[KaiserJeep]

Read about it here: http://arc.aiaa.org/doi/full/10.2514/1.B36120

Summary: A method of producing thrust using RF waves in a resonant cavity has demonstrated a consistent and repeatable thrust of 1.2+/-0.1mN/kW, using electricity only as an input, and consuming zero fuel.

This RF thruster is two orders of magnitude higher in thrust output than other known fuelless engines such as photon drives. They compare as follows:

RF Thruster: 1.2+/-0.1mN/kW, fuel-free
Photon drive: 0.0033–0.0067  mN/kW, fuel-free
Hall thruster (i.e. ion drive): 60  mN/kW, consuming fuel

The results are very encouraging. The laboratory scale has demonstrated that this thruster is already performing at levels that would allow use as station-keeping thrusters on satellites, requiring only higher outputs from the solar PV arrays. Likewise deep space probes can now be maneuvered (in a leisurely fashion) without consuming anything but electrical energy.

Whether or not this can be scaled up to a size usable in larger manned spacecraft is as yet unknown. However the technology is brand new this week and produces thrust somewhere in the area of 200X to 350X as great as the best known fuelless space drive.

[Cog]

They haven't even begun to tune in the optimum shape of the microwave chamber to get the best thrust results. The plan is to test this on a very small satellite in space in the coming months. Although the thrust is very small, even a small thrust vector, over time, in a zero gravity environment can get you up to incredible speeds. Trips to Mars in 70 days put the red planet within our grasp.

Get this, you get thrust by introducing microwaves into a sealed chamber of a certain shape. No outlet. Violates Newtonian laws since obviously if you have no outlet for the energy then you should gain nothing from it. But you do anyway.

[dissident]

They haven't even begun to tune in the optimum shape of the microwave chamber to get the best thrust results. The plan is to test this on a very small satellite in space in the coming months. Although the thrust is very small, even a small thrust vector, over time, in a zero gravity environment can get you up to incredible speeds. Trips to Mars in 70 days put the red planet within our grasp.

Get this, you get thrust by introducing microwaves into a sealed chamber of a certain shape. No outlet. Violates Newtonian laws since obviously if you have no outlet for the energy then you should gain nothing from it. But you do anyway.

Read the paper linked in the article. There is no violation of any physical laws. The only thing "violated" is the retarded Copenhagen "consensus" on the interpretation of quantum mechanics. The pilot wave interpretation which was originated by de Broglie has been demonstrated to reproduce essential quantum effects even at the macroscopic scale in fluid systems (e.g. double slit self-interference, tunneling, orbital quantization, etc.)

http://math.mit.edu/~bush/?page_id=484

This device has basically blown away the wrong view of quantum mechanics (but don't expect any admission of this fact). The quantum foam is real and one can actually push against it. Newton would be satisfied with these results. Relativists not so much.

[KaiserJeep]

Quantum mechanics sure has changed since I studied it in the late 1970's. I got lost in the math for this space drive.

OK, so now we may have a working "impulse engine". Now if we could just invent a warp drive and find a source of energy such as anti-matter to power such....

[Cog]

The nature of the universe might not allow us to exceed light speed, which will put the stars out of our reach. If this is true, it also keeps pesky aliens from deciding they would be better off killing us.

[Subjectivist]

The nature of the universe might not allow us to exceed light speed, which will put the stars out of our reach. If this is true, it also keeps pesky aliens from deciding they would be better off killing us.

At half light speed the nearest star is only nine years away. In fact there are a dozen stars within forty years at half light speed. Several of those are at or near the spectrum of our own star, meaning if we choose to go we will find orbits that have the same general energy spectrum you find on Earth.

[Cog]

There are floating objects out there. Some the size of grains, some marbles, some boulders. Hit those at close to relativistic light speed and you will not have a pleasant day.

[KaiserJeep]

There are floating objects out there. Some the size of grains, some marbles, some boulders. Hit those at close to relativistic light speed and you will not have a pleasant day.

Of course not, that is what the "Deflector Dish" is for.

Who would have thought that Gene Roddenberry put so much thought into a starship design for a TV series in 1966, over 50 years ago.

[dissident]

There are floating objects out there. Some the size of grains, some marbles, some boulders. Hit those at close to relativistic light speed and you will not have a pleasant day.

Indeed, relativistic space travel will require some more new physics to become a possibility. But the value of this research is not the weak propulsion unit being studied, but the science innovation that comes with it. This is a major new physics step. We will need to understand much more about "the fabric of space". Maybe it is possible to use the Shkval cavitation approach to space travel to exceed the speed of light, which is likely closely related to the properties of the quantum foam, and to render obstacles in the travel path irrelevant. But this is all pure sci-fi speculation.

[Subjectivist]

There are floating objects out there. Some the size of grains, some marbles, some boulders. Hit those at close to relativistic light speed and you will not have a pleasant day.

How fast do you consider 'relatavistic'? Is 50 percent of light speed qualifying? What about 25 percent? 10 percent? Point being, at some level of speed it becomes too hard to dodge those tiny particles you are talking about. Up to that speed radar echos of anything large enough to cause significant collision damage means a small lateral thrust easily steers around the problem.

[Cog]

You aren't going to be able to steer around dust particles and microscopic bits of ice. Even those hitting the spacecraft at 50% c would damage the spacecraft. Unless you intend to lead with some sort of ablative shielding. This is why I believe the stars will always be out of our grasp. Unless you foresee some sort of force screen that deflects away all that stuff out there.

But the EM drive can open up the solar system to us. We don't need anything near relativistic speeds to transit the solar system. Yes I agree with your point that we could steer around larger objects at a lower speed with the proper radar installed.

[KaiserJeep]

China claims to have orbited the new electromagnetic fuel-free space drive, and successfully tested it in space, and is planning to use it for future satellite station-keeping applications:



Story is at: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4052580/China-claims-built-working-version-NASA-s-impossible-engine-says-s-orbiting-Earth.html#ixzz4TSTZ8v5F

[evilgenius]

In my opinion, the guy who invented this has no idea how it works. It's been tested terrestrially to have thrust. No one wants to believe it works, because it violates Newton's equal and opposite reaction, what, law? Einstein already proved that you can't take the ball and run all the way to the goal post using Newton. Why should this violation change that? Of course, they haven't actually demonstrated, to peer review standards, that it does what people are saying it does. Right now the Chinese, and soon the Americans, are taking it into space. They want to know if the thing is producing these results due to some interaction with the Earth's magnetic field. It's difficult to tell at this point if the Chinese results from space do say it works, or if they are trying to couch their experiment in local terms for political gain or, perhaps, to hide it from scrutiny so that they can continue. They don't want to be embarrassed, as it might end their careers.

I don't think it will take very long for this experimenter, what's his name, Shuyer, to be shown as not knowing how it works. To simply take his version as fact is like watching the movie Contact and believing that Jodie Foster's character would have been in any way involved in the process after receiving the first extraterrestrial signal. That's when the theorists will really come into play. For a long time now it has been apparent that something is wrong with the Standard Model. It's anybody's guess if this will be the thing that resolves that. It may blow it up, or repair the rift, or leave it. We don't know.

[KaiserJeep]

Without disagreeing with most of your message, NEO (near earth orbit) is no place to get away from the Earth's magnetic field. Indeed the intense Van Allen radiation belts are the sun's energetic photons and heavier ions captured by the Earth's magnetic field. To prove that this "space drive" works in deep space without a magnetic field, one would at least need to get it out between planets.

OTOH, if it simply works in NEO, it is usable as a satellite thruster requiring no "fuel" other than electricity. That in itself is a major advance.

[dissident]

The peer-reviewed paper published on this device went through an extensive set of tests to discount all the facile criticisms. I bothered to read the article, most people don't even try and then proceed to have an opinion anyway. The quantum foam is a proven entity as far as Quantum Electro-Dynamics is concerned. Yes, there are "virtual" particle corrections to Maxwell's equations and they are laboratory validated. That some device would eventually tap into this real physical phenomenon is not surprising. All the talk about Newton's laws of motion being violated (General Relativity does not invalidate them, BTW) is so much ignorant BS.

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

[evilgenius]

It's true that LEO is not the place to escape the magnetic field. I've read that criticism, that it may be influenced by the earth's field. I don't know why they are assuming they can reinforce their hypothesis at LEO. I don't know if the field is weaker up there, and the thrust would, therefore, be quantifiably different. I don't know if they figure that LEO will allow them to cancel other phenomena. Your guess is as good as mine. The thing is, even if it does rely upon the earth's magnetic field (like how RFID embed chips don't carry their own power) and won't work for interplanetary or other purposes, it would still be a godsend for satellites and other LEO objects, as you deftly pointed out. So even if they don't understand it, they can prove its efficacy.

[Cog]

I'm supposing they want to see the effects of zero g and vacuum on the device and not so much to get away from the earth's magnetic field.

[KaiserJeep]

I am a serious fan of well-written SF and I WANT to believe in the EM drive, but so far I remain unconvinced. For example, there appears to be controversy over the basic theory. This device would violate conservation of linear momentum. This is not just a principle in classical physics, but also quantum mechanics. It’s very, very, very hard to believe these low signal/noise ratio experiments, as it was with Cold Fusion. Like the recent buzz over faster than light neutrinos, this will almost certainly (and in my mind, at least, that means something like 6 9’s likelihood, or a probability of 0.999999) turn out to be either fraud or experimental error.

The NASA paper that was “peer reviewed” has NOT been duplicated, unless one believes the highly dubious Chinese claims. There is a huge difference between peer review, which amounts to reviewers saying “This is a very, very odd result, but I don’t see anything obviously wrong with the math”, and independent duplication of results. At best (and like the infamous cold fusion results) this is a very low "signal to noise" relationship experiment.

In fact, even calling it a "NASA paper" is a bit of a stretch. I believe that one of the two authors is employed at NASA and the other is not.

Here's hoping somebody somewhere can duplicate these results.

[dissident]

I am a serious fan of well-written SF and I WANT to believe in the EM drive, but so far I remain unconvinced. For example, there appears to be controversy over the basic theory. This device would violate conservation of linear momentum. This is not just a principle in classical physics, but also quantum mechanics. It’s very, very, very hard to believe these low signal/noise ratio experiments, as it was with Cold Fusion. Like the recent buzz over faster than light neutrinos, this will almost certainly (and in my mind, at least, that means something like 6 9’s likelihood, or a probability of 0.999999) turn out to be either fraud or experimental error.

The NASA paper that was “peer reviewed” has NOT been duplicated, unless one believes the highly dubious Chinese claims. There is a huge difference between peer review, which amounts to reviewers saying “This is a very, very odd result, but I don’t see anything obviously wrong with the math”, and independent duplication of results. At best (and like the infamous cold fusion results) this is a very low "signal to noise" relationship experiment.

In fact, even calling it a "NASA paper" is a bit of a stretch. I believe that one of the two authors is employed at NASA and the other is not.

Here's hoping somebody somewhere can duplicate these results.

The criticism is facile and inane. So because there is no ready theoretical explanation, the device cannot be possible. Even though the device has been tested extensively including under vacuum conditions. Experimentation comes first, theory comes second. Not the other way around. It seems a lot of people think of theory like revealed truth and some holy book needs to be consulted to make a determination. So far, all the people invoking Newton's laws and linear momentum conservation clearly do not have a clue about what they are yapping about. Since they compulsively ignore the quantum foam as a full mechanical component of the full system (and not their Mickey Mouse approximation) they have phantom missing terms in their equations.

This device has thrown the established Mickey Mouse approximation wisdom into question. The first reaction is to shoot the messenger and not to go back to basics and get rid of those ad hoc approximations that were never justified by anything in the first place.

As for other papers validating the results. Sheesh, give it some time. You have no idea how long it even takes to review such a paper let alone have different labs set up and complete experiments. Researchers have to get funding approval for this sort of lab work and as we see they are caught in a catch 22. Since various opinionated windbags are pontificating that this device violates "known laws of physics" (BS^n, n>1000) there is a negative smear campaign that suppresses approvals for such research. It will really be epically retarded if this device is not tested like the Pons and Fleischmann nonsense was and still is.

Also, laboratories are not really theoretical development centers. So some sort of joint theoretical and experimental study needs to be done. This will take years if it is given a chance. But unfortunately we have everyone and his dog already concluding that this is a perpetual motion machine that "violates known laws of physics" (known only by ignorant idiots).