and supporting gravitational waves (LIGO). From that viewpoint, the vacuum is “filled” with resident fields (zero-point energy, virtual particles, Casimir effect, possibly dark energy), and “quantum propulsion” concepts become reaction-based interactions with those fields—opening a path toward gravity modification and propellantless travel without changing any existing physics, only the paradigm we interpret it through. This talk frames matter and energy as emergent from local zero-point energy (ZPE) field density and asks what becomes possible if ZPE density can be engineered. It critiques the way early quantum theory “ghosted” the vacuum, then highlights stochastic electrodynamics (SED) as a physical-plenum alternative: a Lorentz-invariant sea of real fluctuations where inertia can be modeled as ZPF Lorentz drag (HRP), with extensions that treat constants as density-linked and time-variable (e.g., Setterfield). From there it introduces the “Miller Framework” as an engineering roadmap for “vacuum metric engineering,” built around six pillars (Madelung-style vacuum-as-fluid transition, a refractive-index-like coupling constant, Bohmian-trajectory thrust concepts, a nonlinear thrust scaling law, a “quantum packing fraction” coherence threshold around 4.64, and a recursive saturation threshold positioned as a lower-energy path compared to the Schwinger limit), aiming at propellantless thrust and vacuum-catalyzed fusion concepts. This talk reframes the hypersonic “plasma sheath” (the ionized shock layer that causes heating and communications blackout) from a hazard into a controllable engineering medium: something you can shape with electric/magnetic fields and energy-deposition techniques to manipulate shock structure, reduce thermal loads, and open “communications windows.” Built from Daniel Davis’s proposal in collaboration with Dr. Chance Glenn, it draws a careful line between two tracks: (1) mainstream, near-term MHD/plasma-control methods already used to mitigate blackout and manage boundary-layer/shock interactions, and (2) a speculative extension where a deliberately engineered, strongly lossy (complex-permittivity) sheath might provide a real, measurable “materials environment” for testing whether tiny, transient spacetime/metric effects could ever be induced at hypersonic speeds—without confusing plasma electromagnetic artifacts for gravity. The emphasis is on testability: defining what would count as evidence, instrumenting for controls, and treating any “warp-assisted” effect as a bounded, measurable residual (or upper limit), not a leap to full warp drive. Learn about hands-on engineering & technical research on advanced propulsion experiments by our lab partners. Mark Sokol's team at Falcon Space is full engaged in Dynamic Nuclear Polarization research & testing; Drew Aurigema continues testing and refinement on the Exodus effect propulsion device, and Curtis Horn is focused on Mach effect propulsion on the MEGA-Drive team. Conference guests interested in presenting experimental info to the group are invited to participate at this time, and our presenters will be available to take questions & discuss experiments.