Emdrive: It's Real!

[Lu Xun]

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/nasa-says-emdrive-does-work-it-may-have-also-created-star-trek-warp-drive-1499098

 

 

Nasa says EmDrive does work and it may have also created a Star Trek warp drive

By Mary-Ann Russon
April 30, 2015 11:16 BST
10,983
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Nasa has proven that the controversial space propulsion technology EmDrive works and also accidentally might have made a warp drive, as used by the Star Trek Enterprise to travel, possible(Paramount Pictures)

Nasa has been testing a highly controversial electromagnetic space propulsion technology called EmDrive and has found evidence that it may indeed work, and along the way, might even have made a sci-fi concept possible.

The EmDrive is a technology that could make it much cheaper to launch satellites into space and could be key to solving the energy crisis, if solar power could be harnessed off the satellites and sent back to Earth.




It was thought up and developed by a British scientist called Roger Shawyer, who spent years having his technology ridiculed by the international space community even though Boeing licensed it and the UK government was satisfied it worked.

Read More: Roger Shawyer's exclusive interview with IBTimes UK in response to news of Nasa's experiments with EmDrive

Nasa has been testing the technology for a while and it confirmed on 29 April that researchers at the Johnson Space Center have successfully tested an electromagnetic propulsion drive in a vacuum, and although it did not seem possible, the technology actually works.

"Thrust measurements of the EmDrive defy classical physics' expectations that such a closed [microwave] cavity should be unusable for space propulsion because of the law of conservation of momentum," Nasa's José Rodal, Jeremiah Mullikin and Noel Munson wrote in a Nasa Spaceflight blog.
What is EmDrive?

EmDrive is based on the theory of special relativity that it is possible to convert electrical energy into thrust without the need to expel any form of repellent.

Shawyer's critics say according to the law of conservation of momentum, his theory cannot work as in order for a thruster to be propelled forwards, something must be pushed out of the back of it in the opposite direction.

However, EmDrive does preserve the conservation of momentum and energy – to put it simply, electricity converts into microwaves within the cavity that push against the inside of the device, causing the thruster to accelerate in the opposite direction.

Shawyer proved that if you had a 100kg spacecraft, the thrust would be in a clockwise direction and the spacecraft would then accelerate in an anti-clockwise direction.
Nasa says it works when tested in a vacuum

The EmDrive created by Shawyer's space company Satellite Propulsion Research Ltd(Roger Shawyer, Satellite Propulsion Research Ltd)

The researchers explain that the reason why Shawyer's EmDrive models and EmDrive experiments carried out by Chinese researchers had been criticised in the past was because none of the tests had been carried out in a vacuum.

Physics says particles in the quantum vacuum cannot be ionised, so therefore you cannot push against it, but Nasa says Shawyer's theory does indeed work.

"Nasa has successfully tested their EmDrive in a hard vacuum – the first time any organisation has reported such a successful test. To this end, Nasa Eagleworks has now nullified the prevailing hypothesis that thrust measurements were due to thermal convection," the researchers wrote.

Nasa says its researchers joined forces with a large community of enthusiasts, engineers, and scientists on several continents to discuss EmDrive theories on the NasaSpaceflight.com EmDrive forum, and "despite considerable effort within the NasaSpaceflight.com forum to dismiss the reported thrust as an artefact, the EmDrive results have yet to be falsified".

At least now Shawyer's work is being validated and he continues to work on a souped-up second generation version of the EmDrive that uses super conductors and an asymmetrical cavity to increase the thrust by up to five orders of magnitude.

In an interview with IBTimes UK in August 2014, Shawyer said: "There was an element of not wanting to disrupt the industry, but also a total ignorance in the laws of physics. They did make life difficult for me for a while.

""The space industry doesn't want to know about it as it's very disruptive. If the customer will spend hundreds of millions of dollars on launching a satellite, why would you want to make something that could do it cheaper?

"This technology is a quantum leap – it would enable vertical take-off and landing for airplanes, it's quiet and it uses liquid hydrogen as a fuel, so it's green too."
Star Trek warp drive might also now be possible

Apart from the excitement over EmDrive possibly being a real thing, internet users also noticed Nasa could possibly have accidentally invented the warp drive – a faster-than-light propulsion system that enables spacecraft to travel at speeds that are greatly faster than light in sci-fi movies such as Star Trek.

Nasa researchers posted on the Nasa Spaceflight forum that when lasers were fired into the EmDrive's resonance chamber, some of the laser beams had travelled faster than the speed of light, which would mean the EmDrive could have produced a warp bubble.

A post by another user analysing the EmDrive experiment said "the math behind the warp bubble apparently matches the interference pattern found in the EmDrive".

 

I've always been terrified of the prospect of human spaceflight, simply because I don't think human beings are mature enough as a species to get off planet, and that it would be better for us to undergo the technological singularity before getting off world. There is simply no reason to replicate the patterns, as they now exist, on Earth, on other planets, because we will continue to kill each other, exploit each other, and make each other miserable among the stars. Better to transcend our limitations on Earth, first, than to become a type of interstellar locust.

Others may think differently, of course.

[fistofdoom]

#roachesofthegalaxy2015

[TellUrGrlThx]

!@#$ your opinion. Time to conquer the universe.

[Bilal the Great]

Humanity !@#$ yeah!

[Nobeard]

If NASA can undercut private companies by using this cheaper and better technology that would be wonderful.

[Aphelion]

I say that all space exploration should be internationally funded. It should be an effort for Humanity, not a single country or bloc of countries.

We still have a lot of maturing to do as a specie if we are ever going to achieve that. First step is a one world government.

[Aesir]

So first off the only way we will go to space is if people want to and a profit can be made. Simple as that. Secondly I hate how everyone says we need a world government. That idea is stupid. Why does Earth need to be united to spread among the stars? I wouldn't want to have my government be located anywhere but where I live and I am sure others feel the same. The easiest way to create colonies is to let people make them themselves. If a government makes a colony naturally we might get an American Revolution scenario. Nothing on Earth can rule a colony, the distances and the differences would be way to great. Simply put the only way we can control the galaxy is through military force or a loose confederation. So therefore the idea that Earth needs to be united to go to the stars is foolish. Did that get us to the moon? No competition between the USSR and the US did. Competition will get us further than cooperation.

[Lu Xun]

Regulated capitalism is the most efficient economic system for humans right now, but why should humans be allowed to get off planet? That's what I'm afraid of, when it comes to humans getting off planet under a capitalist system, the likely outcome will be the despoiling of native ecosystems, the enslavement or annihilation of less-advanced aliens, or picking stupid fights with more advanced aliens that will likely come and wipe us out.

Better to fix our problems at home, and replace humans with robots, cyborgs, AI, and other post-human life forms, before Terran civilization gets off-world. They, hopefully, will have better instincts and better judgments.

[Filthy Fifths]

Thank you America.

[Alice Lune]

Read halfway through the OP post.

 

/me stops reading and opens the wiki page instead.

[Comrade Joe]

That's no moon!

[fistofdoom]

I would have expected more comments.

[Makers Mark]

Are you seriously dissing the entire !@#$ species. Screw you.

 

settdle down. . . its just his opinion

[Lu Xun]

Study history, and the history of genocides (Ran Min's massacre of the assimilated Xianbei tribesmen), massacres (consider the Hundred-Years War in Germany), conquests (consider the macrodeath that was associated with the Mongol conquests, as well as the destruction of both the Islamic and Chinese golden ages), exploitation (Atlantic slave trade), and death (Potosi silver mine, where the native Amerindians died from overwork, malnutrition, and disease, and were ultimately replaced by African slaves). People act like it's something special about the present era that makes us so "degenerate" but we've been this way since the caveman Cain killed the caveman Abel. The contradiction most people seem to be facing is that there are romantic stories and pop culture where the hero usually saves the day and the villain goes to seed, but in real life, while the Aztecs probably deserved it, what did the Incans ever do to deserve Pizarro's wrath?

I think it was the International Relations specialist John Mearsheimer who remarked (and I paraphrase) that while the Western world will rarely remember that it achieved its ascent through force of arms, the non-Western world will never forget it.

 

This isn't to say that there aren't many positive aspects about human behavior, human life, and human interaction, but the negatives are so great. You have to remember, if you're reading this post, you're likely an American or an European or someone who belongs to the top billion of the world in wealth, you have already achieved a lucky roll in the game of life. However, there are another 6 billion people on this earth, and they tend to live in poor countries ravaged by disease, strife and neglect.

It betrays a serious lack of empathy to dream of flying off to Mars on your new Elon Musk billion-dollar Emdrive rocket while there is so much sentience that suffering on this planet.

A hypothetical morally and technologically superior alien species would be well-justified if they decided to prevent any attempts at space colonization by the present human race, although one imagines they'd do so non-violently.

[fistofdoom]

Hows about we all stop hating each other's guts. That solves plenty of problems.