EmDrive: What is it and how could it change the world? IBTimes UK If you have a casual interest in space science and technology, you might have heard the phrase 'EmDrive' being bounced around in the media, on online forums and on social bookmarking sites like Reddit. UPDATE - 19:01 BST, 2 August 2016 But it's all very complicated and there are a lot of differing opinions, plus some media publications and impossibly fast space travel, so it's easy to see why you could get confused.
IBTimes UK has been covering the EmDrive story and a lot has happened since then, so here's a breakdown of the most important facts you need to know about this controversial space propulsion technology – which may or may not actually work. What is the EmDrive?
The EmDrive created by Shawyer's space company Satellite Propulsion Research Ltd Roger Shawyer, Satellite Propulsion Research Ltd is a new type of rocket engine first proposed by British scientist/electrical engineer Roger Shawyer in 1999. Unlike conventional space rocket engines, the EmDrive doesn't require any kind of propellant (also known as a reaction mass) to make propulsion possible. The idea is that electricity is converted into microwaves, and the microwave photons are fired into a truncated cone-shaped closed metal cavity.
When fired into the cavity, the microwave photons push against the large end of the cone, causing the small end to accelerate in the opposite direction. If its potential could be realised, Shawyer believes EmDrive could transform the aerospace industry and potentially solve both the energy crisis and climate change by making it much cheaper to launch satellites and spacecraft into orbit, as well as helping to extend the operational lifetime of satellites. If you could get more satellites into space, some of them could be used to harness solar energy or to act as a shield against global warming. The technology would also make space travel much faster (but not warp speed fast) and. For greater detail, watch the video presentation featuring narration by Shawyer on the basic science behind the EmDrive. So what's all the controversy about?
Many academics in the international scientific community don't believe it is remotely possible for the EmDrive to work. They say that according to the law of conservation of momentum, in order for a thruster to gain momentum in one direction, a propellant must be expelled in the opposite one, and since the EmDrive is a closed system with no propellant, it violates our understanding of physics. But this is a debate with a lot of history. In 2006, EmDrive was first highlighted when the decided to write about it. At the time, Shawyer was being funded by the UK government to develop the EmDrive.
The New Scientist article from readers, academics and armchair scientists, and Shawyer was ridiculed and even accused of fraud. Despite this, the UK government was satisfied that Shawyer's results were legitimate and continued to fund his work until the research project was completed in 2007. In 2009, Boeing paid the UK government to licence the technology so that they could develop it for the US military, but their progress is still being kept under wraps. Who is Roger Shawyer? Roger Shawyer, a British scientist who invented the EmDrive, says that the industry has moved past far past Nasa's tests of the space propulsion technology, a space technology race is ongoing amongst private companies Roger Shawyer, Satellite Propulsion Research Ltd Roger Shawyer, 69, is a certified chartered electrical engineer who spent 40 years working in the space and defence industry on UK government defence contracts, primarily for BAE Systems and Matra Marconi Space (now Airbus). During his career, he was a senior engineer who was project manager for multiple satellite contracts including the, the NATO-4 satellite serving Nato and the British Ministry of Defence, and the French Euteselat Hot Bird TV broadcast satellite. Over the last 15 years, Shawyer's work in developing the EmDrive with his own company has seen him take on the additional mantle of scientist, even though his experiments and explanations of the results continue to be hotly contested by many in the science community.
So does this thing actually work then? British physicist Dr Mike McCulloch has a new theory about light having inertial mass that could explain how the controversial EmDrive space propulsion technology could theoretically work iStock We're currently at the point where multiple groups of scientists have attempted to build their own versions of the EmDrive to see what happens. Even though it shouldn't be possible, they have all recorded very small levels of thrust being produced, which would seem to indicate that it works. But the issue is that no one really knows how. Shawyer claims that following fundamental physics involving the theory of special relativity, the EmDrive does in fact preserve the law of conservation of momentum and energy. However, even the scientists who do believe the EmDrive works don't believe that it works for the reason Shawyer says. Some scientists, for example and, have attempted to use an area of research known as 'new physics' to try to explain why the EmDrive works, and they have seen that the thrust detected in experiments by Shawyer and other scientists matches their theoretical calculations.
What will happen next?
A study conducted last year by NASA scientists has become the latest, and by far the highest profile, piece of evidence in favor of a seemingly impossible space thruster design that’s been evoking worldwide skepticism for some time now. Apparently annoyed by the persistent boosters of several similar but distinct designs, the space agency finally agreed to test an American-made variant called the Cannae Drive. “Alright!” they said. “We’ll test your stupid drive that won’t work.” Except it did work. Seemingly in contravention of the law of conservation of momentum, the team confirmed that the device produces thrust by using electricity, and nothing else. Supporters call them microwave thrusters or quantum vacuum plasma thrusters (QVPT), while most others use the phrase “anomalous thrust device.” First, the results of, since that’s all the team itself wants you to be talking about.
Seemingly wanting to avoid unproductive controversy about the nature of existence, they’ve totally ignored the question of how the drive works in favour of simply reporting the data. With controls in place to avoid any confounding forces or variables, the NASA team recorded a reliable thrust between 30 and 50 micro-Newtons, less than a thousandth of the output of some relatively.
Still, the ion thrusters require fuel to operate, and the original QVPT inventor claims the version NASA tested is flawed, leading them to collect far lower thrust readings than his original can provide. This is an older version of the QVPT than the one NASA tested, though it may still produce more thrust If confirmed, the practical upshot of this technology would be amazing. Solar panels could provide the electricity needed to keep the thruster working, meaning that propulsion would be low-thrust and long-term with virtually no associated cost.
That would not only drastically reduce the cost of keeping satellites running and in orbit, but it could make interstellar travel much easier; Harold White, of, predicted that a beefed up version of the QVPT could reach Proxima Centauri in about (assuming the concept actually works at all). Warp drives aren’t such a harebrained concept any more, so why should quantum drives be? While NASA might not want to talk about it, though, for us it’s worth discussing just how this drive’s creators hypothesize the thruster works. By now, most people are aware that the laws of classical physics tend to break down at the quantum scale, and exploiting that fact can give you interesting little physical impossibilities like. However, the effects of these quantum-scale impossibilities have always stayed at the quantum scale; sure one atom could theoretically phase-shift through another, but we still can’t run through walls.
The central insight here (assuming this isn’t all a big mistake) is that something called quantum vacuum fluctuations will occasionally spontaneously create particles all throughout the vacuum of space, and that these short-lived particles can be put to useful work. Thus, this thruster actually does use fuel — it just finds and uses that fuel as it goes. The thruster essentially turns these virtual particles into a plasma and expels them out the back of the ship, much like a conventional fuel source.
The quantum fuel, though, spontaneously appears inside the thruster’s reaction area without even the need for collection or injection hardware. All things considered, that’s more than a little exciting. Ion thrusters are another low-powered solution, applying weak but constant acceleration The original design, called by creator Roger Shawyer, should get significantly more attention in the coming months, which ought to feel good given the long struggles he’s had with professional apathy and skepticism. As mentioned, the version tested by NASA is distinct from the emDrive, but still (they think) makes use of the quantum vacuum particles as the propellant.
There are very preliminary plans to test a version of the drive in space, but such orbital work is expensive; now it might finally have the juice to warrant such a plan. You’re assuming that hypersonic reentry would be necessary; the heat shielding is only required because the space shuttle was maintaining orbital velocity shortly before the retro thrusters are engaged. Which depending on your altitude can be anywhere between 0 mph. If you could reduce reentry speeds to supersonic speeds like Mach 1.5-2 heat shielding wouldn’t be necessary.
This would require significant advancements in propulsion however, possibly provided by the descendants of the EM Drive. It wouldn’t be extremely difficult to use carbon nanotube design vessels that are much less weight, and can have much more advanced resonation. Solar sails alone let us fling a huge sail atoms thick, reflecting photons. Why doesn’t it make sense?
We would likely build arks with this. AI driven gene synthesizers and a small carbon nanotube biodome. Seld assembling nanotech could spread humanity to different worlds, but they would be a new people, but our children. I wonder if aerobraking SHOULD be an option. Yes and no the main engine is the same but because of electronics and more precise manufacturing technologies we have increased the efficiency.
Just like diesel engines and injection engines. We also added some stuff like turbo to further increase the efficiency or atlease power/weight. The car body has been significantly been upgraded but because of the speed limit and cheap fuel there hasn’t been much upgrading at the core of the engine. The biggest changes in the car are the ABS and ESP.
The space industry funding dropped significant since the end of the cold war. (satellites are evolving fast rockets didn’t). We haven’t even scratched the surface as far as implementing some of the technology developed for the internal combustion engine. For example, back in the 1970’s (the 70’s mind you) a ceramic engine was developed based on the Chevy 283 c.i.d.
That made well over 500 horse power without the use of a turbo or supercharger all because the operating temperature was raised to over 700 degrees. The engine was nearly 100% efficient because of the near total combustion of the fuel (high octane pump gas). The article to which I refer appeared in Hot Rod magazine. To this day we continue to be limited to the 190 – 200 degree operating range for an automobile engine and the poor efficiency associated with such temperature’s. All because the oil companies have a strangle hold on the auto industry and would not allow further development of the ceramic engine.
So instead of a nearly 100% efficient engine with zero emissions and higher power output, we have to put catalytic converters on our cars to burn off the hydrocarbons expelled out the tailpipe. We’ve had this technology for more than 40 years. Isn’t it about time we did something with it?? Totally wrong.
Crackpot articles like this sure are popular among those who don’t actually do any science, aren’t they? I, on the other hand, have worked on civilian projects related to diesel efficiency, emissions and durability at Sandia. Ceramic engines aren’t 100% efficient 2. Ceramic materials have major toughness issues which prevent it from being used in the real world, outside of short period testing in the lab (Strong, but brittle – like glass.) 3.
Ceramic technology is already used in modern engines where feasible (coatings, mainly) and this is generally nearly as good as making the entire piece out of ceramic, as far as reflecting heat and mitigating wear. Oil is incredibly useful for a wide variety of fuel, chemical, and lubrication purposes, and will flow until the last drop is gone.
Oil companies have no fear that they will be out of business anytime soon, and neither do the decision makers who are already sitting on enormous personal fortunes of their own. You need to read this site more regularly, or some tech journals anyway. The answer isn’t rockets, it’s a space elevator. Build that to get into orbit and then use a different engine to move around in space. The problem becomes when you arrive at the other planet. At first you would need to rely on similar rockets to what we are using now here on earth.
You could eventually, of course build a space elevator on Mars once we have the science worked out. But really we should be working on the space elevator here and now with at least 1/2 of our research. Forget the other projects until we have that worked out because it is the real game changer. Terraforming requires an enormous amount of gass, heat to get an atmosphere onto mars it would also be really hard to create the right climate etc and it takes a lot of time.
But if you used all this energy and gas and resources to create rotating space stations you would have a much larger living space compared to the surface off Mars. These space stations like O’Neill cylinder or the Stanford torus design would be a better idea than teraforming mars. But we do not have the technology to do any of them. A space elevator on earth can work but we will need carbon nanotubes to make it strong enough, it has to be build on sea to compensate for the rotation when the lift goes up and down. Building it on the moon would be much easier because of the lower gravety.
You’re forgetting about the “scientific community” as well. Just like the “medical community,” each separate scientific profession acts like its own monopoly on medicine (or in this case knowledge that only a few people can wrap their minds around).
The engineers, physicists, etc. Who claim this to be “impossible” will do everything they can to delay any piece of technology or theory that is in contrast to their own theories because it is a threat to their financial well-being and employment.
It hasn’t just been the religious, political or economic hierarchy that has stifled scientific or technological progress throughout history; it has also been the scientific hierarchy. – That is exactly what I said in reference to Pooua’s comment, when I said “The EmDrive couldn’t even get it’s own weight into space”. What are you even saying? A Space Shuttle, isn’t a rocket, and no it not “dead and buried” Space Shuttle is a general term for for different Space Transportation Systems, its always being developed and changed, so they will always be around Pretty much nothing you said is true, the most powerful rocket’s are obviously being developed today, the SLS booster is way beyond any rocket in the Saturn V family.
The thing people in this discussion neglected to look at for orbital travel is the fact that outside of the earth’s magnetosphere (56,000miles toward the sun and 3.9million miles away from the sun) there is NO PROTECTION from the cosmic radiation being generated by the sun and all kinds of other sources. Some of these fast neutrons and other high-energy particles have effective energies in the BILLIONS of electronvolts, which would strike an astronaut (and a computer bank!) dead in minutes. Before we can even think of applications of QVPT to interplanetary travel, we’d need to figure out how to shield a large enough volume against this kind of ionizing radiation by generating our own microcosm with a mini-magnetosphere powerful enough (probably something like 15-20 Tesla magnetic field?) to deflect charge particles so that the team gets to their destination alive and with a functional navigational computer system, life support, etc. This is a HUGE challenge, and NASA would no doubt make it worth your time if you can come up with a viable solution. I happen to know someone is in the process of patenting an idea at the moment prior to proposing it to NASA, and from what I’ve seen, it has merit, though the system would probably be pretty fragile. The real difficulty is not in generating the magnetic field or polarized hull plating needed, it’s in doing it without adding 10 tons of weight to the ship.
NASA has specified that any solution must not add more than 1 ton of weight to the ship design, and rightly so. Even with the early fusion reactors we are trying to build, they require a huge thickness of protective material to avoid irradiating everything around it, the reverse being needed as stars are really big fusion reactors. We would also need more than an artificial magnetosphere, but also an artificial ‘atmosphere’ that blocks most of the gamma and ultraviolet radiation. It would also need to be able to block huge amounts of it too since a hyper nova in our galaxy can kill all life on earth once the gamma reaches us, and there is likely a huge amount of it ambient in outer space. Musk’s new idea with colonizing mars uses chemical rockets, and the ship doesn’t have adequate radiation protection, both are bad for the humans on board, especially the 100,000,000 he plans to send.
Yeah, except you totally forgot to mention this one little, yet very important detail: “Thrust was observed on both test articles, even though one of the test articles was designed with the expectation that it would not produce thrust. Specifically, one test article contained internal physical modifications that were designed to produce thrust, while the other did not (with the latter being referred to as the “null” test article).” You’ve got it written clearly on the abstract: If I wanted to test if my new experimental cold fusion device works and used my fridge as a control and got positive results from both my experimental device and my fridge, I wouldn’t exactly say it works. You don’t have a clue what you’re talking about. This is not 15th century. The fundamental laws of physics AS WE KNOW THEM have been tested and retested in hundreds if not thousands of experiments and cannot be changed at this point.
NOT EVEN SLIGHTLY. Anything that contradicts them, like this charlatan claiming that his ZOMG PATENTED!!111 no-fuel quantum space engine, simply cannot exist and is even beyond science fiction. A peer-review is a fantastic way to weed out the idiots and charlatans from the rest. While it’s not perfect and sometimes can fail in the end good and meaningful ideas always prevail. The proof for that is our scientific advancement in the last several centuries.:).
Let’s not mix big pharma and fundamental physics and engineering. The latter does not have the huge financial incentives and government and corporate pressure to produce valuable research no matter what. About the editors. Do you know that the editors are selected from the same scientists working in the field? An editor of a scientific journal is nothing more than a scientist that has proven himself to be a knowledgeable expert in his specialisation, who holds a broad understanding of neighbouring fields. They are elected for a period of four years.
After that period is over associate editors are rarely re-elected a second time. Well, one could also make the argument that for this same reason, we would today not have electricity – based on the fact that as I understand it, nobody to this day knows for sure if the universe is full of individual electrons, or just one really fast one that is everywhere at once. If this could not be fully explained and peer reviewed by today before implementing the wide scale generation of electricity, then we would still be in the dark ages right now. All we really need to know is that it works – one way or the other. The Chinese are way ahead of us on this.
They tested this in similar environment as NASA and confirmed it worked (although they had a significantly higher thrust output). Word is they are already looking move this into next stage trials. To be honest, I can’t blame NASA, when I first heard about this, I completely dismissed it as well. I do believe the guy has been trying to get others to verify his device for a while, but everyone just laughed at him. That is what happens when you have something that seems to work, but have no idea why. Asdf ghjk You’re spot on btw This drive has been around for a while and the concept didn’t work 4 years go.
Me thinks hopping from place to place finally yielded some results. Also a while back somehow the Chinese got ahold of the design and it “worked” for them last year. Search Q drive and M drive and Chinese sat propulsion. There is a whole lot more to this story and history than the article leads on to. This tech is the equivalent to putting a fan in a box, closing the lid, and watching the box slide across the floor.
Apparently, they can. A quote from “As skeptical as we are, let’s just pretend for a second that the EmDrive is proven to work. What’s the future like? Well, Shawyer says that with a superconducting cavity, the EmDrive could eventually be boosted to produce three tons of lift from just one kilowatt of input power.
You could put them on anything you wanted to counteract gravity, while using conventional engines to provide high-impulse thrust. This would mean flying cars, it would mean highly efficient aircraft, it would mean cheap cargo to space.
Gravity would cease to be a factor, requiring only renewable energy to counteract. It would be a fundamental and mind-blowing paradigm shift in all aspects of transportation.” Three tons of lift from one kw of input power!:D. You know, I see some parallels with my childhood here. In 4th grade, I thought that I had invented something that would change the world. I had “blueprints”, CAD drawings, models, etc The math even all worked out in my head. Hell, I even had an an acronym for it: the URE (unlimited range engine).
Eventually, I explained my design to my teacher in science class and the whole design, everything I had worked for over the last three months, came crashing down with the utterance of three words: perpetual motion machine. It turned out that my understanding of the universe was just missing just a few key details and suddenly, it all made sense why my design hadn’t already been mass produced. I don’t see this being much different.
As our understanding of the quantum world as a species increases, I feel that we’ll see why or how this works and i’ll seem a whole lot less “magical”. It isn’t “fueless” or a hole in the first law of thermodynamics, just a bit of a loophole. If you’re referring to NERVA, a nuclear thermal rocket engine, you’re misunderstanding a lot of things. It used hydrogen as the reaction mass and has a higher specific impulse than any chemical rocket engine, but that just makes it somewhat more efficient. Clearly, it worked, and generated thousands of pounds of thrust, so long as it had reaction mass (in the form of liquid hydrogen) to both cool the very hot reactor core and be expanded out the exhaust nozzle. Several such engines were constructed and clearly demonstrated to work back in the late 60s and early 70s; the Russians have done similar work on a smaller scale, but nothing flight-weight was ever built. Ultimately there was no mission funded that needed such an engine, and so it was never flown.
As to whether this quantum thruster actually produces even an infinitesimal amount of thrust still needs to be proven and reproven by independent research. I hope there’s really something to it. I can fully understand NASA’s skepticism. Maybe it’ll turn out to work in a useful manner; it took decades for ion engines to be developed, demonstrated, and put into regular use on some communication satellites. As i read it its basically the “Dirac sea” at the sub atomic scale, in fact its from the the smallest scale to date ‘the plank scale” theory as we cant measure that low to date “History Paul Dirac was the first to propose that empty space (a vacuum) can be visualized as consisting of a sea of electrons with negative energy, known as the Dirac sea. The Dirac sea has a direct analog to the electronic band structure in crystalline solids as described in solid state physics. Here, particles correspond to conduction electrons, and antiparticles to holes.
A variety of interesting phenomena can be attributed to this structure. The development of quantum field theory (QFT) in the 1930s made it possible to reformulate the Dirac equation in a way that treats the positron as a “real” particle rather than the absence of a particle, and makes the vacuum the state in which no particles exist instead of an infinite sea of particles.” ” In quantum physics, a quantum vacuum fluctuation (or quantum fluctuation or vacuum fluctuation) is the temporary change in the amount of energy in a point in space,1 as explained in Werner Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle. That conservation of energy can appear to be violated, but only for small values of t (time). This allows the creation of particle-antiparticle pairs of virtual particles. The effects of these particles are measurable, for example, in the effective charge of the electron, different from its “naked” charge.” it would seem that energizing these particle-antiparticle pairs of virtual particles might delay their natural annihilation processes and being far more energetic become large enough to become usable as a plasma thrust fuel. Perhaps its also a multiple plank scale atomic reaction, a plank scale atomic bomb thats powerful enough to be seen at the human macro scale!
WellI bet if you use an old radio vacuum tube it could accelerate some quantum vacuum electron manifestationsBut this approach has a problem: the propulsion as one increases the energy isn’t proportional, so if you give twice as much gas you don’t get twice as much acceleration. Because quantum vacuum electrons come into existence at a statistical rate and so while you have twice as much energy you don’t have the mass density to produce twice as much thrust. Think of it this way: You can throw a basket ball when someone passes you a basket ball, but while you wait for a basket ball despite the fact that now you want to throw a basket ball twice as hard as before you still have to wait for that basket ball, given that power is a function of timewell you get my point.
As a science fair project this is a great idea and perhaps a better illustration of quantum vacuum energy or mass compared to the Kasimir experiments. Considering that the transformation of light into energy is between ten to fifteen percent effective, I think good ole rocket fuel is a better bang for the buck. The statements say that nobody is sure how this device works, but the best guess is that microwaves traveling one direction impart relativistic velocity to virtual particles, but less velocity going the other direction. Either that, or someone just hasn’t noticed a flaw in the experiment, which is my guess.
I mentioned elsewhere that I suspect someone is neglecting a heating effect of some kind. My suspicion is that microwaves are making gas molecules eject from the surface of the device, and the shape of the device results in a net thrust in one direction. If you impart momentum to virtual particles and then they self-annihilate then what happens to the momentum? Surely it is not lost. Is it spit out as a type of photon?
—————————- Actually, Im not really clear how they can self-annihilate without producing annihilation energy. When thinking of them as a brief dance of the uncertainty principle it seemed reasonable but if they are alive long enough to interact with the universe it seems less reasonable.
Perhaps if self-annihilation results in no energy produced then there must be a negative energy that balances the books? You take it, then you leave it. It’s a zero sum game.
How Does Emdrive Work
The total energy of the system has not changed, nor its momentum. Virtual particles are governed by the Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, therefore their existence does not violate the total energy of the system, because they appear for a short period of time and then they disappear just as they appeared.
At the end nothing’s changed. The more energy the particles have, the shorter they exist. Also, virtual particles are a transient phenomena. If you really want them to become real particles you need to give them energy. This is what’s being done during black holes evaporation, or in the modern particle colliders. The first gives some of its own energy to create the particles; in the second case we accelerate other particles, i.e., we give them more energy, and smash them into each other, which creates particles that previously didn’t exist.
In simple terms, there is no free beer. The NASA experiment measured a very small force. I expect this to be an experimental error. I understand that the device was tested in air, while connected to power lines, and with metal objects not very far away; electromagnetic and convective forces may have been in play.
We cannot examine NASA’s setup, but we can read the “theory paper” by the inventor of the Emdrive. It’s a very interesting read. Roger Shawyer calculates the Emdrive’s thrust by taking the front and rear walls into account. He IGNORES the side walls.
Since they are slanted, it’s entirely possible that they will incur enough negative force to cancel out the positive force that he calculates. At one point, the paper is actually funny. Shawyer imagines his device filled with gas instead of microwaves.
Once again, he ignores the side walls, and so he predicts a net force. This should be a hint that his calculations are incomplete, but he merely brushes it off like so; “the resultant force would merely introduce a mechanical strain in the waveguide walls”. Yes, you read that correctly. Roger Shawyer apparently doesn’t know the formula F=ma! See for a few more details. Well, I don’t know who is right or wrong, but the sidewalls are mentioned in the FAQ on the EmDrive site. Why does the net force not get balanced out by the axial component of the sidewall force?
The net force is not balanced out by the axial component of the sidewall force because there is a highly non linear relationship between waveguide diameter and group velocity. At cut off diameter, the group velocity is zero, the guide wavelength is infinity, but the diameter is clearly not zero.) The design of the cavity is such that the ratio of end wall forces is maximised, whilst the axial component of the sidewall force is reduced to a negligible value. Thank you for the link, s.j. So, “The net force is not balanced out”. If Roger Shawyer knows this, then why doesn’t he publish the equation?
I am not so cynical as to think he planned a scam from day one. I think he omitted the side wall calculations at the outset because microwave experiments usually ignore the side walls, so he had no examples to copy. People have been asking him about the sidewalls for years.
He should have published the calculations by now. But once again, I am willing to give him the benefit of the doubt; instead of assuming that he’s hiding something, I will assume he’s simply unable to calculate them.
The above, of course, are my opinions only. See that’s the thing, the test article didn’t produce the same result as the functional one, that’s an assumption. Basically tentonine points out this, the test article did exactly as it was expected to do, produce the tested null readings to extract from the total working device and get the real thrust values “tentonine Smack-Fu Master, in training a day ago Editor’s PickNew Poster The Wired article was based only on a brief summary available on the NASA site.
The complete paper is available from AIAA (American Institute for Aeronautics and Astronautics – the organizer of the conference) at this link: Note that you need to pay for it or have a subscription through your employer/university. Page 14 of the paper makes it clear that the null test article was used to examine the effect of the magnetic field generated by the current flowing through the power cables to the device – this field registered on the balance as a small thrust. This could then be subtracted from the thrust measured on the fully working device to determine how much thrust it was actually producing.”.
Lots of comments, opinions, and interest in this area. To start with, we solved the Earth to space launch quite a while ago, at least over a decade, if not longer, with laser powered heat exchangers. For cost and simplicity, they cannot be beaten. The atmosphere still poses a bit of a challenge with dissipation, but for the most part works rather well, as I have seen. In the second part, my gut intuition tells me quantum jumping occurs on the macroscopic scale at GR velocities. Its all about coherence.
Traveling in interstellar space poses no insurmountable difficulty, even if using (primitive) ED tethers to ride the magnetic “wind”. As to the article, it conjures up the Munchausen drive.
Supposing it works and is repeatable, would not be worth the time it takes, like the Casimir effect. Travel that can be measured in human time requires a lot of power, at least to have any sort of impact on worlds populated with creatures with short lifespans. In other words, we wouldn’t be having this conversation if we had the lifespans of rocks. Not only does it break conservation of momentum, it also breaks conservation of energy. Imagine that you will compete in the 2020 All Electric Le Mans. You mount an emDrive on the back to add extra kick. You start and fall behind the others due to the extra weight and energy being diverted from the wheels.
As we pick up speed though and up shift the gears, there is a drop in torque and acceleration. But for you the additional thrust from the emDrive remains constant and starts to give you an advantage. Next you come to a series of tight turns where you use your regenerative breaking. By this time you are a long way behind. An hour later you are approaching the first recharge stop and all the others are stopped for 20 minutes for a recharge. You sail past them taking the lead, you don’t need to recharge because every time you use the regenerative breaking you get back slightly more than you originally drained from the battery during acceleration! Even if we built this drive and it worked it won’t say anything about warp drives.
It’s just that one possible explanation assumes that it works by burning up particles that spontaneously come into existence which if true might say something about warp drives, but we don’t necessarily know. As far as speeds go this type of engine would go faster the farther it goes so if it works it could take us as fast as a tenth of the speed of light which isn’t warp speed either but can take us to alpha centauri in just a few decades which means the colonization of other solar systems would be possible. Personally, I would be happy if we can just wirelessly transmit energy to a ship as it is launching to get safer and cheaper space launches into orbit. A fast engine doesn’t allow for colonization; there are other factors that must be taken into account.
First of all, it will be decades again before people other than scientists or astronauts will board a sub-light speed ship. Second of all, we are probably not the only ones in universe. There is a good chance we will run into a species with superior technology. Besides, a warp drive at the speed of light could reach Proxima Centauri in about 5 years. Decades of travel isn’t practical no matter how new the engine is.
The distances are too astronomical. A fast engine is definitely the deciding factor that will allow space colonization. Sure, warp speed would be more practical, but there are already people willing to move to Mars for the rest of their lives and real plans to send them there. If it was possible to send people to another solar system within their life time I am sure some people would actually agree to it especially if we look into cryonics with gene therapy. I think it’s more likely that we will send probes on a decades long voyage though. The technology will always improve so by the time we have even faster drives the probes will get there to send back information. This quote is typical of wrongheaded stuff about the EM Drive “The EmDrive doesn’t use propellant.
In fact, nothing is being pushed out the back of it at all. It supposedly gets its thrust by bouncing microwaves around inside a closed chamber, which physicists say absolutely should not work. A popular analogy is trying to move your car by sitting inside of it and pushing the steering wheel.” In my understanding the EM drive is not violating newtons law any more than a solar sail is. Microwave photons inside the cavity bounced off the walls and their momentum pushed the rocket in the opposite direction.
The two voyager probes at the heliopause in deep space are both off course since they have been emitting infrared photons from their nuclear power systems. The cumulative force of those heat photons caused thrust that matches the thrust necessary to account for their course deviations. Photons have momentum and energy. Hypothetical antimatter drives will annihilate electrons and positrons generating gamma rays. The high energy photon exhaust is predicted to make relativistic rocket speeds possible Contact Neil Farbstein at if you are interested in working on designing EM drives with advanced materials and other modifications that might improve its performance. Hey, I’ve got a theory as of how it might be working.
I’ve just learnt that electrons have mass, negligibly small mass, but it is there. So what I am suggesting is that this emDrive might me using electrons as fuel! It might be just throwing electrons at a very high rate, which also explains the need for so much electrical energy(2.5kW) for such a little amount of thrust. Please suggest your views on my theory, I’m still studying in school so I might have gone it wrong somewhere.The theory also follows law of conservation of momentum. People forget that in the early days of the US space program it was speculated that we couldn’t travel to Mars because current rockets (then) would just require too much energy. Such statements were concluded with, “Current technology shows such trips impossible.” Similar stuff was said about “star-Wars” orbital defense.
“Can’t be done with current technology!” So let’s not waste the money! The idea was to establish the program and develop the technologywhich we have now! Remember the claims that taking down an ICBM would be like taking down a rifle bullet with a BB gun. “It can’t be done!” The tech evolved and now we can. This technology will evolve and “we will(!)” travel at unfathomable velocity. And FTL is likely no more than a century awayunless the Islamic caliphate succeeds in global nuclear war! Have they ever even tried to take a simply turbine generator into space?
Like the little thing with the magnets n copper coils? You would think it wouldn’t be such a burden to test one fuckin time u know, cus theres no reason why it wouldn’t work in a near frictionless place, hell use the energy generated in very short bursts to keep the thing going if it ever slows, it’d logically produce several thousand times more energy than it uses, question is why the hell haven’t they tried it yet?
They send people up in fuckin rockets all the time, why can’t they do this? I mean it wouldn’t be groundbreaking really, but it would supply literally an endless supply of electricity and make things alot better here, I think they’ve figured out how to transfer electricity wirelessly so seemingly all they’d have to do is set the things going and just have a constant stream going straight to receivers right? It wouldn’t solve all our problems but it would make things alot easier.
Why does it need solar panels if it’s a “no fuel” ship? And how is it impossible if it’s just a variation of 2 already existing designs? And if it used solar panels, then how is it going to travel on interstellar trips as this article suggests? This whole article makes no sense. Electricity IS fuel first of all.
Second, if all it is doing is catching photons via solar panels, then expelling them on a microwave frequency, it basically IS an ion drive Or just a more complex solar sail. Either way it has nothing at all to do with subspace or vacuum plasma or even Santa Claus. I hate how scientists have started using catch phrases like quantum vacuum and subspace to answer questions they don’t know the answer to. It’s like the science equivalent of “cuz god wanted it that way”.
I have a theory that Nikoli Tesla developed a rocket engine capable of near light speed. What travels at 184,000 miles per second? And what if it could be harnessed into a single beam of thrust? I’m no physicist but a dreamer like Tesla and H.G.
Imagine if such an engine could be developed in our future. Trips to Mars would only take minutes or hours; trip to the Moon would be seconds. Research colonies could be established on the Moon and Mars and supplied like the Space Station. Of course it would give cause for worry to our enemies.
Nasa tests 'impossible' engine that could carry passengers to the moon in just four hours.and may even travel faster than the speed of light. System works by bouncing microwaves around in a closed container. Sun's energy provides electricity for microwaves, so no fuel is needed. Researchers previously said this wouldn't work in the vacuum of space.
Engineers quietly revealed results of test to show otherwise on a forum By Published: 20:31 GMT, 30 April 2015 Updated: 18:03 GMT, 30 December 2016. Nasa is believed to have been quietly testing a revolutionary new method of space travel that could one day allow humans to travel at speeds faster than light. Researchers say the new 'impossible' drive could carry passengers and their equipment to the moon in as little as four hours. A trip to Alpha Centauri, which would take tens of thousands of years now, could be reached in just 100 years. The system is based on electromagnetic drive, or EMDrive, which converts electrical energy into thrust without the need for rocket fuel. The concept of an EmDrive engine is relatively simple. It provides thrust to a spacecraft by bouncing microwaves around in a closed container.
Solar energy provides the electricity to power the microwaves, which means that no propellant is needed. Researchers previously believed this wouldn't work in the vacuum of space, but Nasa has allegedly shown otherwise.
The implications for this could be huge. For instance, current satellites could be half the size they are today without the need to carry fuel.
Humans could also travel further into space, generating their own propulsion on the way. According to classical physics, this should be impossible because it violates the law of conservation of momentum. The law states that the momentum of a system is constant if there are no external forces acting on the system – which is why propellant is required in traditional rockets. Researchers from the US, UK and China have demonstrated EMDrive over the past few decades, but their results have been controversial as no one has been exactly sure how it works. Now, Nasa has built an EMDrive that works in conditions like those in space, according to users on forum A number of those discussing the plan on the technical forum claim to be Nasa engineers who are involved in the project. The concept of an EmDrive engine is relatively simple.
It provides thrust to a spacecraft by bouncing microwaves around in a closed container. 13k shares Solar energy provides the electricity to power the microwaves, which means that no propellant is needed. The implications for this could be huge.
For instance, current satellites could be half the size they are today without the need to carry fuel. Humans could also travel further into space, generating their own propulsion on the way.
When London-based Roger Sawyer came up with concept in 2000, the only team that took him seriously was a group of Chinese scientists. In 2009, the team allegedly produced 720 millinewton (or 72g) of thrust, enough to build a satellite thruster. But still, nobody believed they had achieved this.
Last year, Pennsylvania-based scientist Guido Fetta and his team at Nasa Eagleworks published a paper that demonstrates that a similar engine works on the same principles. Their model, dubbed Cannae Drive, produces much less thrust at 30 to 50 micronewtons - less than a thousandth of the output of some relatively low-powered ion thrusters used today.
Spaceship Engine Emdrive
On the NasaSpaceFlight.com, those allegedly involved in the project claim that the reason previous EmDrive models were criticised were that none of the tests had been carried out in a vacuum. Solar energy provides the electricity to power the microwaves, which means that no propellant is needed.The implications for this could be huge. For instance, current satellites could be half the size they are today without the need to carry fuel Physics says particles in the quantum vacuum cannot be ionised, so therefore you cannot push against it. But Nasa's latest test is claimed to have shown otherwise.
'Nasa has successfully tested their EmDrive in a hard vacuum – the first time any organisation has reported such a successful test,' the researchers wrote. 'To this end, Nasa Eagleworks has now nullified the prevailing hypothesis that thrust measurements were due to thermal convection.' However, Nasa's official site says that: 'There are many 'absurd' theories that have become reality over the years of scientific research. 'But for the near future, warp drive remains a dream,' in a post updated last month. The Nasa test has yet to be peer-reviewed and the space agency did not immediately respond to DailyMail.com for comment.
The concept of an EM Drive engine is relatively simple. It provides thrust to a spacecraft by bouncing microwaves around in a closed container. Solar energy provides the electricity to power the microwaves, which means that no propellant is needed. The implications for this could be huge. For instance, current satellites could be half the size they are today without the need to carry fuel.
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Humans could also travel further into space, generating their own propulsion on the way. But when the concept was first proposed it was considered implausible because it went against the laws of physics. Its allegedly fuel-free nature also means that the drive may directly contradict the law of conservation of momentum. It suggests it would produce a forward-facing force without an equal and opposite force acting in the other direction. The peer review of the engine could finally settle the matter.
Thespotted a comment on the that Nasa Spaceflight forum which suggests more testing is set to be done on the engine. One member of the EmDrive team, Paul March, wrote: 'The Eagleworks Lab is NOT dead and we continue down the path set by our Nasa management. 'Past that I can't say more other than to listen to Dr Rodal on this topic, and please have patience about when our next EW paper is going to be published.
Peer reviews are glacially slow,' Eagleworks is an experimental lab at Johnson Space Center that was created to explore alternative propulsion technologies. In November, the EMDrive team posted their first update on the engine in months, and it seems to suggest that the futuristic engine does, in fact, work. At the time, March said Nasa has managed to remove some of the errors from earlier tests - but still found signals of unexplained thrust. Among the criticisms of previous experiments were that the tests were not carried out in a vacuum, thereby mirroring the conditions in space. March posted on the Nasa Spaceflight forum in reply to an unpublished paper that claims the unaccounted thrust is generated by something known as the Lorentz force. The Lorentz force is the force that is exerted by a magnetic field on a moving electric charge. But March says his tests prove this is not true.
'I will tell you that we first built and installed a second generation, closed face magnetic damper that reduced the stray magnetic fields in the vacuum chamber by at least an order of magnitude and any Lorentz force interactions it could produce,' he said. The basic laws that are applied in the theory of the EmDrive include Newton's laws including the law of conservation of momentum and the law of conservation of energy. At its most simple, the law of conservation of momentum can be explained by studying collisions. During a collision between two objects - object 1 and object 2 - the forces acting on and between the two objects are equal, and opposite in direction. These forces act for a set amount of time depending on the strength of the force and the shape and size of the objects, but regardless of how long this lasts, the time on each object is the same. The EmDrive appears to violate this law because it seemingly produces a forward-facing force that powers it through space without an equal and opposite force acting in the other direction. However, the electromagnetic wave momentum that is created in the resonating cavity travels to the end walls.
At this point, the momentum gained and the momentum lost by the electromagnetic wave is equal, which suggests it complies with the law. 'And yet the anomalous thrust signals remain.'
March also says that in the latest developments, thermal expansion of the thruster is taken into account to reduce all possible sources of error. But the thrust can still be seen, and engineers still can't explain what's causing it.
Current plans are to try to recreate the Eagleworks results under higher power. If it becomes operatonal, which many believe it won't, the EM Drive propulsion system would permit travel at speeds until now only seen in science fiction and have other implications for space exploration.
What Is An Emdrive
Researchers say the new drive could carry passengers and their equipment to the moon in as little as four hours, or to Mars in 10 weeks. A trip to Alpha Centauri, which would take tens of thousands of years to reach under current methods, could be reached in just 100 years. And as the thrusters are solar powered, propulsion would be generated along the way. The system is based on electromagnetic drive, or EM Drive, which converts electrical energy into thrust without the need for rocket fuel.
While there has been some scepticism around the EMDrive, in April Nasa released results of its own test which showed that the EMDrive did in fact create thrust. Pictured is an experimental set-up to test the system Last year, German scientists also backed Nasa's claim that the engines do work. Martin Tajmar, professor and chair for Space Systems at the Dresden University of Technology, presented a paper to the American Institute for Aeronautics and Astronautics' Propulsion and Energy Forum in July. Tajmar wrote: 'Additional tests need to be carried out to study the magnetic interaction of the power feeding lines used for the liquid metal contacts.' 'Nevertheless, we do observe thrusts close to the magnitude of the actual predictions after eliminating many possible error sources that should warrant further investigation into the phenomena.
'Next steps include better magnetic shielding, further vacuum tests and improved EM Drive models with higher Q factors and electronics that allow tuning for optimal operation.' According to classical physics, the EM Drive should be impossible because it seems to violate the law of conservation of momentum. The law states that the momentum of a system is constant if there are no external forces acting on the system – which is why propellant is required in traditional rockets. Researchers from the US, UK and China have demonstrated EM Drives over the past few decades, but their results have been controversial as no one has been exactly sure how it works.
The concept of an EmDrive engine is relatively simple. It provides thrust to a spacecraft by bouncing microwaves around in a closed container. Solar energy provides the electricity to power the microwaves, which means that no propellant is needed When London-based Roger Sawyer came up with concept in 2000, the only team that took him seriously was a group of Chinese scientists.
In 2009, the team allegedly produced 720 millinewton (or 72g) of thrust, enough to build a satellite thruster. But still, nobody believed they had achieved this. Last year, Pennsylvania-based scientist Guido Fetta and his team at Nasa Eagleworks published a paper that demonstrates that a similar engine works on the same principles.
Their model, dubbed Cannae Drive, produces much less thrust at 30 to 50 micronewtons - less than a thousandth of the output of some relatively low-powered ion thrusters used today. On the NasaSpaceFlight.com, those allegedly involved in the project claim that the reason previous EM Drive models were criticised were that none of the tests had been carried out in a vacuum. Physics says particles in the quantum vacuum cannot be ionised, so therefore you cannot push against it. But Nasa's latest test claims to have shown otherwise. 'Nasa has successfully tested their EmDrive in a hard vacuum – the first time any organisation has reported such a successful test,' the researchers wrote.
'To this end, Nasa Eagleworks has now nullified the prevailing hypothesis that thrust measurements were due to thermal convection.' However, Nasa's official site said earlier this year: 'There are many 'absurd' theories that have become reality over the years of scientific research. 'But for the near future, warp drive remains a dream.'
The amount of thrust is relevant if something like ion drives gives you more thrust for the same power. Of course, with something like an ion drive, you're throwing mass out the back, and eventually you run out of mass.
(On the other hand, eventually you run out of the ability to generate power, too.) Edit: The bigger picture is that, for this to work at all, there probably needs to be some kind of new physics here. If there is, this device probably only exploits it by accident (no matter how much the inventor may think he knows what's going on). Once we figure out what the new physics is, newer devices may be much more efficient. Isn't the important thing from a practical perspective (agreed that the new science aspect is more interesting) that if proved this has near infinite specific impulse? (As bizarre as that sounds) From an interstellar transport standpoint, that would seem a game changer. At minimum, slipping the bounds of the rocket equation and being able to accelerate an endlessly looping hulk to closer-to-c velocities seems fascinating. I'm curious what the specific impulse numbers look like given the hypothetical conversion rate on this powered by pure fusion.
The papers 1 says on page 33 that the measured performance is more than two orders of magnitude better than light sails. Given that light sails are more or less considered a viable technology, it seems quite reasonable that you could get this working if you could manufacture huge and light enough solar cells. But I personally would not hold my breath - if I had to decide between quite radical new physics and measurement errors, I would certainly pick measurement errors. It seems way more likely that this is a case of faster than light neutrinos than the key to interplanetary or even interstellar travel. I vaguely remember the inventor's theory on how it worked. It's an artifact of the speed of light being constant in all reference frames.
If there is a pressure inside the chamber, intuitively the outside net force would be zero. But with light it's different due to the constant velocity. If the pressure was caused by little particle bouncing against the chamber walls, their velocities would counter each other as they bounced the chamber around. Velocities with light don't add that way.
I may have gotten some of it wrong, but that's how I recall it. It says 1.2mN of force per kW. One kW would be 10 100 watt bulbs. So for as long as you apply that amount of power, you get that amount of force. And because force = mass times acceleration, your 1kg object would be accelerated at 1.2mm/s^2 - meaning its velocity would increase by 1.2 millimeters per second, each second, for as long as the force is applied. So, run it for 10 seconds and then turn it off, and the object would be moving at 12mm per second, for instance. That is in absence of any counter-force, such as would be applied by friction or air resistance.
Practically those would overwhelm the tiny force from this drive, which is why it's only really practical in space.