Author Topic: FEATURE ARTICLE: Evaluating NASA's Futuristic EM Drive  (Read 301391 times)

Offline SH

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Re: FEATURE ARTICLE: Evaluating NASA's Futuristic EM Drive
« Reply #260 on: 05/01/2015 08:48 pm »
As to crowd funding or some kind of prize, I would not be one to say no to that.   However any prize should not be limited to this technology because it will eventually be proven to be inconclusive as the measured "thrust" decreases further.

This is a good point.  Any prize that is set up should be general enough that it is "winnable" by a successful demonstration of something like an EmDrive, but also that it does not immediately become irrelevant if the EmDrive concept is shown to be a fluke.

I propose, as an objective, any propellentless thruster that generates more thrust than a perfectly efficient photon drive.

On the other hand, if the EmDrive is shown to be a mistake, I think most people would go back to saying that "this is impossible" and a waste of time to even think about.

Offline Star One

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Re: FEATURE ARTICLE: Evaluating NASA's Futuristic EM Drive
« Reply #261 on: 05/01/2015 08:49 pm »
Well if it sparks a slight uptick in the people's interest in space then even that is a positive development.

Offline BL

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Re: FEATURE ARTICLE: Evaluating NASA's Futuristic EM Drive
« Reply #262 on: 05/01/2015 08:59 pm »
"The real problem is funding. Eagleworks needs money for equipments to run better experiments. They need money before they can reach any ambitious goal, and specifically they need money in order to reach that ambitious goal."

I am a newby and have little interest in the 'down and dirty' theoretical goings on here, since I can't do the math, but I AM interested in anything that would help Eagleworks with their testing.  I am not a 'true believer', but I am definitely a 'true hoper'.

There is apparently a pool of people, including Jordan Greenhall, who have access to funds and/or people to speed the process along but:

NASA can't accept private funding.

NASA can't accept volunteer labor.

How about having Eagleworks come up with a dream list of equipment that they think would help them advance the process, pass it to Mr. Greenhall (for example) have Mr. Greenhall assemble the package, and then lease the equipment to Eagleworks for a VERY attractive fee?

For example, there has been recent speculation that pure CW is not the optimum signal source, and suggesting that a ‘dirty’ magnetron would work better.  However, the spectral output of  a magnetron is neither predictable or controllable.  How about using something like a Vector Signal Generator similar to this:

 http://literature.cdn.keysight.com/litweb/pdf/5991-0038EN.pdf

This would allow precision tailoring of the output spectrum as well as providing an extremely clean CW source with millihertz resolution.  It would also allow computer control of the output frequency to compensate for changes in the resonant frequency of the thruster as it heated. ( Or, hopefully, as it mechanically deformed when producing prodigious thrust.)

It could be used to drive an amplifier similar to this these: 

http://www.ifi.com/index.php/amplifiers/twt-amplifiers/343-t-200-a-t-250-series-high-power-twt-microwave-power-amplifiers.html

which provide a couple of hundred watts of power and are stable into any load.  More money buys more power.

Other problems such as obtaining vacuum rated amplifiers and spurious signals from DC currents inside the test chamber could possibly be addressed by using Mulletron’s suggestion from the original thread:  couple the energy onto the pendulum via an air gap TX/RX link, with all active components outside the chamber.  The signal would be passed into the chamber via coax or waveguide feedthroughs.  According to Mulletron, he built and tested a rudimentary link and found that the coupling loss was in the range of a dB.  An air gap using standard gain horns similar to these:

http://www.pasternack.com/standard-gain-horn-antennas-category.aspx

would probably do better.

At any rate, I agree with several of the other posters:  the important thing is to obtain incontrovertible evidence of SOME thrust.  If THAT is obtained, money will be no problem and theory can catch up.  Of course incontrovertible evidence that NASA, the Chinese, and Shswyer test procedures were flawed, identifying the flaws, correcting the flaws, and proving that with rigorous testing there was NO thrust would ALSO be valuable, but not what I am hoping for.

Offline PaulF

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Re: FEATURE ARTICLE: Evaluating NASA's Futuristic EM Drive
« Reply #263 on: 05/01/2015 09:09 pm »
Since Eagleworks started doing real work on the EM Drive, there has been growing interest from outside in finding ways to support their work. So far this has been frustrated largely due to NASA regulations (you can't donate money, equipment, etc. directly to a NASA project). There are some work-arounds ([through the SSI](www.ssi.org)) but these are uninspiring.

I have a strong interest in this effort and have been looking at different approaches that might be able to move the work to a more powerful foundation.  My sense is that the strongest platform would empower the assembly of the right people to work the problem and resource them with the tools to do it right, without either hamstringing them with bureaucracy or the narrow interest of typical "VC-funded" enterprise.

Given that, I can see three more aggressive approaches to funding EM Drive research:

1) Convince the Eagleworks crew to take their work outside of NASA and fund the efforts directly. After some research I'm reasonably confident that some form of crowdfunding could be expected to be able to raise $2.5M to $5M for this kind of effort. Would that be enough to a) get the Eagleworks crew feeling safe to make the leap; and b) provide the materials and resources necessary to really kick the tires on this thing? Hard to say - but we should note that an effort like this would also open the doors on allowing interested allies loan equipment. Which is to say that you could likely get a nice multiplier on actual cash contributions.

2) Assemble some other team than the Eagleworks team and fund them to do the research in a similar manner to the above. This could be a sort of public/private combo where two teams collaborate to enhance each-other's work. The gating item here, of course, would be the team - what is the right mix of people to get this done right? 

3) Work the other way around - crowd-fund an X-prize for some key milestone in EM Drive research. Say a $5M bounty for the first team that can generate material (say 1N) thrust.

Notably, we could really be innovative and use something like a scamfunding mechanism. Why not? A "decentralized collaborative organization" might be precisely the thing necessary to resource research on the EM Drive while keeping the results open to the public.

I am in a position that I could organize any of these three and would be delighted to collaborate to make any of them happen.  Obviously, #1 is gated by the eagleworks team and #2 is gated by identifying and assembling an alternate team. 

I'm interested in the thoughts of those folks who have been close to the developments (and the people) so far.
Hi all, and Jordan,

I read your post with the three options, and I also noticed people favor option #3.

I am myself at the moment working on a business plan which quite coincidentally is to propose a large-scale Wi-Fi network in the Port of Rotterdam. I enjoy entrepreneuring, this is my first time so fingers crossed :)

As a business man, I would like to point out that offering a prize will make teams secretive about their work and probably also will mean the working results will be patented. And we all know what that means as far as this revolution becoming public domain....

Unless contracts are signed prohibiting this, this will happen (at least I fear it). The problem with contracts is that they are contracts. And we don't really want those.

I am not ramming option #3 into the ground, I think it is a good idea initially. But corruption is in the heart of every human I'm afraid, especially when it comes to money.

Now I am not completely up to speed ont he tread, so someone else might have pointed this out already. My apologies in that case.

Offline bad_astra

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Re: FEATURE ARTICLE: Evaluating NASA's Futuristic EM Drive
« Reply #264 on: 05/01/2015 09:13 pm »

IT IS NOT THE SAME!!!!!!

Having reaction mass expelled *changes everything*! For one, now you need to include reaction mass' kinetic energy into energy balance.

Constant acceleration reactionless drive of any type violates COE.

Does a magsail?
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Offline cfs

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Re: FEATURE ARTICLE: Evaluating NASA's Futuristic EM Drive
« Reply #265 on: 05/01/2015 09:25 pm »
Since Eagleworks started doing real work on the EM Drive, there has been growing interest from outside in finding ways to support their work. So far this has been frustrated largely due to NASA regulations (you can't donate money, equipment, etc. directly to a NASA project). There are some work-arounds ([through the SSI](www.ssi.org)) but these are uninspiring.

I have a strong interest in this effort and have been looking at different approaches that might be able to move the work to a more powerful foundation.  My sense is that the strongest platform would empower the assembly of the right people to work the problem and resource them with the tools to do it right, without either hamstringing them with bureaucracy or the narrow interest of typical "VC-funded" enterprise.

Given that, I can see three more aggressive approaches to funding EM Drive research:

1) Convince the Eagleworks crew to take their work outside of NASA and fund the efforts directly. After some research I'm reasonably confident that some form of crowdfunding could be expected to be able to raise $2.5M to $5M for this kind of effort. Would that be enough to a) get the Eagleworks crew feeling safe to make the leap; and b) provide the materials and resources necessary to really kick the tires on this thing? Hard to say - but we should note that an effort like this would also open the doors on allowing interested allies loan equipment. Which is to say that you could likely get a nice multiplier on actual cash contributions.

2) Assemble some other team than the Eagleworks team and fund them to do the research in a similar manner to the above. This could be a sort of public/private combo where two teams collaborate to enhance each-other's work. The gating item here, of course, would be the team - what is the right mix of people to get this done right? 

3) Work the other way around - crowd-fund an X-prize for some key milestone in EM Drive research. Say a $5M bounty for the first team that can generate material (say 1N) thrust.

Notably, we could really be innovative and use something like a scamfunding mechanism. Why not? A "decentralized collaborative organization" might be precisely the thing necessary to resource research on the EM Drive while keeping the results open to the public.

I am in a position that I could organize any of these three and would be delighted to collaborate to make any of them happen.  Obviously, #1 is gated by the eagleworks team and #2 is gated by identifying and assembling an alternate team. 

I'm interested in the thoughts of those folks who have been close to the developments (and the people) so far.
Hi all, and Jordan,

I read your post with the three options, and I also noticed people favor option #3.

I am myself at the moment working on a business plan which quite coincidentally is to propose a large-scale Wi-Fi network in the Port of Rotterdam. I enjoy entrepreneuring, this is my first time so fingers crossed :)

As a business man, I would like to point out that offering a prize will make teams secretive about their work and probably also will mean the working results will be patented. And we all know what that means as far as this revolution becoming public domain....

Unless contracts are signed prohibiting this, this will happen (at least I fear it). The problem with contracts is that they are contracts. And we don't really want those.

I am not ramming option #3 into the ground, I think it is a good idea initially. But corruption is in the heart of every human I'm afraid, especially when it comes to money.

Now I am not completely up to speed ont he tread, so someone else might have pointed this out already. My apologies in that case.

A frequent practice in academia especially among experimental groups is collaborative competition whereby the entire collaboration is split into teams which communicate with each other openly about their respective projects, but compete in order to be the first to obtain definitive results.  If something like this could be fostered it would be the best option to really finding out if we have something here... but I don't know how one would apply this in principle outside of academia.

Offline LasJayhawk

If your in the US, please write or email your senators and congressman, and let them know how important proper funding for NASA is to our future. Let them know you think underfunding NASA is BAD public policy. If they hear it enough from enough people they might be more receptive to funding requests.

Offline ppnl

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Re: FEATURE ARTICLE: Evaluating NASA's Futuristic EM Drive
« Reply #267 on: 05/01/2015 09:28 pm »

IT IS NOT THE SAME!!!!!!

Having reaction mass expelled *changes everything*! For one, now you need to include reaction mass' kinetic energy into energy balance.

Constant acceleration reactionless drive of any type violates COE.

Does a magsail?

A magsail is neither constant acceleration nor reaction-less. It is true that it does not carry its reaction mass with it but it is reacting against an external medium. But then so does a car, airplane or boat.

Offline jknuble

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Re: FEATURE ARTICLE: Evaluating NASA's Futuristic EM Drive
« Reply #268 on: 05/01/2015 09:35 pm »
A test that should be performed:

NASA Eagleworks should very precisely measure the mass of the test article, and verify that it is not losing any mass while it is generating force.

Similar idea:  Talking to a colleague involved in our breakdown issues, he suggested a repeated test with a TQCM added to the chamber. (Looking over the paper*, it isn't clear if this was done or not.) Pull a decent vacuum until all out-gassing events have subsided. Then turn on your RF power. If particles are being generated by dielectric breakdown you will see them on the TQCM. This was used to validate that breakdown was occurring in our diplexer and not some other purely RF effect. 

He also points out that maybe this isn't a bad thing!  Perhaps a solid dielectric as your fuel could last a very long time...

-JK

*http://arc.aiaa.org/doi/pdf/10.2514/6.2014-4029

Offline Mulletron

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Re: FEATURE ARTICLE: Evaluating NASA's Futuristic EM Drive
« Reply #269 on: 05/01/2015 09:39 pm »
So let's assume the EM drive works as described and Alpha Centauri can be reached in approximately 130 earth years accounting for acceleration, cruising and  deceleration. Can anyone calculate the approximate time dilation spent? (i.e. the theory of relativity that shows  time slowing down relative to earth time and stops at light speed.) Obviously gravitational effects on time dilation would probably be impossible to factor in.

If time were slowed down enough would it allow reaching Alpha Centauri in a generation or two? Assuming one didn't die of radiation poisoning, a spec of dust piercing a hole through  them at that speed, or outright insanity.  ::)

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Offline JPHar

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Re: FEATURE ARTICLE: Evaluating NASA's Futuristic EM Drive
« Reply #270 on: 05/01/2015 09:39 pm »
A frequent practice in academia especially among experimental groups is collaborative competition whereby the entire collaboration is split into teams which communicate with each other openly about their respective projects, but compete in order to be the first to obtain definitive results.  If something like this could be fostered it would be the best option to really finding out if we have something here... but I don't know how one would apply this in principle outside of academia.

Easy: Don't.  Offer a prize to teams in academia, such that the results of their work are public domain. 

Offline Mongo62

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Re: FEATURE ARTICLE: Evaluating NASA's Futuristic EM Drive
« Reply #271 on: 05/01/2015 10:18 pm »

IT IS NOT THE SAME!!!!!!

Having reaction mass expelled *changes everything*! For one, now you need to include reaction mass' kinetic energy into energy balance.

Constant acceleration reactionless drive of any type violates COE.

Does a magsail?

A magsail is neither constant acceleration nor reaction-less. It is true that it does not carry its reaction mass with it but it is reacting against an external medium. But then so does a car, airplane or boat.

It is argued that the EM-drive is also reacting against an external medium, in its case the quantum vacuum.

Offline Dmytry

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Re: FEATURE ARTICLE: Evaluating NASA's Futuristic EM Drive
« Reply #272 on: 05/01/2015 10:42 pm »
Well, here's a quick synopsis of my summary:

1: There is a substantial inconsistency between results obtained in one orientation and the opposite orientation. This means there are unaccounted-for errors of comparable magnitude to the effect. The onus is on the proponents to eliminate such errors, not on the opponents to calculate the errors precisely (the insistence that the opposite is true is hallmark of pseudoscience).

What was the pair of the graphs again? Rodal, can you at least include them in the article, to avoid misleading the public?

2: Independent replication is less than none. The results are not replicated with the same apparatus in the same lab, when the device is turned 180 degrees. Note: mere presence of a thrust does not constitute a replication; the experiments should be consistent as inconsistency implies some environmental effect.

3: 217 years ago, Henry Cavendish has measured forces smaller than a single pixel on any of the force plots here, and he made an error of 1.1%. This really is mind blowing. What did go so wrong here?

4: A far simpler experimental set up directly based upon that used by Henry Cavendish, if used on an enclosed shielding box containing the apparatus and batteries, would not be subject to emissions by the test article and would obtain far higher accuracy, at a far lower cost, while screening out most of the conventional forces (as those would act between the drive and it's enclosure, netting zero for the whole).

It would also permit easy testing in 10 degree increments to rule out interactions with Earth's magnetic field, and to shed light on the important theoretical questions with regards to the interaction of the force with Earth's orbital motion, dark matter flux through the cavity, neutrino flux through the cavity, et cetera et cetera. Placement of test masses around the article could clarify whenever this is a long range force or a short range one acting between the drive and the environment.

When it comes to the drive itself, due to much higher sensitivity of the 217 years old design, lower power levels could be employed, simplifying the construction and alleviating material degradation within the cavity.

5: Such significant unknown coupling between EM radiation and anything else would interfere with operation of many telecommunication and radar devices as well as many common laboratory items, which are sensitive to any deviations from Maxwell's equations and quantum electrodynamics, down to parts per trillion. If the momentum is conserved, microwaves can not be producing thrust without a corresponding reaction on the microwaves. As the EM radiation pressure is very low (incident and reflected power divided by the speed of light), even very small forces correspond to very huge deviations from Maxwell's equations.

Anyhow, all in all it looks really bad.
« Last Edit: 05/01/2015 10:51 pm by Dmytry »

Offline R.W. Keyes

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Re: FEATURE ARTICLE: Evaluating NASA's Futuristic EM Drive
« Reply #273 on: 05/01/2015 10:48 pm »
Since Eagleworks started doing real work on the EM Drive, there has been growing interest from outside in finding ways to support their work. So far this has been frustrated largely due to NASA regulations (you can't donate money, equipment, etc. directly to a NASA project). There are some work-arounds ([through the SSI](www.ssi.org)) but these are uninspiring.

I have a strong interest in this effort and have been looking at different approaches that might be able to move the work to a more powerful foundation.  My sense is that the strongest platform would empower the assembly of the right people to work the problem and resource them with the tools to do it right, without either hamstringing them with bureaucracy or the narrow interest of typical "VC-funded" enterprise.

Given that, I can see three more aggressive approaches to funding EM Drive research:

1) Convince the Eagleworks crew to take their work outside of NASA and fund the efforts directly. After some research I'm reasonably confident that some form of crowdfunding could be expected to be able to raise $2.5M to $5M for this kind of effort. Would that be enough to a) get the Eagleworks crew feeling safe to make the leap; and b) provide the materials and resources necessary to really kick the tires on this thing? Hard to say - but we should note that an effort like this would also open the doors on allowing interested allies loan equipment. Which is to say that you could likely get a nice multiplier on actual cash contributions.

2) Assemble some other team than the Eagleworks team and fund them to do the research in a similar manner to the above. This could be a sort of public/private combo where two teams collaborate to enhance each-other's work. The gating item here, of course, would be the team - what is the right mix of people to get this done right? 

3) Work the other way around - crowd-fund an X-prize for some key milestone in EM Drive research. Say a $5M bounty for the first team that can generate material (say 1N) thrust.

Notably, we could really be innovative and use something like a scamfunding mechanism. Why not? A "decentralized collaborative organization" might be precisely the thing necessary to resource research on the EM Drive while keeping the results open to the public.

I am in a position that I could organize any of these three and would be delighted to collaborate to make any of them happen.  Obviously, #1 is gated by the eagleworks team and #2 is gated by identifying and assembling an alternate team. 

I'm interested in the thoughts of those folks who have been close to the developments (and the people) so far.

These would all be good methods in another field. I don't think they're appropriate here. It's hard to pull work out of NASA, not by intellectual property issues but by the scientists not wanting to leave NASA. I don't know how "entrepreneurial" the Eagleworks scientists are, but I suspect that they are more interested in doing science than engineering. There's no shortage of great things going on at Eagleworks and NASA. I wouldn't want the work that Eagleworks does to become proprietary, or become sucked into the Silicon-Valley venture-capitalist mode of thought in any way. That's not to sat that others shouldn't take up refining the science into engineering. There are other groups working on this, but they're not talking, either because it's defense related and the work is secret, or because there is a commercial need for a low profile. I don't think the Chinese have backed off their research, nor have Boeing, and Roger Shawyer/SPR are engaged in something as well. A few years ago, I was exchanging email with Roger over the EMDrive and related topics, but he's become quite hushed lately - I think that he doesn't want to mix up my ideas with his and create any doubts regarding intellectual property. By the way, he has filed for (and I believe has been granted) patents related to the EMDrive. To move forward commercially, you would have to either come to an agreement with him/SPR, or wait for his patents to expire, or find some way around them. I'd guess that Guido Fetta has also protected his invention as well.

I think the best way to support Eagleworks is through vocal and active political support. This means support not only of NASA, but of Eagleworks specifically. I have thought of the idea of utilizing the whitehouse online petition system as a way to direct more resources to Eagleworks directly, but I'd need to hear what Eagleworks thinks they need as far as resources and other support, and then craft the petition.

Hi all, and Jordan,

I read your post with the three options, and I also noticed people favor option #3.

I am myself at the moment working on a business plan which quite coincidentally is to propose a large-scale Wi-Fi network in the Port of Rotterdam. I enjoy entrepreneuring, this is my first time so fingers crossed :)

Paul, I have been involved with WiFi mesh networks in the past, for public Internet access. I know people who have done this in other places, and had much more success than I did in Cambridge/Boston, such as in Vienna. I don't want to drift off topic any further, so contact me and we can speak privately, if you'd like.

Offline KelvinZero

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Re: FEATURE ARTICLE: Evaluating NASA's Futuristic EM Drive
« Reply #274 on: 05/01/2015 10:57 pm »
It is argued that the EM-drive is also reacting against an external medium, in its case the quantum vacuum.
The important question is whether this medium, whatever it is, is fixed (like a plane moving through air and a boat through water) or always seems stationary in your current frame in which case you can get more energy than you put in. This wouldn't kill the idea but it would make it puzzling to only focus on the application as a better ion drive.

There comparatively straightforward drives that propose pushing against the interstellar medium (the very thin ionised gas between stars), for example http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bussard_ramjet#Electrostatic_ion_scoop
Potentially these could far outperform a rocket because a rocket has to carry its own reaction mass and that gets exponentially bad. Pushing on a fixed medium would allow a mere square relationship between energy and velocity. This velocity is relative the the medium. I think I read somewhere that we are moving through the interstellar medium at about 30km/s but I couldnt find the reference.
« Last Edit: 05/01/2015 10:59 pm by KelvinZero »

Offline neuroMatt

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Re: FEATURE ARTICLE: Evaluating NASA's Futuristic EM Drive
« Reply #275 on: 05/01/2015 11:01 pm »


Is there a photo, drawing or block diagram of the current resonator I could see?  50W is lower than I expected to hear but that is still a large amount of power in the RF world and high power design techniques would still need to be employed.  FR4 and Teflon would both out-gas to some degree and I don't believe one is necessarily better than the other.   For either, the materials would need to be in the chamber for sufficient time to outgas enough prior to applying high power.

-JK

Not having worked much with high power RF in a vacuum I'll talk about the non-vac testing. Assuming there's some kind of corona, since the cavity is closed, wouldn't the corona be on the inside of the cavity and therefore apply equal force in both directions when the particles bounce off the other side of the cavity? The cavity is sealed so I'm not sure what amount of leakage would be needed to produce this kind of thrust, but the particles released from the surface by the corona effect should be mostly reflected internally keeping all the momentum cancelled out.

Offline Dmytry

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Re: FEATURE ARTICLE: Evaluating NASA's Futuristic EM Drive
« Reply #276 on: 05/01/2015 11:02 pm »
It is argued that the EM-drive is also reacting against an external medium, in its case the quantum vacuum.
The important question is whether this medium, whatever it is, is fixed (like a plane moving through air and a boat through water) or always seems stationary in your current frame in which case you can get more energy than you put in. This wouldn't kill the idea but it would make it puzzling to only focus on the application as a better ion drive.

There comparatively straightforward drives that propose pushing against the interstellar medium (the very thin ionised gas between stars), for example http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bussard_ramjet#Electrostatic_ion_scoop
Potentially these could far outperform a rocket because a rocket has to carry its own reaction mass and that gets exponentially bad. Pushing on a fixed medium would allow a mere square relationship between energy and velocity. This velocity is relative the the medium. I think I read somewhere that we are moving through the interstellar medium at about 30km/s but I couldnt find the reference.
We're spinning around the Sun at about 30km/s and the Sun is spinning around the centre of the Milky Way at about 230km/s . If you're pushing on some preferred frame that isn't geocentric then you get huge seasonal and daily variation. Even if I believed the drive worked, experimental set up still gets an F- for failing to be accurate enough to even guide theoretical work.
« Last Edit: 05/01/2015 11:04 pm by Dmytry »

Offline SH

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Re: FEATURE ARTICLE: Evaluating NASA's Futuristic EM Drive
« Reply #277 on: 05/01/2015 11:18 pm »
To move forward commercially, you would have to either come to an agreement with him/SPR, or wait for his patents to expire, or find some way around them. I'd guess that Guido Fetta has also protected his invention as well

This is getting off topic, but that's really not something to be worried about...you can patent a specific design but you can't patent the concept.  Once the physics concept is understood, its trivial to modify the design in some way that still operates on the same basic physics principles.

Offline Superfastjellyfish

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Re: FEATURE ARTICLE: Evaluating NASA's Futuristic EM Drive
« Reply #278 on: 05/01/2015 11:32 pm »


Is there a photo, drawing or block diagram of the current resonator I could see?  50W is lower than I expected to hear but that is still a large amount of power in the RF world and high power design techniques would still need to be employed.  FR4 and Teflon would both out-gas to some degree and I don't believe one is necessarily better than the other.   For either, the materials would need to be in the chamber for sufficient time to outgas enough prior to applying high power.

-JK

Not having worked much with high power RF in a vacuum I'll talk about the non-vac testing. Assuming there's some kind of corona, since the cavity is closed, wouldn't the corona be on the inside of the cavity and therefore apply equal force in both directions when the particles bounce off the other side of the cavity? The cavity is sealed so I'm not sure what amount of leakage would be needed to produce this kind of thrust, but the particles released from the surface by the corona effect should be mostly reflected internally keeping all the momentum cancelled out.

http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=36313.msg1327937#msg1327937

According to this post, Mr. March says that 'BTW, the copper frustum is vented, so its internal pressure matches the chamber pressure after a short time period at vacuum.'

I've been drinking, but this quote seems relevant(could be only for the vac tests though.  My memory isn't what it used to be).  :)

Offline GDIKnight

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Re: FEATURE ARTICLE: Evaluating NASA's Futuristic EM Drive
« Reply #279 on: 05/01/2015 11:50 pm »
Upon a cursory glance, I would like to remind everyone about certain general concepts that are overlooked:
1.  Small EM vortices constructively interfere to produce a large EM vortex, much like the funnels of a tornado feeding a large central core.  The Magnetron configuration is like the barrel of a Colt 45 revolver, generating 4 EM vortices as shown in the NASA magnetic measurements pic.  This large vortex is compressing space at the base of the vortices and expanding space at the top of the vortices.
2.  What generates radio waves, heat, and electromagnetic disturbances in nature?  A black hole.  Likewise, I believe this configuration is generating an unstable wormhole.  Literally, pulling the vehicle along while compressing space behind it.  A change in weight of the device along the direction of thrust would confirm this hypothesis if the device were to be placed upside down with the thrust pointing up.  The observation would be a lighter object contrary to gravitation physics.
3.  A secondary magnet is needed to keep the field in place.  That magnet is directing the flow of charge from the vortices.  I believe an EM torus positioned with the hole inline with the downstream would focus the flow more effectively and increase the thrust considerably.
4.  If this hypothesis pans out, I believe higher energy, larger devices at two ends of a path could generate a stable wormhole.
5.  That... And it would change how our outlook about how microwaves really work in that the heat is from the compression of space due to the formation of EM vortices... And why you should not be putting metal into a microwave.  Heehee.

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