Posted on 11/07/2016 1:06:47 AM PST by LibWhacker
The results of NASA's tests on the 'impossible' EM Drive have been leaked, and they reveal that the controversial propulsion system really does work, and is capable of generating impressive thrust in a vacuum, even after error measurements have been accounted for.
The EM Drive has made headlines over the past year, because it offers the incredible possibility of a fuel-free propulsion system that could potentially get us to Mars in just 70 days. But there's one major problem: according to the current laws of physics, it shouldn't work.
The issue is the fact that the EM Drive defies Newton's third law, which states that everything must have an equal and opposite reaction. So, according to Newton and our current understanding of the world around us, for a system to produce propulsion, it has to push something out the other way (in space, that's usually combusted rocket fuel).
But the EM Drive works without any fuel or propellants at all. It works by simply bouncing microwave photons back and forth inside a cone-shaped closed metal cavity. That motion causes the 'pointy end' of the EM Drive to generate thrust, and propel the drive in the opposite direction.
Despite years of testing and debate, the drive remains controversial. The bottom line is that, on paper, it shouldn't work, according to the laws of physics. And yet, in test after test, the EM Drive just keeps on working.
Last year, NASA's Eagleworks Laboratory got involved to try to independently verify or debunk the EM Drive once and for all. And a new paper on its tests in late 2015 has just been leaked, showing that not only does the EM Drive work - it also generates some pretty impressive thrust.
To be clear, despite rumours that a NASA paper on these tests has passed the peer-review process, the version that's been leaked hasn't been published in an academic journal. So, for now, this is just one group of researchers reporting on their results, without any external verification.
But the paper concludes that, after error measurements have been accounted for, the EM Drive generates force of 1.2 millinewtons per kilowatt in a vacuum.
That's not an insignificant amount - to put it into perspective, the super-powerful Hall thruster generates force of 60 millinewtons per kilowatt, an order of magnitude more than the EM Drive.
But the Hall thruster uses fuel and requires a spacecraft to carry heavy propellants, and that extra weight could offset the higher thrust, the NASA Eagleworks team conclude in the paper.
Light sails on the other hand, which are currently the most popular form of zero-propellant propulsion, use beams of sunlight to propel them forward rather than fuel. And they only generate force up to 6.67 micronewtons per kilowatt - two orders of magnitude less than NASA's EM Drive, says the paper.
The NASA Eagleworks team measured the EM Drive's force using a low thrust pendulum at the Johnson Space Centre, and the tests were performed at 40, 60, and 80 watts.
They were looking for any sign that the thrust could be a result of another anomaly in the system, but for now, that doesn't appear to be the case.
"The test campaign included a null thrust test effort to identify any mundane sources of impulsive thrust, however none were identified," the team, led by Harold White, concluded in the paper.
"Thrust data from forward, reverse, and null suggests that the system is consistently performing with a thrust to power ratio of 1.2 ± 0.1 millinewtons per kilowatt."
But the team does acknowledge that more research is needed to eliminate the possibility that thermal expansion could be somehow skewing the results.
They also make it clear that this testing wasn't designed to optimise the thrust of the EM Drive, but simply to test whether it worked, so further tweaking could make the propulsion system more efficient and powerful.
So where does this leave us with the EM Drive? Again, the results haven't been published as yet - although rumours are circulating that we're getting tantalisingly close to that happening - so we need to take these leaked results with a grain of salt.
But they do offer further evidence that the thrust produced by the EM Drive is real. So it might be time to start trying to figure out how the system could work - and, more importantly, start testing the drive in space.
Thankfully that's scheduled to happen in the coming months, with the first EM Drive already having been launched into space back in September.
And back in June, a team of researchers from Finland proposed a way that the EM Drive could work without defying Newton's third law, by propelling photons as a type of exhaust - although that hypothesis has yet to be tested.
We're still a long way off understanding how the system works - or if it works at all - but a lot of brilliant minds are now seriously considering the possibility that we might have a way to get to space without rocket fuel. We're excited to see what happens next.
Mars in 70 days is great, but Cher wanted to go to Jupiter.
Ed
She would just try to get out of the car by the asteroid belt and hitch for a faster model car.
Swell, now the Chineese can rip off this concept and colonize the solar system. Like Trump says, why do we have to tell the world everything we know?
We’ll give her the luxury cabin.
why not just take the TR3B.YOU can go from the moon to mars in 20 minutes,a lot faster.Nahhh... just kidding you guys are not ready for what really exists yet.
There is no getting past the laws of physics.
If these devices are producing thrust, then there is an equal and opposite thrust. There is no avoiding that.
The device is described as cone-shaped, with the thrust occurring at the nose of the cone. I wonder if whoever is looking at these devices is unable to measure the opposite thrust because it is spread over the base of the cone and the measuring instruments are not sensitive enough to pick it up.
Since the EM drive concept originated in England in 2001 and was tested in China in 2010, It’s not really an American-only thing.
PFL
I always thought the next big drive would come from magnetism. Perhaps they are not seeing why this drive works because they are focused on the microwaves and ignoring possible magnetic artifacts.
I don’t think any laws are being violated...the bounced around microwaves are being produced by energy and the energy being produced is able to be made phase coherent and focused to produce usable thrust. I wonder if he equal/opposite reaction equation is made up for by energy being used/and transferred from microwave to magnetic field energy which is working opposite gravity. We need to get this device into free fall to see if gravity repulsion is the factor in how this drive works or not. If it doesn’t work in space then the factor has to be gravitational repulsion. If gravity repulsion is the key...then we may very well have solved the problem of getting heavy lift vehicles into orbit using small fractions of the energy necessary of traditional chemical rocketry!...but I wouldn’t look for it to power vehicles in free fall to Mars!( it could be used to assist in landings and takes offs...perhaps in slingshot maneuvres around planets...ect!)
Constant thrust in a closed sysyem with no energy expended is impossible. What they are describing is just the latest version of the Perpetual Motion Machine hoax.
If it were true, then you could easily provide free energy to anybody, anywhere on the planet. Simply construct a vacuum container, attach the cone device to a dynamo and, voila, fred energy!
This is hogwash.
“Free” energy too! ;)
Here is the link to download the .pdf of the actual experiment report.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7kgKijo-p0ibm94VUY0TVktQlU/view
60 watts at 2GHZ is not insignificant power. RF is a lot different than 60 HZ AC.
Now my question, what power source would drive such a device in space?
Hogwash?
Yes. It appears to ignore the issue of generating 60 Watts of RF at 2GHZ (in the test example).
This sounds like pop science BS, but appears to be a real experiment at JSC.
I’m very skeptical.
Can this have any other use other than propulsion in a vacuum?
It appears that the experiment is a legitimate one.
I think the issue is one of beaming microwave to the thruster in space to drive it. It still requires an external RF source.
I have no idea.
It appears that the experiment is a legitimate one.
I think the issue is one of beaming microwave to the thruster in space to drive it. It still requires an external RF source.
—
This statement in the article puzzles me:
“It works by simply bouncing microwave photons back and forth inside a cone-shaped closed metal cavity.”
To me, microwave RF is not the same particle as photons. This makes me suspect the concept.
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