Posted on 07/28/2015 10:58:53 PM PDT by MinorityRepublican
Interplanetary travel could be a step closer after scientists confirmed that an electromagnetic propulsion drive, which is fast enough to get to the Moon in four hours, actually works.
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.
The drive, which has been likened to Star Trek’s Impulse Drive, has left scientists scratching their heads because it defies one of the fundamental concepts of physics – the conservation of momentum – which states that if something is propelled forward, something must be pushed in the opposite direction. So the forces inside the chamber should cancel each other out.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
A set of these devices could be mounted on gimbals and powered up and down and vectored to provide thrust in whatever direction and at whatever power levels was wanted. And since the EM Drive does not use any reaction mass, there is no exhaust and they can be mounted internally. With enough power, an EM Drive craft could even hover and move about noiselessly.
Eh... technically, there is reaction mass being ejected, it’s just that you don’t have to bring your reaction mass with you and it’s essentially endless. This is a pseudo-reactionless drive, really, and probably as close as we’re going to get until we figure out more physics.
How long before some government bureaucrat declares that such an engine would damage the ozone layer upon activation, and make such engines illegal?
Oh Boy! Another perpetual motion machine.
Do some of you “old Freepers” remember about 10 years ago the guy who invented a perpetual motion device that was so amazing and secret that he could not demonstrate it in public? We had many hours of entertainment here at FR on that “amazing” invention.
I guess a new discussion on this wonder invention will be entertainment on FR for months to come.
What reaction mass is ejected? Perhaps some is, but none has been identified, and with the basic physics in doubt, it seems impossible to say so with genuine certainty.
????
IMO it’s a BS drive. Focused microwaves excite sub-atomic particles within the drive chamber creating a relative pressure so to speak. The excited particles exit the drive producing a very small, yet measurable thrust.
Basically, they are heating sub-atomic particles which exit the drive in a specific direction.
The quantity of sub-atomic particles ejected must be of sufficient mass to propel a craft. I.e., thousands of pounds of these sub-atomic particles -which are of exceedingly small mass, would be needed to move a craft.
As reactive particles are ejected how will the reaction state within the chamber be maintained within the parameters of the thrust effect?
How will the sub-atomic (fuel) particles be replenished at a rate which does not change the reaction state within the drive chamber?
Well that’s good. I can’t imagine how you would generate just one microwave.
On a serious note it seems that the author is trying to make this out to be a GREEN rocket engine because it will be SOLAR powered.
But that would seriously limit the rocket’s utility to space travel near the sun. The further from the sun the spacecraft gets the less power would be available from the sun.
This engine has been discussed on FR numerous times over the past few years. And yes the threads have been entertaining.
How did you miss them?
Apparently even NASA is willing to consider this engine as plausible. Not that NASA under Obama has been all that impressive.
Kidding aside, scientists have recently figured out how to make masers in a reasonable size and operating at room temperature. Given that a maser is the microwave equivalent of a laser, with it you can indeed produce a very tight and coherent microwave signal at a specific frequency.
Bring her up to warp speed Scotty. :-)
Yes one frequency but one single wave? I don’t think you could produce one individual wave. Could you ring a bell and produce one sound wave?
It was humor of course.
I got really high on dilithium crystals back in 1968
Solar powered. Hmmm, better travel in the light!! Keep it in the light!
It's just an itch in the back of my brain, how can small scale masers change the game? Your joke about a single microwave just set it off again.
I want to see test results where they’ve actually been able to generate at least 10000 pounds of “thrust” with this engine. Then I’ll believe it.
Ditch the solar power. Plug it into a cold fusion generator and then you’ll really have something.
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