'The 'impossible' EmDrive could reach Pluto in 18 months' !!!

[Wilikon]

'Impossible' rocket drive works and could get to Moon in four hours


Interplanetary travel could be a step closer after scientists confirmed that an electromagnetic propulsion drive, which is fast enough to get to the Moon in four hours, actually works.

The EM Drive was developed by the British inventor Roger Shawyer nearly 15 years ago but was ridiculed at the time as being scientifically impossible.

It produces thrust by using solar power to generate multiple microwaves that move back and forth in an enclosed chamber. This means that until something fails or wears down, theoretically the engine could keep running forever without the need for rocket fuel.

The drive, which has been likened to Star Trek’s Impulse Drive, has left scientists scratching their heads because it defies one of the fundamental concepts of physics – the conservation of momentum – which states that if something is propelled forward, something must be pushed in the opposite direction. So the forces inside the chamber should cancel each other out.


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/space/11769030/Impossible-rocket-drive-works-and-could-get-to-Moon-in-four-hours.html

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[Wilikon]

As a reminder, the full interview of Roger Shawyer in 3 youtube videos.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PL_KA9gR6zLeFFjbODQ6zngUaGIE49jAH9&v=GGTjy6atKMs


 

[Okurkabinladin]

This is all very new to me. Exciting.

But it is very hard to even imagine this supposed answer for space, maritime, land and air travel. Is there video of working engine? Or even 3d CAD visualization? Various descriptions by media as "Star trek warp drive, rocket drive or "like a jet engine" are not helpful at all. Those technologies are all fundamentally different.

I am all ears.

[blablahblah]

If it's all legit, then why can't they just make a friggen diagram that explains it FULLY?

They waffle on about the intense microwave radiation having a group velocity, fair enough, I actually kind-of get that. The horn shape does some impedance conversion, reducing the speed of light at the throat section, thus reducing the momentum of the photons in that region. Fair enough. At the mouth of the horn, there is lower pressure, higher velocity, it's closer to a vacuum so the photons are heavier and faster. Fair enough.

But we're meant to believe that the whole thing will move by itself? Along with the photons that are dragged along for the ride? Bullshit. If it's not reaction-less then where the hell is the reaction mass? Guess what? I can also defy gravity! By slowly decreasing the height of some gym weights while standing on bathroom scales, I can also produce a few milli-Newtons of thrust! Epic government grants -- oh yeah!!

[Okurkabinladin]

If it's all legit, then why can't they just make a friggen diagram that explains it FULLY?

They waffle on about the intense microwave radiation having a group velocity, fair enough, I actually kind-of get that. The horn shape does some impedance conversion, reducing the speed of light at the throat section, thus reducing the momentum of the photons in that region. Fair enough. At the mouth of the horn, there is lower pressure, higher velocity, it's closer to a vacuum so the photons are heavier and faster. Fair enough.

But we're meant to believe that the whole thing will move by itself? Along with the photons that are dragged along for the ride? Bullshit. If it's not reaction-less then where the hell is the reaction mass? Guess what? I can also defy gravity! By slowly decreasing the height of some gym weights while standing on bathroom scales, I can also produce a few milli-Newtons of thrust! Epic government grants -- oh yeah!!

I doubt Chinese would spend money on another western "hoax"  the thing is, that emdrive wasnt tried outside laboratory environment. There is currently no commercial version of it. However, same thing once applied to steam engines.

Thats why I asked for diagram.

[Spendulus]

If it's all legit, then why can't they just make a friggen diagram that explains it FULLY?

They waffle on about the intense microwave radiation having a group velocity, fair enough, I actually kind-of get that. The horn shape does some impedance conversion, reducing the speed of light at the throat section, thus reducing the momentum of the photons in that region. Fair enough. At the mouth of the horn, there is lower pressure, higher velocity, it's closer to a vacuum so the photons are heavier and faster. Fair enough.

But we're meant to believe that the whole thing will move by itself? Along with the photons that are dragged along for the ride? Bullshit. If it's not reaction-less then where the hell is the reaction mass? Guess what? I can also defy gravity! By slowly decreasing the height of some gym weights while standing on bathroom scales, I can also produce a few milli-Newtons of thrust! Epic government grants -- oh yeah!!

Um, I think you have to abandon the particle theories and think wave functions.

But even then, you are only voicing the objections that everyone SHARES WITH YOU.

Darn it, they just report the thing works.

[Topbanker]

yea the EM drive its so amazing!!! it will open so many new door is "local" space exploration!!

Btw what company is making those "test" engines??

time to buy stock of them if possible 

[Spendulus]

This is all very new to me. Exciting.

But it is very hard to even imagine this supposed answer for space, maritime, land and air travel. Is there video of working engine? Or even 3d CAD visualization? Various descriptions by media as "Star trek warp drive, rocket drive or "like a jet engine" are not helpful at all. Those technologies are all fundamentally different.

I am all ears.

Forget the media hype.  Those are exaggerations.  Think of a low thrust ion type drive.

Reddit link was earlier in this thread to people building the things.

[Topbanker]

we are talking about solar system exploration without needing to spend propellant to make it go (once it's in orbit). That changes things dramatically. Right now virtually all space travel (with the exception of some preliminary solar sail tests) is done on the principle of shooting particles out the back of the spacecraft at high speeds, whether propelled by chemical reaction (low efficiency high thrust) or electromagnetically accelerated ionized gas (high efficiency low thrust). That means you have to spend fuel to accelerate the fuel you're carrying with you. This creates a nasty feedback loop. This thruster would change all that since it doesn't use propellant, it just needs electricity which it can get "for free" from the sun. The low thrust of the first generation design means it will only be useful once you're in orbit, but once there you can slowly accelerate persistently.

According to some tests and predictions this should produce more thrust than an ion engine, but still far less than a chemical rocket. That's ok though because you can leave it on for as long as you have power and as long as the device will work (expected lifetime around 15 years I think according to the inventor?). NASA's version produced about as much thrust as a typical ion engine. A second generation design being proposed by the inventor is said to be capable of producing even more acceleration, around half a meter per second^2, so it could supplement air travel and even assist payloads in getting to space, but it would require liquid cryogenics (which would eventually be consumed). It still remains to be proven, but at least the initial NASA test yielded surprisingly positive results. We'll see.

[Spendulus]

we are talking about solar system exploration without needing to spend propellant to make it go (once it's in orbit). That changes things dramatically. Right now virtually all space travel (with the exception of some preliminary solar sail tests) is done on the principle of shooting particles out the back of the spacecraft at high speeds, whether propelled by chemical reaction (low efficiency high thrust) or electromagnetically accelerated ionized gas (high efficiency low thrust). That means you have to spend fuel to accelerate the fuel you're carrying with you. This creates a nasty feedback loop. This thruster would change all that since it doesn't use propellant, it just needs electricity which it can get "for free" from the sun. The low thrust of the first generation design means it will only be useful once you're in orbit, but once there you can slowly accelerate persistently.

According to some tests and predictions this should produce more thrust than an ion engine, but still far less than a chemical rocket. That's ok though because you can leave it on for as long as you have power and as long as the device will work (expected lifetime around 15 years I think according to the inventor?). NASA's version produced about as much thrust as a typical ion engine. A second generation design being proposed by the inventor is said to be capable of producing even more acceleration, around half a meter per second^2, so it could supplement air travel and even assist payloads in getting to space, but it would require liquid cryogenics (which would eventually be consumed). It still remains to be proven, but at least the initial NASA test yielded surprisingly positive results. We'll see.

Well, first of all, whatever the thrust of this thing, if it works, the solar system is opened up.  Period.  "Useful once it's in orbit" is a really big deal - not a little unimportant thing.

Second, if it does 1/2 meter per second second, then it would keep an airplane in level flight as long as that airplane has > 10/1 glide ratio, which practically all do.  I'll remain skeptical about that, but remember that isn't really important.  We've got good engines for planes, trains, cars, etc.

We don't have really good space engines.

[Wilikon]

EmDrive: Roger Shawyer paper describing space propulsion on UAVs finally passes peer review


The creator of a controversial electromagnetic space propulsion technology called EmDrive has finally had a paper peer reviewed and accepted by the International Academy of Astronautics (IAA).

The paper, Second Generation EmDrive Propulsion Applied To SSTO Launcher And Interstellar Probe, by British scientist Roger Shawyer was published in the journal Acta Astronautica and made available online on 10 July.

Shawyer conceptualised and developed the space propulsion technology EmDrive and first presented this in 1999. Shawyer proposes that based on the theory of special relativity, electricity converted into microwaves and fired within a closed cone-shaped cavity causes the microwave particles to exert more force on the flat surface at the large end of the cone (i.e. there is less combined particle momentum at the narrow end due to a reduction in group particle velocity), thereby generating thrust.

Shawyer spent years having his technology ridiculed by the international space science research community and being called a fraud. According to Shawyer, if the technology is ever commercially realised, EmDrive could transform the aerospace industry and potentially solve the energy crisis and climate change, while also speeding up space travel by making it much cheaper to launch satellites and spacecraft into orbit.

His critics say that according to the law of conservation of momentum, his theory cannot work as in order for a thruster to gain momentum in one direction a propellent must be expelled in the opposite direction, and the EmDrive is a closed system. However, Shawyer claims that following fundamental physics involving the theory of special relativity, the EmDrive does in fact preserve the law of conservation of momentum and energy.

Testing the EmDrive on unmanned aerial vehicles

Shawyer's paper builds on his previous research on the first generation EmDrive device he created, which he says produced 200 milliNewtons (20g) of force. A German experimental scientist recently published results showing his testing of EmDrive was also able to create thrust, but that only equated to 20 microNewtons. He further stated that the results "cannot confirm or refute the claims of the EmDrive."

The most amount of thrust that has ever been achieved comes from the tests conducted by Chinese scientists in 2012, which produced 720 milliNewtons (72g) of thrust in a system built using a completely different theoretical method from Shawyer's method.

Shawyer claims a race is on and the second-generation EmDrive is being developed by several players privately including himself, and the new version of the device would be able to achieve tonnes of thrust (1T = 1,000kg) rather than just a few grams.

His paper lays out two specific use cases for the EmDrive, which includes providing a way for the 10 tonne Boeing X37-B space plane to fly into orbit on its own, deliver a payload of two tonnes and come back to Earth on its own.

At the moment, the X37-B has to be launched from a rocket, but DARPA is working on a new robotic space plane called the XS-1 that it hopes to flight test in 2017, and Shawyer believes EmDrive could help.

However, he has now decided that it would be better to focus on putting EmDrive on to unmanned aerial vehicles, with the view to eventually use the technology in the automobile industry to create feasible flying cars.

"Our aim at the moment is not to necessarily go for these space applications, because they will take so long to come to fruition. So what we've decided as a company is to forget space, and to go for terrestrial transport business, which is huge," Shawyer told IBTimes UK.

"The logic is, if you can lift a vehicle reasonably gently with no large accelerations, then you can manufacture the air frame using much lower technology than would be used on an aircraft."


Flying cars more likely than super-fast space travel

Shawyer says his firm, Satellite Propulsion Research Ltd, is currently designing a drone that has no propellers or wings, and it plans to carry out the first test flights powered by EmDrive microwave space propulsion in 2017.

Flying cars are currently being invented and prototypes do exist, but they are not exactly cars, but rather, an amalgamation of a car and an aeroplane. Two companies are trying to push this type of technology forward, Terrafugia and Aeromobil, but so far the world has not shown much interest.

"If you're trying to build a flying car, you don't start with an aeroplane, you start with a car. It makes it low cost and more affordable to manufacture an airframe that is more like an automobile body," said Shawyer.

"Hydrogen storage and fuel cells are available and affordable – all of this is in place. People are sick of travelling in two dimensions and sitting in traffic jams. You need to use the three dimensions. Space is a waste of time as it's so slow, and it's not a very big market. Mass transportation and other things are a much bigger market and major automobile manufacturers will be interested."


http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/emdrive-roger-shawyer-paper-describing-space-propulsion-uavs-finally-passes-peer-review-1513223

[Spendulus]

EmDrive: Roger Shawyer paper describing space propulsion on UAVs finally passes peer review


The creator of a controversial electromagnetic space propulsion technology called EmDrive has finally had a paper peer reviewed and accepted by the International Academy of Astronautics (IAA).

The paper, Second Generation EmDrive Propulsion Applied To SSTO Launcher And Interstellar Probe, by British scientist Roger Shawyer was published in the journal Acta Astronautica and made available online on 10 July.

Shawyer conceptualised and developed the space propulsion technology EmDrive and first presented this in 1999. Shawyer proposes that based on the theory of special relativity, electricity converted into microwaves and fired within a closed cone-shaped cavity causes the microwave particles to exert more force on the flat surface at the large end of the cone (i.e. there is less combined particle momentum at the narrow end due to a reduction in group particle velocity), thereby generating thrust.

Shawyer spent years having his technology ridiculed by the international space science research community and being called a fraud. According to Shawyer, if the technology is ever commercially realised, EmDrive could transform the aerospace industry and potentially solve the energy crisis and climate change, while also speeding up space travel by making it much cheaper to launch satellites and spacecraft into orbit.

His critics say that according to the law of conservation of momentum, his theory cannot work as in order for a thruster to gain momentum in one direction a propellent must be expelled in the opposite direction, and the EmDrive is a closed system. However, Shawyer claims that following fundamental physics involving the theory of special relativity, the EmDrive does in fact preserve the law of conservation of momentum and energy.

Testing the EmDrive on unmanned aerial vehicles

Shawyer's paper builds on his previous research on the first generation EmDrive device he created, which he says produced 200 milliNewtons (20g) of force. A German experimental scientist recently published results showing his testing of EmDrive was also able to create thrust, but that only equated to 20 microNewtons. He further stated that the results "cannot confirm or refute the claims of the EmDrive."

The most amount of thrust that has ever been achieved comes from the tests conducted by Chinese scientists in 2012, which produced 720 milliNewtons (72g) of thrust in a system built using a completely different theoretical method from Shawyer's method.

Shawyer claims a race is on and the second-generation EmDrive is being developed by several players privately including himself, and the new version of the device would be able to achieve tonnes of thrust (1T = 1,000kg) rather than just a few grams.

His paper lays out two specific use cases for the EmDrive, which includes providing a way for the 10 tonne Boeing X37-B space plane to fly into orbit on its own, deliver a payload of two tonnes and come back to Earth on its own.

At the moment, the X37-B has to be launched from a rocket, but DARPA is working on a new robotic space plane called the XS-1 that it hopes to flight test in 2017, and Shawyer believes EmDrive could help.

However, he has now decided that it would be better to focus on putting EmDrive on to unmanned aerial vehicles, with the view to eventually use the technology in the automobile industry to create feasible flying cars.

"Our aim at the moment is not to necessarily go for these space applications, because they will take so long to come to fruition. So what we've decided as a company is to forget space, and to go for terrestrial transport business, which is huge," Shawyer told IBTimes UK.

"The logic is, if you can lift a vehicle reasonably gently with no large accelerations, then you can manufacture the air frame using much lower technology than would be used on an aircraft."


Flying cars more likely than super-fast space travel

Shawyer says his firm, Satellite Propulsion Research Ltd, is currently designing a drone that has no propellers or wings, and it plans to carry out the first test flights powered by EmDrive microwave space propulsion in 2017.

Flying cars are currently being invented and prototypes do exist, but they are not exactly cars, but rather, an amalgamation of a car and an aeroplane. Two companies are trying to push this type of technology forward, Terrafugia and Aeromobil, but so far the world has not shown much interest.

"If you're trying to build a flying car, you don't start with an aeroplane, you start with a car. It makes it low cost and more affordable to manufacture an airframe that is more like an automobile body," said Shawyer.

"Hydrogen storage and fuel cells are available and affordable – all of this is in place. People are sick of travelling in two dimensions and sitting in traffic jams. You need to use the three dimensions. Space is a waste of time as it's so slow, and it's not a very big market. Mass transportation and other things are a much bigger market and major automobile manufacturers will be interested."


http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/emdrive-roger-shawyer-paper-describing-space-propulsion-uavs-finally-passes-peer-review-1513223

I consider this as crazy talk, because the emdrive must have electric power to operate.  It is easy to figure the amount of electric power required to power aircraft at various L/D lift to drag and P/w power to weight ratios.  Although Emdrive may work for space where do you get electric power for aircraft?

1 hp = 762 watts.

1000 hp aircraft engine = 762,000 watts.

What size generator?  Powered by what?  A gasoline motor?  If so why not just run the gasoline into an jet turbine?

[notbatman]

TL;DR

Rotating asymmetric capacitors are '50s technology.

Tin-foil hat on, I have my doubts space travel is even possible. NASA lies about absolutely everything. 

[BADecker]

EmDrive: Roger Shawyer paper describing space propulsion on UAVs finally passes peer review


The creator of a controversial electromagnetic space propulsion technology called EmDrive has finally had a paper peer reviewed and accepted by the International Academy of Astronautics (IAA).

The paper, Second Generation EmDrive Propulsion Applied To SSTO Launcher And Interstellar Probe, by British scientist Roger Shawyer was published in the journal Acta Astronautica and made available online on 10 July.

Shawyer conceptualised and developed the space propulsion technology EmDrive and first presented this in 1999. Shawyer proposes that based on the theory of special relativity, electricity converted into microwaves and fired within a closed cone-shaped cavity causes the microwave particles to exert more force on the flat surface at the large end of the cone (i.e. there is less combined particle momentum at the narrow end due to a reduction in group particle velocity), thereby generating thrust.

Shawyer spent years having his technology ridiculed by the international space science research community and being called a fraud. According to Shawyer, if the technology is ever commercially realised, EmDrive could transform the aerospace industry and potentially solve the energy crisis and climate change, while also speeding up space travel by making it much cheaper to launch satellites and spacecraft into orbit.

His critics say that according to the law of conservation of momentum, his theory cannot work as in order for a thruster to gain momentum in one direction a propellent must be expelled in the opposite direction, and the EmDrive is a closed system. However, Shawyer claims that following fundamental physics involving the theory of special relativity, the EmDrive does in fact preserve the law of conservation of momentum and energy.

Testing the EmDrive on unmanned aerial vehicles

Shawyer's paper builds on his previous research on the first generation EmDrive device he created, which he says produced 200 milliNewtons (20g) of force. A German experimental scientist recently published results showing his testing of EmDrive was also able to create thrust, but that only equated to 20 microNewtons. He further stated that the results "cannot confirm or refute the claims of the EmDrive."

The most amount of thrust that has ever been achieved comes from the tests conducted by Chinese scientists in 2012, which produced 720 milliNewtons (72g) of thrust in a system built using a completely different theoretical method from Shawyer's method.

Shawyer claims a race is on and the second-generation EmDrive is being developed by several players privately including himself, and the new version of the device would be able to achieve tonnes of thrust (1T = 1,000kg) rather than just a few grams.

His paper lays out two specific use cases for the EmDrive, which includes providing a way for the 10 tonne Boeing X37-B space plane to fly into orbit on its own, deliver a payload of two tonnes and come back to Earth on its own.

At the moment, the X37-B has to be launched from a rocket, but DARPA is working on a new robotic space plane called the XS-1 that it hopes to flight test in 2017, and Shawyer believes EmDrive could help.

However, he has now decided that it would be better to focus on putting EmDrive on to unmanned aerial vehicles, with the view to eventually use the technology in the automobile industry to create feasible flying cars.

"Our aim at the moment is not to necessarily go for these space applications, because they will take so long to come to fruition. So what we've decided as a company is to forget space, and to go for terrestrial transport business, which is huge," Shawyer told IBTimes UK.

"The logic is, if you can lift a vehicle reasonably gently with no large accelerations, then you can manufacture the air frame using much lower technology than would be used on an aircraft."


Flying cars more likely than super-fast space travel

Shawyer says his firm, Satellite Propulsion Research Ltd, is currently designing a drone that has no propellers or wings, and it plans to carry out the first test flights powered by EmDrive microwave space propulsion in 2017.

Flying cars are currently being invented and prototypes do exist, but they are not exactly cars, but rather, an amalgamation of a car and an aeroplane. Two companies are trying to push this type of technology forward, Terrafugia and Aeromobil, but so far the world has not shown much interest.

"If you're trying to build a flying car, you don't start with an aeroplane, you start with a car. It makes it low cost and more affordable to manufacture an airframe that is more like an automobile body," said Shawyer.

"Hydrogen storage and fuel cells are available and affordable – all of this is in place. People are sick of travelling in two dimensions and sitting in traffic jams. You need to use the three dimensions. Space is a waste of time as it's so slow, and it's not a very big market. Mass transportation and other things are a much bigger market and major automobile manufacturers will be interested."


http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/emdrive-roger-shawyer-paper-describing-space-propulsion-uavs-finally-passes-peer-review-1513223

I consider this as crazy talk, because the emdrive must have electric power to operate.  It is easy to figure the amount of electric power required to power aircraft at various L/D lift to drag and P/w power to weight ratios.  Although Emdrive may work for space where do you get electric power for aircraft?

1 hp = 762 watts.

1000 hp aircraft engine = 762,000 watts.

What size generator?  Powered by what?  A gasoline motor?  If so why not just run the gasoline into an jet turbine?

Of course, there are those who seem to have a more stable, better explanation of how our universe works, They suggest that the universe is electric. Plenty of electricity. http://electric-cosmos.org/indexOLD.htm

[Spendulus]

TL;DR

Rotating asymmetric capacitors are '50s technology.

Tin-foil hat on, I have my doubts space travel is even possible. NASA lies about absolutely everything. 

hmmm...

all the other nations too?

[BADecker]

TL;DR

Rotating asymmetric capacitors are '50s technology.

Tin-foil hat on, I have my doubts space travel is even possible. NASA lies about absolutely everything. 

hmmm...

all the other nations too?

Now NASA's a nation?   

[Tusk]

Is the EM Drive Is Getting The Appropriate Level Of Attention From The Science Community

There have been many news stories saying that the EM Drive will solve almost all problems in interplanetary travel, permit low cost flying cars and who knows what else. Other stories say that it is flat out impossible and we shouldn't spend a single publicly funded research dollar on it. But I haven't seen a single article with the rather boring suggestion that perhaps in this case the research community has got it exactly right. That it's not a perpetual motion machine, doesn't deserve to be dismissed out of hand. But it's far too soon to justify huge research programs into it, even if it is a real effect. We just have to be patient and see how the experiment develops. So, here is a news story to say - that. In detail:


http://www.science20.com/robert_inventor/suggestion_the_em_drive_is_getting_the_appropriate_level_of_attention_from_the_science_community-156719

[Spendulus]

Is the EM Drive Is Getting The Appropriate Level Of Attention From The Science Community

There have been many news stories saying that the EM Drive will solve almost all problems in interplanetary travel, permit low cost flying cars and who knows what else. Other stories say that it is flat out impossible and we shouldn't spend a single publicly funded research dollar on it. But I haven't seen a single article with the rather boring suggestion that perhaps in this case the research community has got it exactly right. That it's not a perpetual motion machine, doesn't deserve to be dismissed out of hand. But it's far too soon to justify huge research programs into it, even if it is a real effect. We just have to be patient and see how the experiment develops. So, here is a news story to say - that. In detail:


http://www.science20.com/robert_inventor/suggestion_the_em_drive_is_getting_the_appropriate_level_of_attention_from_the_science_community-156719

Not really true - it needs to be tested in space, which means getting a package on a satellite soon, not in the typical ten years it takes.