I know there are other space junkies out there and thought this would be a good place to post this. Pretty cool stuff if this works out. http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2015/04/evaluating-nasas-futuristic-em-drive/
NASA Tests EM Drive
- Thread starter xXCheeChowXx
- Start date
It certainly would be cool if it worked. Unfortunately it requires breaking the fundamental laws of physics. This claim can be classified along with perpetual motion devices and cold fusion etc. Our best hope are fusion reactors which although still in the experimental stage and several decades away would produce almost unlimited cheap clean energy.
https://www.facebook.com/theskepticsguide/posts/10153454000386605
Last edited:
it does break the laws of Physics...was tested in a hard vacuum and still produces thrust.....or maybe it doesn't break the laws of physics and it pushes against the very fabric of the universe....either way, maybe a small test vehicle should be put into space and see if it does work?
Actually Boeing patented a laser driven nuclear fusion powered engine.
http://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/boeing-laser-powered-nuclear-fusion-engine/
http://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/boeing-laser-powered-nuclear-fusion-engine/
Yes, very interesting.
The researchers seem pretty convinced something is going on, the problem apparently is that no-one knows how it could possibly work.
If it could be demonstrated that this and other similar devices produce thrust repeatedly and reliably, it's definitely something the theorists should be excited about.
It could come to nothing or open up a whole new area of enquiry. I'm hoping for the latter.
The researchers seem pretty convinced something is going on, the problem apparently is that no-one knows how it could possibly work.
If it could be demonstrated that this and other similar devices produce thrust repeatedly and reliably, it's definitely something the theorists should be excited about.
It could come to nothing or open up a whole new area of enquiry. I'm hoping for the latter.
I've been following all this with interest, but let me chime in on this part. Sadly, it's not that simple: putting something into space requires rigorous testing. Ascent to orbit is a decidedly stressful procedure, and if your payload would not survive it, well, you just wasted a hefty sum of money.
Also, let's consider the best case scenario: we lift an EM drive into LEO, and it actually works in practice too. In that case, we'd gain that knowledge, but no more insight as to how it works - and we would need that if we were to put them into practical use. Consider this wild guess scenario: what if it turns out that it doesn't work outside Earth's magnetosphere? If we didn't know that beforehand, and sent out an interplanetary probe, then that would doom the mission to failure.
As things are, knowing that something works is nowhere near enough to use it in space. Reliability is key there.
So even if it works, we still need well-equipped laboratories down here on Earth to research how (and why) it works - if it even does. Putting an EM drive into orbit and testing it would only answer one question: "does it work in its current configuration in LEO?" That would be basically a very expensive experiment (when compared to everything that we can do down here on Earth) that wouldn't bring us much closer to predicting how it would work under different circumstances.
While it certainly is an entertaining read, the claims in the article have been met with severe scepticism from the scietific community - one of the better articles is from the always entertaining Ethan Siegel (of Starts With A Bang fame) and can be found here: http://www.forbes.com/sites/ethansiegel/2015/05/04/no-nasa-did-not-accidentally-invent-warp-drive/
Except for the one proviso .. There is no unified theory and therefore, as we don't know the laws of Physics, it's perfectly possible for something we don't fully understand on current theories, to break the existing paradigm (which is known to be a partial understanding). Seeing is believing, sure, but often times things also have to be believed, in order to be seen. And if "tests show", we must go with it no matter what we think about the laws of Phys.
.. which break the laws of Physics
(deuterium / tritium must be mined (filtered, including energy cost, from tonnes of seawater per gramme) to provide fuel and in any case ITER (hot fusion, France) is no longer projecting an energy surplus from the test reactor (15 BILLION euros in the wasting) last I heard.
Thanks for a new impulse engine because I want off this planet!
Last edited:
They're not confirmed. The recent paper was very cautious to state this, but not cautious enough, as they left a glimmer of scientific doubt that there could be something there. The news picked up on this tiny doubt. The engine doesn't work.
Nasa's test was flawed as it wasn't in a vacuum and the null test also returned results (configured specifically not to have a positive result, but it did anyway- something seriously wrong with that). The thrust measured was enough to almost move a single grain of sand so even if real it might be useful in moving small satellites and nothing more. There is nothing but mumbo-jumbo QM magic explanations as to why it should work. In the end, experiment trumps theory, but this has a long road to go just to validation before even bothering to discover why it would work.
There is a Chinese group that claims they replicated this bt with 20x the force Nasa saw so I would not put any credence in that claim. Recently I think a Swedish group did the test in vacuum and got a similar result as Nasa (tiny), but the Swedes admitted they had not controlled and/or accounted for some possible effects of the experimental setup like the magnetic fields created in the wires, liquid mercury and testing apparatus.
My guess for this one is there is a huge chance of experimental error based on the minute effect, and that conventional physics involving any energy imbalance in the device and chamber may well account for any such tiny effect if one still exists after all experiment artifacts are removed or ruled out.
But yay to rigorous, repeatable scientific experiment and whatever it reveals.
And Marx has good points too. Even if it turns out this does work we will need to understand exactly why and how to control it, so years more research and millions of dollars would be needed. New tech generally is an overnight success after 20 years of development...
Laws of Nature can never be broken. If there are observations of any effect that does, then that law is just not understood well enough, yet.
Last edited: