Impossible Space Drive


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Game changer or will this amount to nothing? I wonder if Space X would be looking at something like this to cut Earth>Mars transfer times.
 

Nasa is a major player in space science, so when a team from the agency this week presents evidence that "impossible" microwave thrusters seem to work, something strange is definitely going on. Either the results are completely wrong, or Nasa has confirmed a major breakthrough in space propulsion.

British scientist Roger Shawyer has been trying to interest people in his EmDrive for some years through his company SPR Ltd. Shawyer claims the EmDrive converts electric power into thrust, without the need for any propellant by bouncing microwaves around in a closed container. He has built a number of demonstration systems, but critics reject his relativity-based theory and insist that, according to the law of conservation of momentum, it cannot work.

According to good scientific practice, an independent third party needed to replicate Shawyer's results. As Wired.co.uk reported, this happened last year when a Chinese team built its own EmDrive and confirmed that it produced 720 mN (about 72 grams) of thrust, enough for a practical satellite thruster. Such a thruster could be powered by solar electricity, eliminating the need for the supply of propellant that occupies up to half the launch mass of many satellites. The Chinese work attracted little attention; it seems that nobody in the West believed in it.

However, a US scientist, Guido Fetta, has built his own propellant-less microwave thruster, and managed to persuade Nasa to test it out. The test results were presented on July 30 at the 50th Joint Propulsion Conference in Cleveland, Ohio. Astonishingly enough, they are positive.

Continued at:

http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-07/31/nasa-validates-impossible-space-drive

 

NASA has conducted long-awaited experiments to prove that the fabled space drive, capable of generating its own thrust and breaking a fundamental law of physics, works. If the find survives fresh scrutiny, space ship construction will be revolutionized.

The drive?s creator, British scientist Roger Shawyer, has been facing criticism since his 2006 claims, based on the premise that thrust can be created without huge thrusters, instead using electricity to direct microwaves inside a special container.

Shawyer?s company, SPR Ltd., writes that it has ?demonstrated a remarkable new space propulsion technology. [it] has successfully tested both an experimental thruster and a demonstrator engine which use patented microwave technology to convert electrical energy directly into thrust. No propellant is used in the conversion process. Thrust is produced by the amplification of the radiation pressure of an electromagnetic wave propagated through a resonant waveguide assembly.?

In short, if the results hold up, humanity can say goodbye to huge energy consumption costs associated with space travel, and say hello to deep-space missions and distant world exploration at a fraction of the cost and at 100 times the speed.

Continued at:

http://rt.com/usa/177204-nasa-space-drive-emdrive/

Edited by zhangm
Added excerpts.
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EM drive is extremely controversial, and definitely not ready for anything outside the lab. This latest info isn't even a paper - more like an extended abstract.

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Sorry DocM for the word I am about to use to describe your statement.  I think what you did there is a display of extreme ignorance.  If you are on a mission to suppress human progress, then I think it's a good tactic.  But people with that mindset should not go outside lol.  Just stay inside and enjoy the tv and your coffee.

 

Many scientists had proven that it worked on paper already.  The next step is to make such a device.  NASA wants to play catch up with China and you say no don't do it, it's just theoretical stuff.

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Calling people "ignorant" is no way to make friends and influence opinions.

Note that I said it was controversial. That's because more propulsion people in and out of NASA think there are problems with their experimental setup than don't.

On red flag is that of the two experiments one was designed to produce no thrust, but did. That alone indicates a problem on the theoretical side.

Another problem is that the test chamber was not a vacuum, it had air in it which could generate thrust by ionic effects. Thrust could also be generated by simple radiation pressure from the systems microwaves.

This not being a peer reviewed full paper, just an experimental report, it doesn't give enough details to eliminate these. Skepticism is therefore high even within NASA.

But the Nasa team has avoided trying to explain its results in favour of simply reporting what it found: "This paper will not address the physics of the quantum vacuum plasma thruster, but instead will describe the test integration, test operations, and the results obtained from the test campaign.

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EM drive is extremely controversial, and definitely not ready for anything outside the lab. This latest info isn't even a paper - more like an extended abstract.

They'll get it done in the town of Eureka!

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Calling people "ignorant" is no way to make friends and influence opinions.

 

Yeah I know... I feel bad for using a strong word... It always got to me when there are those that attempt to stall or stop progress that would eventually affect human race.

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"Real scientists" think it's bunk too so...

The fact that NASA got a force out of both of their tests shows a measurement error, since one of the tests was supposed to be a non-moving control.

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"Real scientists" think it's bunk too so...

The fact that NASA got a force out of both of their tests shows a measurement error, since one of the tests was supposed to be a non-moving control.

 

Indeed.  I'm rather curious as to why they didn't try to find where the error was, and make sure they had a proper vacuum... Seems somewhat sloppy for NASA work, to be honest...

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So many times people read a single article, research paper, scientific finding, or book and then consider themselves experts on the topic.  I remember a recent thread in here about if people believe if time travel were possible.  So many neowins were claiming to know the answer, with emphatic certainty.  Everything seems simple when you dont know all the details, and to quote my idol, Richard Feynman, "there is difference between knowing the name of something, and knowing something."

Unless there are theoretical physicists, or propulsion experts, or engineers - maybe just comment on the cool possibilities, or how it may not happen -

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Indeed.  I'm rather curious as to why they didn't try to find where the error was, and make sure they had a proper vacuum... Seems somewhat sloppy for NASA work, to be honest...

 

Did they not? I didn't see anything that said the scientists didn't check for errors.

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Indeed.  I'm rather curious as to why they didn't try to find where the error was, and make sure they had a proper vacuum... Seems somewhat sloppy for NASA work, to be honest...

I just don't think they really care about it (Probably because it's a load of crap), the paper they released wasn't even about the experiment results, just how they went about performing the experiment.

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Did they not? I didn't see anything that said the scientists didn't check for errors.

 

Their "Null device" control unit, that shouldn't have produced any thrust at all, produced thrust. Clearly, there's an error there somewhere.

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I just don't think they really care about it (Probably because it's a load of crap), the paper they released wasn't even about the experiment results, just how they went about performing the experiment.

 

I dunno... They cared enough to spend the time and money on doing the experiment... Seems silly to not validate it properly...

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It always got to me when there are those that attempt to stall or stop progress that would eventually affect human race.

 

Questioning the results of an experiment that should have theoretically provided different results in not stalling progress, but actually the opposite. 

 

See "polywater".

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Well science is science.

So I think that after these Nasa results more teams will do research into this engine.

It seems absolutely fascinating and i hope Roger Shawyer get's the credits that he seems to deserve.

It is always nice when somebody does something that is considered impossible by the then current standarts.

History is full with examples of people that did "impossible" things.

 

If i in 2010 would have said that a reusable rocket is possible in 5 years......

 

If he is right and he can build a version with much higher thrust then SpaceX would have the perfect engine for their MCT....

We have to wait for that, but the results of two independent teams confirming his thruster engine works makes me very hopeful.

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Huh? :huh:

 

Impossible is nothing is the Adidas logo, just like Just do It is Nike's; in here they are reversed.

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