More beam me up Scotty

[hcap]

Impossible' rocket drive works and could get to Moon in four hours

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/space/11769030/Impossible-rocket-drive-works-and-could-get-to-Moon-in-four-hours.html

The EM Drive was developed by the British inventor Roger Shawyer nearly 15 years ago but was ridiculed at the time as being scientifically impossible.

It produces thrust by using solar power to generate multiple microwaves that move back and forth in an enclosed chamber. This means that until something fails or wears down, theoretically the engine could keep running forever without the need for rocket fuel.

• NASA gets set for commercial supersonic flight

[hcap]

Video working model.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/british-spaceship-engine-like-star-6155199

[Greyfox]

Thank you for posting those links hcap. :ThmbUp:
That appears to be a marvelous breakthrough.

[Tom]

"We can't do it, Cap'n...we got no power!

[PaceAdvantage]

Well, this changes everything...until it doesn't... :lol:

What will the oil companies do when someone builds a car off of this system?

Usually, people who invent alternative propulsion systems ends up getting a "visit." :eek:

[Tom]

From Klingons.
At night.
:eek:

[elysiantraveller]

Well, this changes everything...until it doesn't... :lol:

What will the oil companies do when someone builds a car off of this system?

Usually, people who invent alternative propulsion systems ends up getting a "visit." :eek:

I don't think it could work in the atmosphere?

[hcap]

Not yet proven. Jury is still out on does it violate the basic laws of physics?

But in the words of it's inventor.......

/4hTdSg47h3k

Btw, right now it is producing thrust on the order of 0.000071939 ounces

[TJDave]

right now it is producing thrust on the order of 0.000071939 ounces

The mrs. said she was not particularly impressed.

[fast4522]

Time for a tune.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOldMawuDWY

[tucker6]

It is scientifically impossible

[elysiantraveller]

Not yet proven. Jury is still out on does it violate the basic laws of physics?

But in the words of it's inventor.......

/4hTdSg47h3k

Btw, right now it is producing thrust on the order of 0.000071939 ounces

At the very least it completely changes how we view the laws of physics.

[davew]

sure looks like a scam to ilk idiots from money

[Greyfox]

sure looks like a scam to ilk idiots from money

I don't think so. Science makes new breakthroughs every year.
NASA is quite excited about EmDrive's potential.

[_______]

I'm unclear what part of "violates basic Newtonian physics" makes this anything more than a new version of cold fusion.

Scientific advances tend to be refinements of knowledge. Einstein didn't overturn Newton. He added depth to the understanding of the universe.

So what's more likely? A measurement error by researchers or completely rewriting everything we know about physics?

[tucker6]

I'm unclear what part of "violates basic Newtonian physics" makes this anything more than a new version of cold fusion.

Scientific advances tend to be refinements of knowledge. Einstein didn't overturn Newton. He added depth to the understanding of the universe.

So what's more likely? A measurement error by researchers or completely rewriting everything we know about physics?
We have a winner folks. :ThmbUp:

[OntheRail]

sure looks like a scam to ilk idiots from money
I watched the video...
Anyone else think it sounded like a dressed up water pick? Which from the sound of it has a thousand times more thrust than this.... :lol:

[davew]

I'm unclear what part of "violates basic Newtonian physics" makes this anything more than a new version of cold fusion.

Scientific advances tend to be refinements of knowledge. Einstein didn't overturn Newton. He added depth to the understanding of the universe.

So what's more likely? A measurement error by researchers or completely rewriting everything we know about physics?

I think global warming is more likely, but neither will be seen during my lifetime. I do like the solar power angle to get the greenies excited...

[davew]

it would be nice if this sort of nuclear power could be harnessed for space travel

http://www.technologyreview.com/lists/innovators-under-35/2013/pioneer/leslie-dewan/

[hcap]

I'm unclear what part of "violates basic Newtonian physics" makes this anything more than a new version of cold fusion.

Scientific advances tend to be refinements of knowledge. Einstein didn't overturn Newton. He added depth to the understanding of the universe.

So what's more likely? A measurement error by researchers or completely rewriting everything we know about physics?I am still skeptical, but I think it has gone a bit further than cold fusion.
... the drive (http://www.sciencealert.com/independent-scientists-confirm-that-the-impossible-em-drive-produces-thrust) was widely laughed at and ignored when it was invented by English researcher Roger Shawyer in the early 2000s. But a few years later, a team of Chinese scientists decided to build their own version, and to everyone's surprise, it actually worked. Then an American inventor did the same, and convinced NASA's Eagleworks Laboratories, headed up by Harold 'Sonny' White, to test it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_G._White
"Now Martin Tajmar, a professor and chair for Space Systems at Dresden University of Technology in Germany, has played around with his own EM Drive, and has once again shown that it produces thrust - albeit for reasons he can't explain.
Tajmar presented his results at the 2015 American Institute for Aeronautics and Astronautics' Propulsion and Energy Forum and Exposition in Florida on 27 July, and you can read his paper here. He has a long history of experimentally testing (and debunking) breakthrough propulsion systems, so his results are a pretty big deal for those looking for outside verification of the EM Drive."

http://arc.aiaa.org/doi/abs/10.2514/6.2015-4083

"Test results indicate that the RF [radio frequency] resonant cavity thruster design, which is unique as an electric propulsion device, is producing a force that is not attributable to any classical electromagnetic phenomenon and, therefore, is potentially demonstrating an interaction with the quantum vacuum virtual plasma," the NASA team wrote in their study, which they presented Wednesday (July 30) at the 50th Joint Propulsion Conference in Cleveland.

[hcap]

Some theory. Unsubstantiated, but this is the goal.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_vacuum_thruster#History_and_controversy

Quantum vacuum thruster
A quantum vacuum plasma thruster (or Q-thruster) is a proposed type of spacecraft thruster that would work in part by acting on the virtual particles produced by quantum vacuum fluctuations.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_fluctuation

[Tom]

And the project will go to the lowest bidder or someone's nephew's company. :bang:

[_______]

Some theory. Unsubstantiated, but this is the goal.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_vacuum_thruster#History_and_controversy

Quantum vacuum thruster
A quantum vacuum plasma thruster (or Q-thruster) is a proposed type of spacecraft thruster that would work in part by acting on the virtual particles produced by quantum vacuum fluctuations.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_fluctuation

This is a skeptical article written a year ago. Please note the discussion of "quantum vacuum plasma".

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/outthere/2014/08/06/nasa-validate-imposible-space-drive-word/

None of these teams have submitted any article to any journal that would allow the results to be peer reviewed. That is telling.

In regard to cold fusion, you are correct to distinguish this utter fantasy from that. The claim for cold fusion was at least subject to peer review and the inability of anyone else to repeat their results is what killed it. But at least they published.

This is more big foot than cold fusion.

The NASA researchers reported positive thrust on a model intended to produce thrust AND a model that was deliberately disabled. That should tell anyone without an unwarranted investment in the idea that there is a problem with measurement.

I love the sense of awe science can provide. I also enjoy a good science fiction novel on occasion. But I try not to get the two confused.

[Greyfox]

What a bunch of skeptics. Negative Nellies I say.
I recall years ago a man saying "There's nothing more embarrassing than saying something can't be done and then watching your boss go ahead and do it."
Let's see where this research goes.
I'm sure several of the physicists at NASA are more open minded to the possibility of EmDrive working than many of the posters in this thread.
None of us here know very much about this EmDrive to say it's impossible.

If it turns out to actually work, then some revision of the known Newton laws will have to be looked at.

[Tom]

The only thing limiting us is our imagination.
When you look at the vast realms of everything out there, there is no way WE can be at the end of new things.

I believe we were meant to go where no man has gone before.
We just have to start somewhere.

The space program is probably the most important thing we have ever done as mankind, since we crawled up onto dry land, or hopped out of a tree, whatever floats your boat.

Compare what we have today to what we had in 1960. Amazing.
The thought Kennedy was nuts when he talked about going to the moon. If it was made of green cheese, we would have commuter flights every day by now.

[_______]

What a bunch of skeptics. Negative Nellies I say.
I recall years ago a man saying "There's nothing more embarrassing than saying something can't be done and then watching your boss go ahead and do it."
Let's see where this research goes.
I'm sure several of the physicists at NASA are more open minded to the possibility of EmDrive working than many of the posters in this thread.
None of us here know very much about this EmDrive to say it's impossible.

If it turns out to actually work, then some revision of the known Newton laws will have to be looked at.

Until someone publishes results for peer review, this will remain the stuff of breathless internet headlines and Star Trek fantasies.

Skepticism is at the heart of science. Why won't anyone publish their results? The "inventor" is looking for investors. The NASA team found thrust on a deliberately disabled model. Possible explanations for how it works are straight forward mumbo jumbo (there is no such thing as quantum vacuum plasma).

Why wouldn't you be skeptical?

And Tom, there are limits beyond our imaginations. They are called Newtonian laws.

The danger of stuff like this is that it deflects attention from real science including real propulsion systems that could actually work.

[Greyfox]

Until someone publishes results for peer review,


Does NASA and the U.S. Military submit all of their scientific investigations to external peer review?

[hcap]

Until someone publishes results for peer review, this will remain the stuff of breathless internet headlines and Star Trek fantasies.

Skepticism is at the heart of science. Why won't anyone publish their results? The "inventor" is looking for investors. The NASA team found thrust on a deliberately disabled model. Possible explanations for how it works are straight forward mumbo jumbo (there is no such thing as quantum vacuum plasma).

Why wouldn't you be skeptical?

And Tom, there are limits beyond our imaginations. They are called Newtonian laws.

The danger of stuff like this is that it deflects attention from real science including real propulsion systems that could actually work.Of course we should be skeptical. But quantum mechanics although NOT replacing classical Newtonian physics adds another wrinkle. A deeper level that demonstrates and explains certain forces that would have been unthinkable even 50 years ago.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casimir_effect

Hendrik B. G., and Dirk Polder proposed the existence of a force between two polarizable atoms and between such an atom and a conducting plate and in 1947 after a conversation with Niels Bohr who suggested it had something to do with zero-point energy.


.... It was not until 1997, however, that a direct experiment, by S. Lamoreaux, described above, quantitatively measured the force (to within 15% of the value predicted by the theory),[6] although previous work [e.g. van Blockland and Overbeek (1978)] had observed the force qualitatively, and indirect validation of the predicted Casimir energy had been made by measuring the thickness of liquid helium films by Sabisky and Anderson in 1972. Subsequent experiments approach an accuracy of a few percent.

...But the most puzzling aspect of the theory is that the force depends on geometry: If the plates are replaced by hemispherical shells, the force is repulsive. Spherical surfaces somehow “enhance” the number of virtual photons. There is no simple or intuitive way to tell which way the force will go before carrying out the complicated calculations.
(Curious that the EM drive's microwave chamber has a specific geometry necessary. Could that be related?)

Granted, there is no peer reviewed work verifying the EM drive,and it's principles are a stretch from the Casmir effect, Casmir effect forces have been observed and measured. Newtonian physics can not explain it.

[_______]

Does NASA and the U.S. Military submit all of their scientific investigations to external peer review?

NASA certainly would. It's a basic tenet of the scientific process which, by it's nature, is open.

The lack of publication indicates to me the team knows there was a problem with their experiment.

Are there some investigations that arent published for national security reasons? Probably. But you aren't reading about them on the internet as you are on this.

And I seriously doubt they are based on concepts that violate known physical laws.

[Actor]

NASA is quite excited about EmDrive's potential.Can you cite a source for that?

[Greyfox]

There are several videos on youtube saying NASA is excited about EmDrive.
Not the best source, but certainly on the web.

6XHLX4eKhYI