OT Propellantless drive being developed

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CyclopsSlayer
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OT Propellantless drive being developed

Post by CyclopsSlayer »

http://www.cnet.com/news/nasa-tests-phy ... -em-drive/

Potentially good news for those who want to zip around our solar system, and beyond, at speeds approaching that of light -- and maybe even faster.

NASA, according to NASASpaceFlight.com, is quietly claiming to have successfully tested a revolutionary new means of space travel that could one day allow for such insane speed, and to have done it in a hard vacuum like that of outer space for the first time.

The technology is based on the electromagnetic drive, or EM drive.

The science behind the EM drive is, well, complicated to say the least, but the basic idea is to convert electrical energy into thrust without propellant (the fuel in rockets), which should be impossible because it violates the law of conservation of momentum. That law states that momentum can only be changed by one of the forces described by Newton's laws of motion -- that's where propellant normally comes in with traditional rockets.

If you want to dive into the "hows" and "whys" of all this, they're discussed at length -- by amateur enthusiasts as well as Ph.Ds and one of the NASA engineers actually working on the EM drive -- on this NASASpaceFlight.com forum.

Scientists from the US, UK and China have demonstrated the EM drive over the past 15 years or so, but it's been controversial, since as mentioned above, the EM drive would seem to violate classical physics. NASA's tests in conditions that mimic outer space, however, bring a new sense of possibility to electromagnetic propulsion.

If such a technology really does work, and can be implemented in future spacecraft, the implications include faster, cheaper and more efficient travel around our solar system and beyond, and could even be a stepping stone to faster-than-light travel. Yes Trekkers, I do mean a warp drive.

Imagine a vehicle carrying half a dozen passengers and luggage to the moon in about four hours, or a multi-generational trip at almost one-tenth the speed of light to reach Alpha Centauri in less than a century. The technology that makes this a reality could be in testing right now in Texas at the Johnson Space Center.

NASA did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but we reached out to Paul March, the engineer who has been working on the EM drive at JSC and sharing some of the results on the forum mentioned above. He told us:

"My work at Eagleworks (the lab at JSC where the EM drive is being tested) is just a continuation of my work tackling the fundamental problem that has been hindering manned spaceflight from the termination of the Apollo moon program. That being the availability of a robust and cost-effective power and propulsion technology that can break us loose from the shackles of the rocket equation."

The technology will still require more tests to verify that it's the real deal (none of this has gone through anything like a rigorous peer review, except for the pretty vigorous discussion on the above forum), and any spacecraft that ends up using an EM drive will basically need a substantial onboard nuclear power plant that will need to be developed for such a specific use in space.

The notion of flying through space atop a nuclear reactor shouldn't be any more scary than all the radiation flying through space outside our hypothetical future moon taxi though, so don't worry.
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Spidey
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RE: OT Propellantless drive being developed

Post by Spidey »

Worrying about a reactor on your backseat during space flight seems silly. The energy required to get anywhere in stylish time necessitates a ridiculously strong power source. Whether it is a reactor or a huge amount of conventional explosives will make very little difference in terms of how dead you are if the power source blows up.
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BlueTemplar
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RE: OT Propellantless drive being developed

Post by BlueTemplar »

There seems to be two aspects here :
- First : a way to directly convert electromagnetic energy into thrust (via virtual particles?)
- Second : a way to bend spacetime using variable electomagnetic fields
I'm not sure how the two are related, and NASA's article isn't very clear on the matter... the second aspect seemingly tacked on at the end of the article...

Note that for the application examples they give (except maybe inter-system flight), there's already a project that seems being much closer to realization and has been recently funded by NASA : VASIMR :
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/04/0 ... 09118.html
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ASHBERY76
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RE: OT Propellantless drive being developed

Post by ASHBERY76 »

April was last month.
dunn0r
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RE: OT Propellantless drive being developed

Post by dunn0r »

VASIMR is just a type of ion engine, not really new tech and still needs a propellant.
Those engines have high specific impulse (i.e. they consume little prop) but have very little thrust.

The revolutionary thing about a reactionless drive, would be that you just need energy to propel a ship
an don't have to carry any reaction mass. The problem with this concept is that it violates the third law
of motion (conservation of momentum), and that would mean that many things we think to understand about physics
and the way the universe works are WRONG.
On the other hand it would be awesome and very, very dangerous.
Why dangerous? Read the article on reactionless drives at Atomic Rockets.
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CyclopsSlayer
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RE: OT Propellantless drive being developed

Post by CyclopsSlayer »

Yes VASIMR uses a propellant, just hyper acelerates it.
The EM drive concept seems to from the descriptions acheive a propulsion effect without reaction mass.

Currently results seem to indicate a real effect, just not a high order one. A 200 watt power consumption is resulting in a detected thrust 0.002 Newtons.
Ion drive like effects can be discounted as the propulsion operates the same in atmosphere and in vacuum.
deciplex
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RE: OT Propellantless drive being developed

Post by deciplex »

ORIGINAL: dunn0r

VASIMR is just a type of ion engine, not really new tech and still needs a propellant.
Those engines have high specific impulse (i.e. they consume little prop) but have very little thrust.

The revolutionary thing about a reactionless drive, would be that you just need energy to propel a ship
an don't have to carry any reaction mass. The problem with this concept is that it violates the third law
of motion (conservation of momentum), and that would mean that many things we think to understand about physics
and the way the universe works are WRONG.
On the other hand it would be awesome and very, very dangerous.
Why dangerous? Read the article on reactionless drives at Atomic Rockets.
Massless particles, like the photon, also have momentum so it is at least possible in theory to have a totally energy-based, massless means of propulsion. Not sure about the feasibility of it, but it does not require any new physics.
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