STANFORD, Calif. - In his 1976 Ph.D. thesis, Paul Worden proposed a satellite experiment that could possibly disrupt the physics world. Thirty years later, that project has grown into the Satellite Test of the Equivalence Principle and is closer to being launched than it ever has been. On Tuesday, David King, the head of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center and John Horrack, Manager of Science and Mission Systems at Marshall, made an all-day visit to the STEP offices to see if NASA would consider giving them the funding they need to reach the stars.

Worden, now co-principal investigator for STEP, wanted to launch a satellite into space to test Einstein's Theory of General Relativity, which had been questioned due to experimental inconsistencies. Today, STEP has designed a two-meter-long satellite that will remain in orbit for six months. STEP is now seeking the funds to build and launch the satellite.

...

"We're basically studying gravity," Torii said. "There is a grand idea that inertial mass and gravitational mass are the same thing even though they're measured and thought of completely differently. If that grand idea is not true, then general relativity is not true. Now there are other theories of gravity, most of which rely on a violation of the equivalence principle."

STEP proposes to give the principle its most rigorous test to date by placing two nested masses in a drag-free satellite in orbit around the earth. Since orbit is a state of constant free-fall around the earth, the satellite will fall for six months, allowing researchers to record even miniscule differences in acceleration.

Full article here:

http://www.dailycollegian.com/news/2006/11/20/News/Nasa-Seeks.Funding.To.Reach.The.Stars-2468816.shtml