Futuristic EmDrive Still Works After Latest Round of Tests

[happyninja42]

Just curious, but is this perhaps just something similar to the "solar sails" form of propulsion? That the light pressure itself is causing the thrust?

 

[Cowabungaa]

How does one create a machine that they do not know how it works? I am coming at this from all angles, but thrusting this information upon one so briefly does make one dazed and confused. Or should i say...spaced?

You've been quoted a fair few times now, but I'll do so again to repeat what I've said already; we've actually done that a few times already. We don't even 100% understand how bicycles manage to balance themselves, yet we use them all the time. The same with magnets.

 

[truckspond]

So this thing could be using zero-point energy to produce thrust... I'm not sure if that's absurdly cool or absolutely terrifying.

 

[Neurotic Void Melody]

You've been quoted a fair few times now, but I'll do so again to repeat what I've said already; we've actually done that a few times already. We don't even 100% understand how bicycles manage to balance themselves, yet we use them all the time. The same with magnets.

But i always thought it was because i was brilliant at balancing on them, oh and the others too of course! Are you telling me that supernatural forces really just giving me safety wheels? They (and by that i mean me) told me i was a big boy then! Liars, dirty scoundrel liars! Interesting though, worth a trawl through some internets to find out more. They cannot lie to me again, can they? Haha!

 

[Dach]

We don't even really know how a bicycle physically functions.

Yeah, we do. The fact that there are additional complexities to how a bike balances beyond what was traditionally thought and that we haven't yet shown if the newer understanding of the physics behind it is comprehensive does not mean we "don't know" how it works.

Just curious, but is this perhaps just something similar to the "solar sails" form of propulsion? That the light pressure itself is causing the thrust?

They are trying to eliminate outside interference. It is in an evacuated environment with thermal cameras and magnetic shielding. I'd assume they'd minimize light sources too but even if they didn't, the "thrust" exhibited was much larger than any photon propulsion (despite the "thrust" itself being incredibly minute). I'd still peg this to some sort of environmental contamination.

 

[Czann]

If this is proven to work (if they rule out whatever a thermal contamination is) this will be a new window for physics.

I doubt we are even close to know everything about the basic bricks of the universe.

 

[Cowabungaa]

We don't even really know how a bicycle physically functions.

Yeah, we do. The fact that there are additional complexities to how a bike balances beyond what was traditionally thought and that we haven't yet shown if the newer understanding of the physics behind it is comprehensive does not mean we "don't know" how it works.

Well, with that I mean that we don't really know what's vital to a bike's balance. We know certain factors come into play, sure, but we can take those away (like they did with that weird-ass 'bike' at the TU Delft, leave it to the Dutch to study bikes alright) and still have the weirdest thing we know happen to it.

Hence why I say; we don't really (or 100%, as I wrote in a different post) understand how it works. Which is sorta funny, considering it's not exactly a super fancy machine. Fitting with my point that this wouldn't be the first time we'd build a machine that we'd know works but we wouldn't really know how it does so.

Of course, the scale is quite a bit of difference. I'm not sure I'd be comfortable putting some kind of scaled up version (if that'd end up being possible) on a spaceship if I didn't know why it'd does what it'd does. With a bike the worst that could happen is you'd take a bit of a tumble.

 

[kuolonen]

...In warhammer 40k techpriests use technology that far surpasses their understanding of it, which leads them to interact with old technology with a religious method, praising the machine spirit for its workings. The explanation being that while all theory of higher technology has been lost, the methods of using and manufacturing exist, and so they are able to use what they cannot fundamentally understand.

But perhaps it's not so, maybe nobody never understood technology in the first place, and the just went:"Forget it. I don't know how it works, but it works, so lets just roll with it." And it only escalated from there. It's only a matter of time for a warp drive now!

 

[Strazdas]

looks like this device is starting to consistently prove itself in every test. while there still are kinks to work out it seems, but if we manage to have zero energy thrust here and find a way to scale it this could be an actual perpetuum mobile. the amount of things that would disprove..... i dread to think about it.

 

[Major_Tom]

NASA engineer this, NASA engineer that... while technically true, until results are replicated by Glenn or JPL, it's highly misleading. Some dudes at Eagleworks do not represent NASA.

 

[Lightknight]

Just curious, but is this perhaps just something similar to the "solar sails" form of propulsion? That the light pressure itself is causing the thrust?

Solar Sails work by being pushed forward by light. Basically, a photon hits the reflective service and bounces off. This imparts momentum. In this scenario, the photon is the propellant and does not challenge traditional physics. It's a very cost effect manner of traveling within a solar system and works surprisingly a lot like regular sailing does but where we use wind here they use light up there.

The EMDrive is emiting microwaves from itself and that is somehow generating thrust and we're not entirely sure how. The best guess is that it is somehow creating/emitting virtual particles and those are serving as the propellant. But we really don't know and until thermal expansion is ruled out we don't have to really start doing the hardest math of figuring out what would essentially be a new physical property requiring new math to work out.

 

[Lightknight]

I was wrong, the thermal expansion isn't a problem, the thrust is above the heat errors which means that removing all heat contamination should still leave thrust regardless. Looks like now they just intend to reduce the thermal contamination so they can take a better look at what's going on and widen the gap between heat error and thrust. This was actually already true of the first test they ran and I just forgot that they had accounted for heat contamination but the shock was that there was thrust beyond the expected measurements of heat error.

New information from the EagleWorks forum:

According to Paul M. (a lead engineer on the project) they expect the peer reviewed paper to come out in the first half of next year.

Also, their tests do appear to have accounted for thermal expansion and they have also tested this with an aluminum frustum instead of copper and they "May" have still observed thrust but Paul cannot say any more than that.

looks like this device is starting to consistently prove itself in every test. while there still are kinks to work out it seems, but if we manage to have zero energy thrust here and find a way to scale it this could be an actual perpetuum mobile. the amount of things that would disprove..... i dread to think about it.

It would still require energy in the form of a battery or solar panels or hell, a full-scale nuclear facility on the vehicle. The source of that energy would not be perpetual even if we ended up having some sort of super efficient fusion reactor at some point. This is functionally no different than say a solar powered car where the "perpetual motion" considerations are involved in that it is not perpetual motion.

If this is proven to work (if they rule out whatever a thermal contamination is) this will be a new window for physics.

I doubt we are even close to know everything about the basic bricks of the universe.

If I'm reading their words carefully, they have already ruled out thermal expansion. The thrust being generated is above the movement caused by expansion. They just want to reduce thermal expansion to have a cleaner experiment. That's very exciting if I'm reading them right. Now it's just about fine tuning the experiment, repeating the results, getting more funding and then scaling up.

Looks like another group is working on a cubesat for the drive. That would be exciting too.

In fairness, these tests are purposely being conducted at low power/thrust.

Nah. It's not easily scalable. If it were, they'd be more than happy to scale it up to the point where the effect couldn't be mistaken for tiny fluctuations of various obscure effects. Depending on what's really going on, it is fairly likely that it cannot be scaled up - quantum effects often don't.

That's not necessarily true. Not only does scaling up require money to do so but it isn't necessary at this stage of testing yet. They've currently got a setup where the thrust is above the heat error. This means that they can fine tune testing at a very low cost. As one person on the forum said, "It's foolish to scale it up in power when you have the equipment to still detect levels of thrust."

Once they've figured out how to best test this and how to negate the other factors, that's when they scale. Also, their funding is limited until they finish the appropriate channels of R&D for NASA's satisfaction.

 

[Pyrian]

In fairness, these tests are purposely being conducted at low power/thrust.

Nah. It's not easily scalable. If it were, they'd be more than happy to scale it up to the point where the effect couldn't be mistaken for tiny fluctuations of various obscure effects. Depending on what's really going on, it is fairly likely that it cannot be scaled up - quantum effects often don't.

That's not necessarily true.

That's why I used the words "fairly likely" instead of "absolutely certainly".

Not only does scaling up require money to do so but it isn't necessary at this stage of testing yet. They've currently got a setup where the thrust is above the heat error.

It's absolutely necessary, because right now the best hypothesis remains that they missed something somewhere. It's simply too easy for such minor effects to get into any experiment by some form of contamination. Remember FTL neutrinos? Sonoluminescent cold fusion? The dustbin of science is chock full of this sort of thing.

Once they've figured out how to best test this and how to negate the other factors, that's when they scale.

Or, you eliminate both of those problems BY scaling. Significant thrust is easy to test and doesn't require negating things that are very difficult to negate.

 

[Lightknight]

In fairness, these tests are purposely being conducted at low power/thrust.

Nah. It's not easily scalable. If it were, they'd be more than happy to scale it up to the point where the effect couldn't be mistaken for tiny fluctuations of various obscure effects. Depending on what's really going on, it is fairly likely that it cannot be scaled up - quantum effects often don't.

That's not necessarily true.

That's why I used the words "fairly likely" instead of "absolutely certainly".

Not only does scaling up require money to do so but it isn't necessary at this stage of testing yet. They've currently got a setup where the thrust is above the heat error.

It's absolutely necessary, because right now the best hypothesis remains that they missed something somewhere. It's simply too easy for such minor effects to get into any experiment by some form of contamination. Remember FTL neutrinos? Sonoluminescent cold fusion? The dustbin of science is chock full of this sort of thing.

Once they've figured out how to best test this and how to negate the other factors, that's when they scale.

Or, you eliminate both of those problems BY scaling. Significant thrust is easy to test and doesn't require negating things that are very difficult to negate.

But, and I can't stress this enough, money money money moonnney, money. It will be expensive to scale. Right now they can fine tune the test in preparation for an expensive scaled test. They can rule out the outliers and exceptions to the point where NASA will pour really money their way.

Given limited resources this is how you proceed. This is standard R&D procedure in NASA. This latest test may provide NASA with the information they need to ramp up the cash. Or they may want something more. We'll have to see.

 

[Strazdas]

looks like this device is starting to consistently prove itself in every test. while there still are kinks to work out it seems, but if we manage to have zero energy thrust here and find a way to scale it this could be an actual perpetuum mobile. the amount of things that would disprove..... i dread to think about it.

It would still require energy in the form of a battery or solar panels or hell, a full-scale nuclear facility on the vehicle. The source of that energy would not be perpetual even if we ended up having some sort of super efficient fusion reactor at some point. This is functionally no different than say a solar powered car where the "perpetual motion" considerations are involved in that it is not perpetual motion.

Perhaps i am mistaken, but isnt this generating a zero-energy thrust? wouldnt converting that thrust into energy would mean that this is basically creating more energy than its spending, thus could run perpetually without additional energy once started? Maybe i just misunderstood what this does....

 

[vallorn]

Yes, but how are our Gellar Field tests going? Lets not have a repeat of Alan Grant and the Event Horizon.

Spoiler: Where we're going, we wont need eyes to see...

Then again, we could always just pull a Necrontyr and manipulate the laws of physics to slingshot us about without regard for silly things like conservation of energy, momentum or those boring laws of thermodynamics.

looks like this device is starting to consistently prove itself in every test. while there still are kinks to work out it seems, but if we manage to have zero energy thrust here and find a way to scale it this could be an actual perpetuum mobile. the amount of things that would disprove..... i dread to think about it.

It would still require energy in the form of a battery or solar panels or hell, a full-scale nuclear facility on the vehicle. The source of that energy would not be perpetual even if we ended up having some sort of super efficient fusion reactor at some point. This is functionally no different than say a solar powered car where the "perpetual motion" considerations are involved in that it is not perpetual motion.

Perhaps i am mistaken, but isnt this generating a zero-energy thrust? wouldnt converting that thrust into energy would mean that this is basically creating more energy than its spending, thus could run perpetually without additional energy once started? Maybe i just misunderstood what this does....

It produces thrust but it does it without using a propellant. Every single rocket or jet we have accelerates a mass out of one end of a nozzle and uses Newton's Laws to push the ship in the opposite direction, this thing takes in energy and somehow, we have no idea how, moves without pushing a propellant out of it or anything like that.

This thing seems to violate newton's laws and that is why this is "anomalous thrust"

 

[Strazdas]

looks like this device is starting to consistently prove itself in every test. while there still are kinks to work out it seems, but if we manage to have zero energy thrust here and find a way to scale it this could be an actual perpetuum mobile. the amount of things that would disprove..... i dread to think about it.

It would still require energy in the form of a battery or solar panels or hell, a full-scale nuclear facility on the vehicle. The source of that energy would not be perpetual even if we ended up having some sort of super efficient fusion reactor at some point. This is functionally no different than say a solar powered car where the "perpetual motion" considerations are involved in that it is not perpetual motion.

Perhaps i am mistaken, but isnt this generating a zero-energy thrust? wouldnt converting that thrust into energy would mean that this is basically creating more energy than its spending, thus could run perpetually without additional energy once started? Maybe i just misunderstood what this does....

It produces thrust but it does it without using a propellant. Every single rocket or jet we have accelerates a mass out of one end of a nozzle and uses Newton's Laws to push the ship in the opposite direction, this thing takes in energy and somehow, we have no idea how, moves without pushing a propellant out of it or anything like that.

This thing seems to violate newton's laws and that is why this is "anomalous thrust"

Thanks, i understand the error in my thinking. still quite amazing possibilities. slap a long term nuclear reactor and fly around space without having to carry tons of fuel. since rockets supposedly are 99% fuel in weight, this would mean far easier escape from the gravity well.

 

[vallorn]

how much thrust are we talking about here? how big is that thing(the picture doesn't have anything next to it to put it into scale) and much force does it supposedly generate?

Negligible. Nobody's using this unexplained anomaly to go anywhere without several orders of magnitude more to explain. It's worth noting that the experiment conclusively disproved the hypotheses that caused the device to be built in the first place.

In fairness, these tests are purposely being conducted at low power/thrust. Scientists are just trying to figure out how this thing works, not Kerbal Space Program it to a starship to see what happens.

That in mind, reports from earlier this year predicted that if everything works as advertised, and we put a version of it on a two-to-six person spaceship, it could reach the moon within four hours and reach neighboring star systems in about a century. Not Star Trek light speed figures, but not too shabby either.

Some part of me takes a much larger amount of joy than it should that you used KSP as a verb there... Also, someone needs to mod this into Kerbal Space Program yesterday so we can Kerbalise a rocket around it... I wonder how effective asparagus staging would be...

Can I go back to hoping that the old Orion Pulse Drive concept gets a green light too?

looks like this device is starting to consistently prove itself in every test. while there still are kinks to work out it seems, but if we manage to have zero energy thrust here and find a way to scale it this could be an actual perpetuum mobile. the amount of things that would disprove..... i dread to think about it.

It would still require energy in the form of a battery or solar panels or hell, a full-scale nuclear facility on the vehicle. The source of that energy would not be perpetual even if we ended up having some sort of super efficient fusion reactor at some point. This is functionally no different than say a solar powered car where the "perpetual motion" considerations are involved in that it is not perpetual motion.

Perhaps i am mistaken, but isnt this generating a zero-energy thrust? wouldnt converting that thrust into energy would mean that this is basically creating more energy than its spending, thus could run perpetually without additional energy once started? Maybe i just misunderstood what this does....

It produces thrust but it does it without using a propellant. Every single rocket or jet we have accelerates a mass out of one end of a nozzle and uses Newton's Laws to push the ship in the opposite direction, this thing takes in energy and somehow, we have no idea how, moves without pushing a propellant out of it or anything like that.

This thing seems to violate newton's laws and that is why this is "anomalous thrust"

Thanks, i understand the error in my thinking. still quite amazing possibilities. slap a long term nuclear reactor and fly around space without having to carry tons of fuel. since rockets supposedly are 99% fuel in weight, this would mean far easier escape from the gravity well.

Then that nuclear reactor is now your fuel, You've swapped rocket fuel for electricity generating fuel, that's all. And we don't know how efficient this thing is at converting electrical energy into thrust. However, it does have applications for replacing things like monopropelant thrusters at the very least.

 

[Strazdas]

Thanks, i understand the error in my thinking. still quite amazing possibilities. slap a long term nuclear reactor and fly around space without having to carry tons of fuel. since rockets supposedly are 99% fuel in weight, this would mean far easier escape from the gravity well.

Then that nuclear reactor is now your fuel, You've swapped rocket fuel for electricity generating fuel, that's all. And we don't know how efficient this thing is at converting electrical energy into thrust. However, it does have applications for replacing things like monopropelant thrusters at the very least.

Unless the efficiency is ridiculously low as to have no practical applications at all, its going to drastically reduce the weight either way. Its also a longterm solvant. a nuclear reactor can run for hundreds of years. you cant take enough fuel to keep thrusting for hundreds of years.

 

[Lightknight]

Yes, but how are our Gellar Field tests going? Lets not have a repeat of Alan Grant and the Event Horizon.

Spoiler: Where we're going, we wont need eyes to see...

Then again, we could always just pull a Necrontyr and manipulate the laws of physics to slingshot us about without regard for silly things like conservation of energy, momentum or those boring laws of thermodynamics.

looks like this device is starting to consistently prove itself in every test. while there still are kinks to work out it seems, but if we manage to have zero energy thrust here and find a way to scale it this could be an actual perpetuum mobile. the amount of things that would disprove..... i dread to think about it.

It would still require energy in the form of a battery or solar panels or hell, a full-scale nuclear facility on the vehicle. The source of that energy would not be perpetual even if we ended up having some sort of super efficient fusion reactor at some point. This is functionally no different than say a solar powered car where the "perpetual motion" considerations are involved in that it is not perpetual motion.

Perhaps i am mistaken, but isnt this generating a zero-energy thrust? wouldnt converting that thrust into energy would mean that this is basically creating more energy than its spending, thus could run perpetually without additional energy once started? Maybe i just misunderstood what this does....

It produces thrust but it does it without using a propellant. Every single rocket or jet we have accelerates a mass out of one end of a nozzle and uses Newton's Laws to push the ship in the opposite direction, this thing takes in energy and somehow, we have no idea how, moves without pushing a propellant out of it or anything like that.

This thing seems to violate newton's laws and that is why this is "anomalous thrust"

Exactly. Though if it really is producing virtual particles then it is technically making a propellant and would then be entirely in-line with Newton's laws because even though they exist for incredibly short periods of time, anything they interact with will be impacted by their momentum and when they disappear that transferred momentum still exists. Seems like the engineers on this project believe this or something nearly identical to this has to be happening.

Thanks, i understand the error in my thinking. still quite amazing possibilities. slap a long term nuclear reactor and fly around space without having to carry tons of fuel. since rockets supposedly are 99% fuel in weight, this would mean far easier escape from the gravity well.

Then that nuclear reactor is now your fuel, You've swapped rocket fuel for electricity generating fuel, that's all. And we don't know how efficient this thing is at converting electrical energy into thrust. However, it does have applications for replacing things like monopropelant thrusters at the very least.

Unless the efficiency is ridiculously low as to have no practical applications at all, its going to drastically reduce the weight either way. Its also a longterm solvant. a nuclear reactor can run for hundreds of years. you cant take enough fuel to keep thrusting for hundreds of years.

Also exactly. Not to mention that there can be battery/solar powered models too but for deep space you really do need an ongoing power source and something like Nuclear or Fusion are the only ways to go with that.