Quote from: sfrank on 05/13/2015 05:04 pmQuote from: Mulletron on 05/13/2015 05:00 pmQuote from: TheTraveller on 05/13/2015 04:48 pmBIG problem is with BIG money on the table, everybody will go DARK and nothing will be shared. I've seen 1st hand what greed does to the best of people. Best of luck.My EM Drive research, plans, drawings, schematics, BOM, test rig, photos, videos, result data, etc will be public. Don't care about the money. Only way to fly this.Yes, and if you approach this from another perspective, if it is already dark, this will force it back into the light. I commend you on your openness and altruism. Please help us design some top notch challenge criteria.This is an opportunity for skeptics to chime in with some seriously impressive "put up or shut up" challenges which would be worthy of recognition if successfully met. I know this site is home to the best of the best who know their stuff.If we set up a gofundme to collect money to fund the replicators attempts, would you (@Mulletron and @TheTraveller) accept money from that? -snip-Heck no, and that is not the focus of this thread.
Quote from: Mulletron on 05/13/2015 05:00 pmQuote from: TheTraveller on 05/13/2015 04:48 pmBIG problem is with BIG money on the table, everybody will go DARK and nothing will be shared. I've seen 1st hand what greed does to the best of people. Best of luck.My EM Drive research, plans, drawings, schematics, BOM, test rig, photos, videos, result data, etc will be public. Don't care about the money. Only way to fly this.Yes, and if you approach this from another perspective, if it is already dark, this will force it back into the light. I commend you on your openness and altruism. Please help us design some top notch challenge criteria.This is an opportunity for skeptics to chime in with some seriously impressive "put up or shut up" challenges which would be worthy of recognition if successfully met. I know this site is home to the best of the best who know their stuff.If we set up a gofundme to collect money to fund the replicators attempts, would you (@Mulletron and @TheTraveller) accept money from that? -snip-
Quote from: TheTraveller on 05/13/2015 04:48 pmBIG problem is with BIG money on the table, everybody will go DARK and nothing will be shared. I've seen 1st hand what greed does to the best of people. Best of luck.My EM Drive research, plans, drawings, schematics, BOM, test rig, photos, videos, result data, etc will be public. Don't care about the money. Only way to fly this.Yes, and if you approach this from another perspective, if it is already dark, this will force it back into the light. I commend you on your openness and altruism. Please help us design some top notch challenge criteria.This is an opportunity for skeptics to chime in with some seriously impressive "put up or shut up" challenges which would be worthy of recognition if successfully met. I know this site is home to the best of the best who know their stuff.
BIG problem is with BIG money on the table, everybody will go DARK and nothing will be shared. I've seen 1st hand what greed does to the best of people. Best of luck.My EM Drive research, plans, drawings, schematics, BOM, test rig, photos, videos, result data, etc will be public. Don't care about the money. Only way to fly this.
Interestingly, so long as I'm driving this bus, there will be no focus on the science, i.e., on the underlying physical understanding of precisely how this works. My feeling is that is precisely the domain of academic research - and will require potentially substantial work. The point of this device is that it is real and testable. We don't actually have to know how it works - only that it really does.
Well, the Chinese claim over 700 mN at less than or at 2500 Watts. Doubling that power to 5 Kw should hit a target above one Newton. But is a conceptually simple increase (not so simple in practice) in drive power the answer wanted? Or do we hope for a solution of some number of mN per Watt of drive power? Or some value of thrust to weight? Or do we need a metric that incorporates all three?
Quote from: jordan.greenhall on 05/13/2015 04:17 pmIt seems that the available space for a challenge is between where we might expect the Eagleworks team to be by the end of the summer and the "practical edge" - the farthest that we could reasonably hope that someone could get with $1M - $2M in investment and 18 months of work. Is there a milestone here that is compelling? Our most powerful objective is to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that there is something both real and novel here. {snip}We have to prove to a disbelieving public that the thruster actually thrusts. A vehicle that moves 3 metre (9.84 feet) should do this. It could be along the floor or rails. Wheels optional.
It seems that the available space for a challenge is between where we might expect the Eagleworks team to be by the end of the summer and the "practical edge" - the farthest that we could reasonably hope that someone could get with $1M - $2M in investment and 18 months of work. Is there a milestone here that is compelling? Our most powerful objective is to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that there is something both real and novel here. {snip}
In preparation for this thread, I reached out to Mr. Shawyer via email for his input on the XPRIZE discussion. I've attached his comments and as always I have obtained permission (see attachment) from him before posting our communication here publicly. I'm posting a screenshot to ensure his exact words are communicated accurately. I am surprised to see that he has set the bar quite high.Also, he has agreed to participate in a Q&A here at NSF at some point. Those details are still to be worked out. I am honored that he is willing to talk with me, but I'd rather step down as messenger and have him here posting directly.
Quote from: tchernik on 05/13/2015 07:14 pmThe reason for this is that, even if amateur scientists could only provide limited theoretical information (which is debatable), the raging murmur of many positive tests will be much harder to ignore or silence.Did the Wright brothers have to justify their invention by having a big institution or company take over it and demonstrate it to the world? No, they showed off their design at work and others followed them, with their own replications and then money and institutional will poured in.Thus, the work of these citizen scientists doing open source replications is the more valuable, because they really will be the ones to open up this knowledge to everyone, be it true or false or something in between.Yes, but.... getting observed thrust levels up is likely going to require more than tin snips and a sheet of copper IMHO. It may well be that optimizing the frustum design (and other factors) to get usable thrust out of the thing may require teams and special design and manufacturing capabilities that can be invested in by financiers if there is a clear pay-off for their investment (the prize money).
The reason for this is that, even if amateur scientists could only provide limited theoretical information (which is debatable), the raging murmur of many positive tests will be much harder to ignore or silence.Did the Wright brothers have to justify their invention by having a big institution or company take over it and demonstrate it to the world? No, they showed off their design at work and others followed them, with their own replications and then money and institutional will poured in.Thus, the work of these citizen scientists doing open source replications is the more valuable, because they really will be the ones to open up this knowledge to everyone, be it true or false or something in between.
Right, this is very much the motivation behind pursuing the X-Prize. We are looking at perhaps a prize of $1M to $3M. Far less than will be necessary for the actual design and production of a working engine! But perhaps enough to push this over the hump.IMHO, we need to be clear that the vast majority of observers think that this thing is nothing more than an over-hyped error. Our objective is to present a compelling enough demonstration of the phenomenon that some sizeable fraction of relevant observers can't but move it into the "huh, this must be real - I wonder how" category. Presumably this is a non-trivial effort. After all, the basic idea has been in the public eye for more than a decade. Its been three years since the NWPU results were reported. Given the consequences of this being a real phenomenon, if it were easy to prove, we should all be using hover boards right now. Indeed, the fact the Boeing apparently took a look, but didn't (publicly) move forward implies that either there is something very hard about making this work or that there is something fishy going on!.In any event, clearly the level of testing already done by Shawyer, NWPU and Eagleworks isn't adequate to the task. That has all been done and relatively well disseminated - yet the vast majority of observers still consider it to be an error. Plausibly a dozen or a hundred more demonstrations roughly equivalent to what has been done will be more convincing. I expect not.Rather, what I expect is required is a demonstration that is substantially more impressive. The question is what: what easily verified set of metrics is the right bar? Quote from: sghill on 05/13/2015 07:22 pmQuote from: tchernik on 05/13/2015 07:14 pmThe reason for this is that, even if amateur scientists could only provide limited theoretical information (which is debatable), the raging murmur of many positive tests will be much harder to ignore or silence.Did the Wright brothers have to justify their invention by having a big institution or company take over it and demonstrate it to the world? No, they showed off their design at work and others followed them, with their own replications and then money and institutional will poured in.Thus, the work of these citizen scientists doing open source replications is the more valuable, because they really will be the ones to open up this knowledge to everyone, be it true or false or something in between.Yes, but.... getting observed thrust levels up is likely going to require more than tin snips and a sheet of copper IMHO. It may well be that optimizing the frustum design (and other factors) to get usable thrust out of the thing may require teams and special design and manufacturing capabilities that can be invested in by financiers if there is a clear pay-off for their investment (the prize money).
Quote from: A_M_Swallow on 05/13/2015 05:24 pmQuote from: jordan.greenhall on 05/13/2015 04:17 pmIt seems that the available space for a challenge is between where we might expect the Eagleworks team to be by the end of the summer and the "practical edge" - the farthest that we could reasonably hope that someone could get with $1M - $2M in investment and 18 months of work. Is there a milestone here that is compelling? Our most powerful objective is to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that there is something both real and novel here. {snip}We have to prove to a disbelieving public that the thruster actually thrusts. A vehicle that moves 3 metre (9.84 feet) should do this. It could be along the floor or rails. Wheels optional.Unfortunately with a world of professional cynicism even then this isn't going to score a slam dunk with everyone until you put it on a craft of some type.
Challenge #1: One million dollars is awarded to the first team that develops a mathematical proof of how and why the EM Drive operates. I want to see "Q.E.D." at the end of the proof, and not "and then a miracle happens..."
Get a reliable design before sending it into space. If it breaks down the sceptics will just claim they were right.
Cubesat.
Quote from: A_M_Swallow on 05/14/2015 03:07 amGet a reliable design before sending it into space. If it breaks down the sceptics will just claim they were right.So what? There's nahsayers for every X-Prize. That's kinda the point.
So, X-prize is structured for true propellantless propulsion demo (all electric, no consumables during demo) to avoid the "tied to one tech" issue.Multiple prize stages then, since there are fears that it might work under certain conditions and not in others?1. vacuum test on earth to X.X newtons, X-prize provides measurement rig and vacuum chamber time2. cubesat demo from LEO to earth escape/(EML1 or EML2)/lunar orbit, X-prize provides launch scheduling and maybe base 3U or 6U chassis, but launch payment is (mostly) up to contestant. Cluster launch as a trunk ride-along on a DragonLab demo flight perhaps?
Quote from: Asteroza on 05/14/2015 03:59 amSo, X-prize is structured for true propellantless propulsion demo (all electric, no consumables during demo) to avoid the "tied to one tech" issue.Multiple prize stages then, since there are fears that it might work under certain conditions and not in others?1. vacuum test on earth to X.X newtons, X-prize provides measurement rig and vacuum chamber time2. cubesat demo from LEO to earth escape/(EML1 or EML2)/lunar orbit, X-prize provides launch scheduling and maybe base 3U or 6U chassis, but launch payment is (mostly) up to contestant. Cluster launch as a trunk ride-along on a DragonLab demo flight perhaps?That seems basically reasonable.I do worry about fraud for the vacuum test. Once you start offering money, fraud becomes a big issue. It seems like there are lots of ways to use electromagnetic effects to cheat.Cubesats would be the real test.