Electromagnetic Drive Produces Thrust in Vacuum: NASA:

Discussion in 'Astronomy, Exobiology, & Cosmology' started by paddoboy, May 5, 2015.

  1. paddoboy Valued Senior Member

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    NASA Confirms Electromagnetic Drive Produces Thrust in Vacuum:
    by Staff Writers
    Houston TX (Sputnik) May 05, 2015

    An electromagnetic drive being developed by NASA to operate without rocket fuel, in a vacuum, is seemingly defying the laws of physics, and raising hopes for the future of space travel.

    Scientists at Johnson Space Center, successfully tested the EM drive in a vacuum, yielding results that "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 announced Wednesday.

    extract:
    If scientists manage to hook up the drive to a nuclear power source, suddenly the galaxy would feel a lot smaller - with a trip to Mars lasting about 70 days, with a 90 day stay on the surface and 70 days back, as opposed to the current three years.

    A trip to the moon could take as little as four hours.

    more at....
    http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/N...etic_Drive_Produces_Thrust_in_Vacuum_999.html
     
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  3. dumbest man on earth Real Eyes Realize Real Lies Valued Senior Member

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    I believe that article was culled from : http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2015/04/evaluating-nasas-futuristic-em-drive/ , from 4 or 5 days back.

    Quite a bit more information at the above Link, including a nasaspaceflight.com forum, with at least a few Threads dedicated to the EM Drive Developments.

    If anyone is truly interested in NASA's EM Drive, you may just enjoy checking out the Links.
     
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  5. paddoboy Valued Senior Member

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    Thanks dmoe!
    Nice rundown and I hope the continued research proceeds quickly until a final conclusion is reached.
    Plus of course still rather ponderous as far as Interstellar travel is concerned, but JPL are working on many ideas to hasten trip times.
     
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  7. Russ_Watters Not a Trump supporter... Valued Senior Member

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    Since this has been bouncing back and forth between "news" sources for almost a week and none of them that I've seen have any details about the supposed test, there really isn't anything to evaluate yet.

    The origional (?) nasaspaceflight.com article is especially junky: It contains two sentences supposedly about the recent test and then the entire rest of the article appears cut-and-pasted from somewhere else, about a different subject (a stock description of the EM drive with no relevance to the current test) -- hilariously concluding in the final sentence: "...NASA Eagleworks plans to next conduct these interferometer tests in a vacuum." Lol, what?
     
  8. OnlyMe Valued Senior Member

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    Wasn't a thread some while back about an Egalworks NASA test of three versions of the EM drive? That would have been a conference report that was very controversial, as in more a concept progress report that ended with the next step was to test in vacuum.
     
  9. Russ_Watters Not a Trump supporter... Valued Senior Member

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    5,051
    Yes.
     
  10. Daecon Kiwi fruit Valued Senior Member

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    So... how does it work?
     
  11. dumbest man on earth Real Eyes Realize Real Lies Valued Senior Member

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    Got to agree that there may just be something "Hinkey", R_W. that is why I Posted that Link.

    There was this from : http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2015/04/evaluating-nasas-futuristic-em-drive/

    - begin quote - "The scientific community met these NASA tests with skepticism and a number of physicists proposed that the measured thrust force in the US, UK, and China tests was more likely due to (external to the EM Drive cavity) natural thermal convection currents arising from microwave heating (internal to the EM Drive cavity).

    However, Paul March, an engineer at NASA Eagleworks, recently reported in NASASpaceFlight.com’s forum (on a thread now over 500,000 views) that NASA has successfully tested their EM Drive in a hard vacuum – the first time any organization 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.

    A community of enthusiasts, engineers, and scientists on several continents joined forces on the NASASpaceflight.com EM Drive forum to thoroughly examine the experiments and discuss theories of operation of the EM Drive.

    The quality of forum discussions attracted the attention of EagleWorks team member Paul March at NASA, who has shared testing and background information with the group in order to fill in information gaps and further the dialogue. " - end quote -

    Like I said, R_W, I agree that there may just be something "Hinkey".

    BTW, the Linked page has an embedded Link to the NASASpaceFlight.com Forum , in the article.
     
  12. paddoboy Valued Senior Member

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    Hmmmm, well we can only wait and see what further tests and evaluations have in store.
    If it is exactly as they say, Mars in 70 days, and the Moon in 4 hourse will be great. I can see the Moon, turning into an inter-space playground for the well to do from Earth!

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  13. Russ_Watters Not a Trump supporter... Valued Senior Member

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    It doesn't.
     
  14. OnlyMe Valued Senior Member

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    If it works, this would be only one test in vacuum and we have no access to details.

    In the earlier discussion I believe that Shawyer, the Chinese and the Eagal Works group all had different ideas.
     
  15. Q-reeus Banned Valued Senior Member

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    4,695
    How come paddoboy this thread was posted in A E & C rather than Maths & Physics (or Pseudoscience) where it nominally belongs? All that hoopla about 'now we can go to the stars' sort of confused you?
    And how come you in particular have not come out swinging hard - roundly condemning these 'obviously' closet-creationists-with-a-hidden-religious-agenda frauds and or incompetents? You were already aware of Greg Egan's both specific and more general analyses of cavity fields and forces, right?: http://gregegan.customer.netspace.net.au/SCIENCE/Cavity/Cavity.html
    Could it be you simply don't understand near enough of basic EM theory to make a sensible judgement? Very likely. But then why not just fall back on a favorite Guru's hard-and-fast stand: https://plus.google.com/117663015413546257905/posts/C7vx2G85kr4
    Don't tell me your reticence to make a principled stand means you are cunningly having a bet both ways - seriously entertaining the possibility that a sacrosanct law of physics might be about to tumble?
    Despite the article linked to in #2 being a joke in respect of the 'theories' discussed there by apparently reputable and well qualified NASA folks, not to mention Shawyer's laughable attempt at 'theory', my bet is future tests will simply keep confirming a non-zero result. Why would I say that? Not saying - for now.

    As for the question in #5, here is the link: http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?142215-NASA-validates-seemingly-impossible-space-thruster
     
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  16. paddoboy Valued Senior Member

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    ??? Like I said, Ill wait for further confirmation or otherwise :shrug:
    What you think is your business...you may be right...and possibly wrong. And why woul'n't you say??
    I post articles I believe are interesting.
    The rest of what you infer, I have no idea about.
    Oh, and of course, if it is shown to be pseudoscience, then I'll ask for its removal from this section myself.
     
    Last edited: May 6, 2015
  17. exchemist Valued Senior Member

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    12,451
    Must admit that was my instinctive reaction as well. The problem I see is that, at least to my understanding of QED - which I admit is far from deep - the (badly named) "virtual particles" of vacuum fluctuation are merely random disturbances in the EM field, without mass. If that is so, then ejecting a "virtual" stream of these non-particles will not create any reaction to accelerate the spacecraft.

    I do wonder what has got into NASA these days, to issue press releases like this. It seems to me they risk undermining their credibility as a science organisation. To pick up on Paddoboy's discussion with Q-reeus, the day a report from NASA gets classified in pseudoscience is the day we can all stop funding them and give the money to Disney. Harrumph.
     
  18. dumbest man on earth Real Eyes Realize Real Lies Valued Senior Member

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    ...a series of rhetorical questions?
     
  19. dumbest man on earth Real Eyes Realize Real Lies Valued Senior Member

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    exchemist, the article "copied and pasted" in the OP was and is NOT a "press release" from NASA.

    Also, you seem to be under a possible misconception that the Poster would have exercised any 'due diligence' by investigating the "source" of the article and what it was actually "stating", prior to 'sensationalizing' it.

    I am sure that you realize how "ooooh...shiny, shiny" affects some sheople.
     
  20. Q-reeus Banned Valued Senior Member

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    Is that question a questionable questioning my use of questions?

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

     
  21. dumbest man on earth Real Eyes Realize Real Lies Valued Senior Member

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    An emphatic NO, would be the answer to that (?)question(?).

    It is just that 'questions' of that 'nature' posited to that 'member', even if not intended to be, will become 'rhetorical', simply by the 'nature' of the the 'member' that it was posited to.

    Grok'd?
     
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  22. Q-reeus Banned Valued Senior Member

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    Grok'd. When you get used to observing let's say a characteristic aggression against all things not dead-center mainstream, a distinct change of tone sort of pricks up the ears so to speak. Anyway this topic at least has a certain all-round interest to it - physics-of-sorts, sociology, psychiatry, [add your own category here].
     
  23. exchemist Valued Senior Member

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    DMOE thanks for the (mainly) constructive comments. Thanks to your prompting, I now see that "NASA Spaceflight", in which I had read the longer article on which this one was apparently based, is nothing to do with NASA either. Thanks for at least partially restoring my faith in the scientific integrity of NASA. Must admit I'm surprised NASA allows this journal to leech off its good name, but it may be a quirk of IP law, I suppose.

    The "NASASpaceflight" article gives the impression that thrust has been measured on several occasions and in different locations, so the phenomenon, whatever it is, starts to look reproducible. Interesting, if true.
     

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