Thanks servo1969.
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Posted on 08/01/2014 4:13:21 PM PDT by servo1969
A better example would be the Wright Brothers. There actually was some theoretical debate about whether heavier than air flight was possible.
They actually pushed the boundaries of science and practically invented the science of aerodynamics.
Yeah, these kind of comments, like the well-known claim that Bumble Bee flight “violates the laws of aerodynamics” drive me nuts. The Chinese had rockets as far back as the 7th century, and rockets have been used in warfare for nearly a thousand years. Nobody thought Goddard’s ideas were kooky in the least.
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20140006052.pdf
Among the interesting facts from the paper: The measured thrust was only about 0.0001 ounces. They put the device in a vacuum chamber, but never bothered to actually test it in a vacuum. Most significantly, they build a "null" device, intentionally built to not produce any thrust, but that also appeared to show thrust. This is a strong indication that there is a systematic measurement error in their setup.
Clarke’s Three Laws are three “laws” of prediction formulated by the British writer Arthur C. Clarke. They are:
1.) When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
2.)The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.
3.)Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
Nothing is “impossible”, there’s only stuff we haven’t tried yet....
Really nuclear power has been used in powering satellites for decades but are low powered reactors in the 10 top 500 kWatt range.
The problem that will have to be dealt with for a nuclear power plant to power such an engine is waste heat. The small size of the past and present space reactors made the waste heat easy enough to deal with.
The only method of disposing of waste heat in space is radiant heat. Some sort of enormous heat radiator will have to be developed.
I’ve always wondered if instead of requiring a large reactive mass by pushing, instead we tried to pull and push. What I mean by this is have a collector up front that pulls in light, particles, background radiation energy like a vacuum... it could be partially or wholly passive and then funnel it through a nozzle on the back end.
This should create a positive force in the forward direction though incremental energy pressure differential, but it would have the potential of limiting or eliminating the mass required to be carried for fuel.
There may also be a means of attraction through gravimetric force if willing to add significant mass to the vessel to increase attraction of particles - diverting them from the mass and aft of the vessel.
I see from some of the latter posts the geometric ideas in this proposal and see a similarity with lift on wings.
ROTFLOL
Captain, the tribble with troubles (hic) is they drank all me scotch.
Ah, Space Battleship Yamato...
I always regret that the non-technically leaning readers will miss the significance of that statement.
This is an example of true classic science. An essential part of true science demands a second step; try to devise ways to explain or disprove the original theory.
I’m not a physicist, but what if you had two microwave emitters mounted opposite sides of a box pointing to a front panel and emitting opposite waves. each wave would bounce towards the other emitter and get cancelled... but the bounce point would receive the energy.
if that worked, then just have loads of paired emitters on the inner walls to increase the force on the front wall.
I believe this would eliminate the opposite reaction when the bounced waves would normally hit the back wall, nullifying the forward momentum. if so, then the forward momentum would allow for as much ‘thrust’ as the energy you have to create the microwaves.
thoughts?
If this drive system can be scaled up enough - like some articles suggest (Mars in weeks), humans most definitely will conquer the solar system I think.
We could retire to hollowed-out asteroids someday.
How the reactionless space drive could send nuclear subs into orbit
http://io9.com/how-the-reactionless-space-drive-could-send-nuclear-sub-1493423673
Maybe not, if ‘science’ will pay closer attention to the postulates of Haisch and Rueda.
Yeah, these kind of comments, like the well-known claim that Bumble Bee flight “violates the laws of aerodynamics” drive me nuts. The Chinese had rockets as far back as the 7th century, and rockets have been used in warfare for nearly a thousand years. Nobody thought Goddard’s ideas were kooky in the least.
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Yes, they did think he was kooky.
Everyone knew rockets would work - in the atmosphere.
But Goddard was talking about rockets into SPACE. And EVERYONE know rockets wouldn’t work in a vacuum because they needed something to push against.
It said so in the New York Times.
Like an Ion engine it probably takes forever to build up speed
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Assuming it works this is true. Ditto slowing down.
The increasing confinement of a narrowing waveguide (convergent) leads to a widening wavelength and a decrease of the group velocity (lower momentum transfer
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I don’t understand this statement. A narrowing waveguide will support higher frequencies in the lowest waveguide modes. You can argue that the bandwidth increases as a result. But widening wavelength? What does that mean?
They set the photons oscillating in a chamber which forces the wavelengths to change as the photon goes from one end to the other. This alters the group velocity of the photons, which changes the radiation pressure as the photons strike each end of the cavity.
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Someone needs to explain how you change the wavelength of a photon without some non-linear mechanism. Are we really talking about somehow filtering the AVERAGE wavelength of a broadband energy source as a function of the direction of travel in the cavity?
The only way I can conceive of this working is if you could direct the microwave impacts to only hit the front side of the box. This would require catching any reflecting photons and redirecting them back at the front side, without letting them strike any other surface to impart their momentum. Some sort of non-physical system, like a magnetic containment field, might do the trick, but I have a feeling that there is a “catch” I am not thinking of that would make even that solution not work.
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I think you got it. True story here. My brother was reading the specs on an experiment his son was doing in his graduate program in rocket engineering. The experiment was designed to re-purpose a device meant to create electromagnetic waves into a device that creates a big electromagnetic funnel to funnel ions in space in one end of a device and spit them out the other.
My brother told his son. “Wait a minute. You could turn this into thrust to make an engine. I saw this in science fiction a couple decades back.”
“Yup.” Said his son.
When I heard this story over Christmas I told my brother he had some serious bragging rights. His son was doing some interesting work as well.
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