New NASA engine can get to Mars in weeks...instead of months

leBIT

NASA has been testing new space travel technologies throughout its entire history, but the results of its latest experiment may be the most exciting yet — if they hold up. Earlier this week at a conference in Cleveland, Ohio, scientists with NASA's Eagleworks Laboratories in Houston, Texas, presented a paper indicating they had achieved a small amount of thrust from a container that had no traditional fuels, only microwaves, bouncing around inside it. If the results can be replicated reliably and scaled up — and that's a big "if," since NASA only produced them on a very small scale over a two-day period — they could ultimately result in ultra-light weight, ultra fast spacecraft that could carry humans to Mars in weeks instead of months, and to the nearest star system outside our own (Proxima Centurai) in just about 30 years.

w ww.theverge.com/2014/8/1/5959637/nasa-cannae-drive-tests-have-promising-results

Remove space seen as I can't post links as of yet

KungPao

2 weeks?

Adamantium

I was actually going to make a thread about this yesterday, but then the rational side got hold of me and said it'll no doubt be disproven, as it invalidates all physics (unless this THE missing part of the single unified theory holy grail)

If it's true, this will be world changing, like discovering electricity (ELECTRO MAGNETISM), or discovering unobtanium.

Until yesterday, everyone in the international community was laughing at this engine and its inventor, Roger Sawyer. It's called the EmDrive and everyone said it was impossible because it went against the laws of physics. But the fact is that the quantum vacuum plasma thruster works in the lab and scientists can't explain

The applications are limitless
Cars, air travel to Australia in 3 hours

To the moon in less than an hour and able to pick satellite debris like picking the stones out of your garden.

I want to believe, just like I want to believe anti gravity will be possible
I love that they cant/won't explain how it works as the physics seem impossible.. it's just incredible to think that not only are we potentially at the threshold for faster space travel, but are also knocking on the door of unexplored sciences and laws of physics that have yet to be discovered.

Kinda a neat feeling, actually... if it all works out, of course.

thelad95

Yeah it's a real pain how long it takes to get to get to Mars, especially on match days. I'm sure this development will benefit me and many other boardsies here.

kneemos

They're best thing since Velcro.

robertxxx

What about the light weight lead suits needed?

dxhound2005

This one is even quicker.

http://edition.cnn.com/2014/06/12/tech/innovation/warp-speed-spaceship/?c=&page=0

antodeco

I bet the astronauts will stay have to pay €30 if they want to bring a bag

Guy:Incognito

Its a pity no one thought to get Gene Rodenberry to build a warp drive before he died. All this could have been sorted decades ago.

darkpagandeath

I'm guessing you mean the Mdrive ?

Joe Doe

The aul 'quantum vacuum plasma thruster'
would be a great name for a band, or something cowboy mechanics can dish out after replacing broken timing belts.

What about this Graphite/Graphine stuff, haven't seen any of it for sale in Lidl yet?
They're probably keeping it all for building lightweight holiday ships to mars and beyond.

131spanner

Stick German plates and a CB ariel on her and she'll be there in 2 days lawd.






CoOoOoOo...

Cee-Jay-Cee

Why would anyone want to get to mars within 2 weeks, it's not like there's anything there to do. They'd be better off taking the traditional method which takes multiple years and maybe by the time they arrive there Mars will have developed a bit.

Kopparberg Strawberry and Lime

I want to believe !

http://images.sodahead.com/polls/000363421/polls_i_cant_believe_its_not_butter_ufo_x_files_i_want_t1_3749_253791_answer_2_xlarge.jpeg

Rayne Wooney

Cutting the time it would take to get there using current tech down by 90% sounds too good to be true

Joe Doe

They should sent up a few of the nice chaps that do the tarmacking 1st,
so it can be terra-formed-up before the holiday arrivals from gatwick etc come in.
Would also give any locals there, a chance catch up on interstellar gossip.

Capt'n Midnight

very suspicious

hope they ruled out magnetic effects

and residual gas outgassing

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra_high_vacuum

Adamantium

http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-07/31/nasa-validates-impossible-space-drive

http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-02/06/emdrive-and-cold-fusion

Rayne Wooney

The fact the English guy won't discuss the physics behind it would also set the warning bells ringing

Capt'n Midnight

Rayne Wooney wrote: »

The fact the English guy won't discuss the physics behind it would also set the warning bells ringing

he's explained it all

except the power source and reaction mass

and ruling out other effects that could explain that thrust like magnetic and electrostatic and stuff

SpaceTime

There were plenty of discoveries of physical phenomena that were put into practical use long before they were properly understood.

Maybe they've stumbled upon something experimentally that they've yet to figure out the physics of.

X-Rays were being generated and used without fully understanding what they were initially. Same with radio waves.

We found loads of applications for electromagnetic fields, permanent magents etc etc without really understanding everything about them.

There's always a possibly of something being discovered experimentally rather than purely theoretically!

I'm optimistic but sceptical.

Adamantium

http://sploid.gizmodo.com/nasa-reveals-new-impossible-engine-can-change-space-t-1614549987

Until yesterday, every physicist was laughing at this engine and its inventor, Roger Shawyer. It's called the EmDrive and everyone said it was impossible because it goes against classical mechanics. But the fact is that the quantum vacuum plasma thruster works and scientists can't explain why.

Shawyer's engine is extremely light and simple. It provides a thrust by "bouncing microwaves around in a closed container." The microwaves are generated using electricity that can be provided by solar energy. No propellant is necessary, which means that this thrusters can work forever unless a hardware failure occurs. If real, this would be a major breakthrough in space propulsion technology.

Obviously, the entire thing sounded preposterous to everyone. In theory, this thing shouldn't work at all. So people laughed and laughed and ignored him. Everyone except a team of Chinese scientists. They built one in 2009 and it worked: They were able to produce 720 millinewton, which is reportedly enough to build a satellite thruster. And still, nobody else believed it.

Now, American scientist Guido Fetta and a team at NASA Eagleworks—the advanced propulsion skunkworks led by Dr Harold "Sonny" White at the Johnson Space Center—have published a new paper that demonstrates that a similar engine working on the same principles does indeed produce thrust. Their model, however, produces much less thrust—just 30 to 50 micronewtons. But it works, which is amazing on its own. They haven't explained why their engine works, but it does work:

Test results indicate that the RF resonant cavity thruster design, which is unique as an electric propulsion device, is producing a force that is not attributable to any classical electromagnetic phenomenon and therefore is potentially demonstrating an interaction with the quantum vacuum virtual plasma.
The entire idea that we have found something that seems to go against the the principle of conservation of momentum just seems crazy to me. But the fact that it has worked for two independent parties can't be denied. That's the laboratory speaking. Then again, perhaps both labs made a mistake. I'm sure this will be tested by the Russians and the Europeans too, but at least I'm glad we are working on it.

But the fact that we may be witnessing something completely new, something that may push us forward into sci-fi territory once again, is very exciting.

http://rt.com/usa/177204-nasa-space-drive-emdrive/

Read through comments if you dare, every 2nd one raving about Nickola Tesla and the fact this tech has been around for over 100 years.

I'm not saying their wrong, but....

SpaceTime

Can we just call it the Impulse Drive?

Adamantium

Scientists and engineers everywhere:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-oiBSCypUYY

Capt'n Midnight

SpaceTime wrote: »

There were plenty of discoveries of physical phenomena that were put into practical use long before they were properly understood.

Maybe they've stumbled upon something experimentally that they've yet to figure out the physics of.

X-Rays were being generated and used without fully understanding what they were initially. Same with radio waves.

We found loads of applications for electromagnetic fields, permanent magents etc etc without really understanding everything about them.

There's always a possibly of something being discovered experimentally rather than purely theoretically!

I'm optimistic but sceptical.

Hertz discovered radio waves because he was investigating Maxwell's predictions.

X-Rays were just a continuation of that.

Sir Arthur Daley

Have they realised all they need on the rocket is on of these

Bafucin

Adamantium wrote: »

http://sploid.gizmodo.com/nasa-reveals-new-impossible-engine-can-change-space-t-1614549987



http://rt.com/usa/177204-nasa-space-drive-emdrive/

Read through comments if you dare, every 2nd one raving about Nickola Tesla and the fact this tech has been around for over 100 years.

I'm not saying their wrong, but....

It goes against a lot of the problem solving paradigms of classical physics. In electrodynamics and quantum electrodynamics, energy and momentum are each separately conserved. In order to be consistent with established physical theories, a valid description of the device's operation would have to separately account for any transfers of energy or momentum between any physical systems involved.

It is a fair criticism that most articles do not make clear enough how controversial Roger Shawyer's engine is.

Conservation of momentum is also required for everything from relativity to Newtonian physics. So I see two clear explanations either the effective thrusts are spurious effects that would not happen in a closed controlled environment or the theory behind the EM drive will be explained in terms within these existing theories. Shawyer seems to be suggesting the latter is true and that the EM drive does not violate the law of conservation of momentum. It's NASA validated now so their asses will look pretty stupid if nothing comes of it and they rely on govt funding I don't imagine they would be best pleased if they looked like noobs. But still it's very controversial.

Most of the articles I have read show a staggering level of scientific illiteracy.

A fatal objection to the EM drive would be if it violated the conservation of momentum no article has attempted to address this clearly and explain how or why it doesn't. All is said is that Shawyer has indicated it doesn't. And that doesn't make sense. AH BUT IT WILL!

Shawyer has received a lot of criticism because of incorrect calculations for the angles of force vectors. Using corrected calculations the conservation of momentum is conserved and the EM drive cannot function as is proposed.

Various academics have suggested he is a fraud. Ah we shall see no doubt.

Tis boootiful dream.

Calibos

Also amazed that despite the tiny effect not being fully confirmed or understood yet, they are already talking about scaling it up and travelling to Mars in 2 weeks??? WTF??

It's like Stephenson in the early 19th century putting the finishing touches to his new invention the train and saying to the media of the time, "of course when we scale this up to a mile long train travelling at 500kph on a superconducting maglev track the journey from Bombay to Peking shall thus be greatly shortened........ ."

thelad95

Bafucin wrote: »

It goes against a lot of the problem solving paradigms of classical physics. In electrodynamics and quantum electrodynamics, energy and momentum are each separately conserved. In order to be consistent with established physical theories, a valid description of the device's operation would have to separately account for any transfers of energy or momentum between any physical systems involved.

It is a fair criticism that most articles do not make clear enough how controversial Roger Shawyer's engine is.

Conservation of momentum is also required for everything from relativity to Newtonian physics. So I see two clear explanations either the effective thrusts are spurious effects that would not happen in a closed controlled environment or the theory behind the EM drive will be explained in terms within these existing theories. Shawyer seems to be suggesting the latter is true and that the EM drive does not violate the law of conservation of momentum. It's NASA validated now so their asses will look pretty stupid if nothing comes of it and they rely on govt funding I don't imagine they would be best pleased if they looked like noobs. But still it's very controversial.

Most of the articles I have read show a staggering level of scientific illiteracy.

A fatal objection to the EM drive would be if it violated the conservation of momentum no article has attempted to address this clearly and explain how or why it doesn't. All is said is that Shawyer has indicated it doesn't. And that doesn't make sense. AH BUT IT WILL!

Shawyer has received a lot of criticism because of incorrect calculations for the angles of force vectors. Using corrected calculations the conservation of momentum is conserved and the EM drive cannot function as is proposed.

Various academics have suggested he is a fraud. Ah we shall see no doubt.

Tis boootiful dream.

Yeah. What he said!

Capt'n Midnight

Calibos wrote: »

It's like Stephenson in the early 19th century putting the finishing touches to his new invention the train and saying to the media of the time, "of course when we scale this up to a mile long train travelling at 500kph on a superconducting maglev track the journey from Bombay to Peking shall thus be greatly shortened........ ."

No , it wouldn't because Stephenson's train very clearly worked.

It would be more akin to Aeolipile

Vitruvius (c. 80 BC – c. 15AD) mentions aeolipiles by name:

"Æolipylæ are hollow brazen vessels, which have an opening or mouth of small size, by means of which they can be filled with water. Prior to the water being heated over the fire, but little wind is emitted. As soon, however, as the water begins to boil, a violent wind issues forth."

except of course that the violent wind would be more like a barely detectable if you went out of your way to look for it suggestion of a draught ,with the whole experiment being done outdoors


Yes you can get direct propulsion from electromagnetic energy without needing reaction mass, it's called a solar sail

but woefully inefficient , it's much easier to push against the electric of magnetic field of the earth using tethers or when when out of our magnetosphere you could surf the solar wind - harvesting it for reaction mass is probably difficult.

SpaceTime

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Hertz discovered radio waves because he was investigating Maxwell's predictions.

X-Rays were just a continuation of that.

Röntgen was actually experimenting with cathode rays on a screen (i.e. similar to the principle used for a CRT television or an oscilloscope). The production of X-Rays was entirely unexpected and accidental. He basically noticed that the fluorescent screen he was trying to pick up the cathode rays on was glowing despite shielding.

We were using electromagnetism and magnetism long before we understood exactly how it worked.

For example, induction motors, transformers, etc were in use because we understood the effect of magnetic fields, but it was only later that theoretical physics provided reasonable explanations for how they might operate.

All I'm saying is that you can use something and predict how it will operate quite effectively without necessarily comprehending the exact details of the physics that are making it happen.

To quote Lord Blackadder, "I am one of these people who are quite happy
to wear cotton, but have no idea how it works. " (in reference to the Ravelling Nancy - a great and entirely fictitious leap forward in the automation of the cotton industry)

KahBoom

Appropriate Star-Trek-inspired name for the engine - "Ye Cannae™ change the laws o' physics!"

Tail Docker

In the interests of Science, I have tested this for Nasa - I jammed a generator into the hiace and plugged in the microwave with the door open and the safety catch bypassed - facing rearwards. Not sure how far Mars is tbh, but it took a fair few shots of the old diesel engine just to get moving and when I switched purely to micro-thrust progress was less than stellar. That and the generator ran out of petrol after two hours. I had gone 4km.

Considering the destination I chose for the test was Naas, and I failed on my ar5e, something tells me Mars might be a stretch.

Frank Lee Midere

The link without the space.

http://www.theverge.com/2014/8/1/5959637/nasa-cannae-drive-tests-have-promising-results

Capt'n Midnight

Love the claims about NASA verifying it

only three hits for Cannae Drive on nasa.gov and none on jpl.gov

http://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?R=20140006052

This paper describes the eight-day August 2013 test campaign designed to investigate and demonstrate viability of using classical magnetoplasmadynamics to obtain a propulsive momentum transfer via the quantum vacuum virtual plasma. This paper will not address the physics of the quantum vacuum plasma thruster, but instead will describe the test integration, test operations, and the results obtained from the test campaign. Approximately 30-50 micro-Newtons of thrust were recorded from an electric propulsion test article consisting primarily of a radio frequency (RF) resonant cavity excited at approximately 935 megahertz. Testing was performed on a low-thrust torsion pendulum that is capable of detecting force at a single-digit micronewton level, within a stainless steel vacuum chamber with the door closed but at ambient atmospheric pressure.

door closed but at ambient atmospheric pressure. - really ? :rolleyes:

any idea of how much power it needs ?


I'd love to be wrong but it's sounding like Orbo-tech

Bafucin

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Love the claims about NASA verifying it

only three hits for Cannae Drive on nasa.gov and none on jpl.gov

http://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?R=20140006052

door closed but at ambient atmospheric pressure. - really ? :rolleyes:

any idea of how much power it needs ?


I'd love to be wrong but it's sounding like Orbo-tech

They were only able to verify that the force was not generated by something other than the test system.

They still have no bloody idea if or why it actually works or not. Basically it equates to, all they know is during the testing the man was not blowing at it from behind a curtain.

door closed but at ambient atmospheric pressure.

This is mech eng dirty talk :cool:

I think this says it all really.

"This paper will not address the physics of the quantum vacuum plasma thruster, but instead will describe the test integration, test operations, and the results obtained from the test campaign."

We will not talk about the numbers cuz we knows the numbers is well dodgy, we'll push it down the hill and watch it go!



Back in the 90s, Nasa tested what was claimed to be an antigravity device based on spinning superconducting discs. That was reported to give good test results, until researchers realised that interference from the device was affecting their measuring instruments. They have probably learned a lot since then.


Nasa had avoided trying to explain the results and has focused on reporting what it found.

Sure tis a day at the beach and all good fun. Mech Eng does not get in the news much!

Bafucin

KahBoom wrote: »

Appropriate Star-Trek-inspired name for the engine - "Ye Cannae™ change the laws o' physics!"

I love this!

steddyeddy

From PC magazine

NASA Validates 'Physics Defying' Space Drive

By Damon Poeter 08/03/2014 5:28 p.m.

NASA recently tested an experimental microwave thruster for a radical new type of spacecraft propulsion system—and to the surprise of researchers, the "physics-defying," fuel-less space drive appears to actually work.
Fuel takes up an enormous amount of space and weighs down current spacecraft, so it would be a tremendous breakthrough to essentially eliminate the need for it, as the "EmDrive" promises to do.
The drive generates thrust by "bouncing microwaves around in closed container" without any need for propellant, according to Wired UK, which has been following the work of its inventor for several years.
That would be Roger Shawyer, a British scientist who in 2001 formed a company called SPR to promote his EmDrive, though to little avail in the face of critics who "reject[ed] his relativity-based theory and insist[ed] that, according to the law of conservation of momentum, it cannot work."
Until recently that is.
Chinese Academy of Sciences researchers built and tested an EmDrive a couple of years ago, reporting in November 2012 that they had achieved success with the experiment.
"At an input power of 2.5kW, their 2.45GHz EmDrive thruster provides 720mN of thrust," Shawyer's SPR site noted. Those numbers meant propulsion delivered by an EmDrive could be "enough for a practical satellite thruster," Wired noted.
Such a drive would still need a power input, but the thrusters "could be powered by solar electricity, eliminating the need for the supply of propellant that occupies up to half the launch mass of many satellites," the tech site said.
Now a second EmDrive-like thruster has been built by U.S. scientist Guido Fetta, who recently worked with a five-person NASA research team at the Johnson Space Center in Houston to test it. Like the Chinese effort, Fetta's "Cannae Drive" actually works "in spite of the law of conservation of momentum," Wired said.
"The torsion balance they used to test the thrust was sensitive enough to detect a thrust of less than ten micronewtons, but the drive actually produced 30 to 50 micronewtons—less than a thousandth of the Chinese results, but emphatically a positive result," according to the site, which reviewed a paper presented by the NASA team at last week's 50th Joint Propulsion Conference in Cleveland, Ohio.
For now, EmDrives and Cannae Drives are clearly still in the experimental stages. There's certainly a big question to be answered about how the Chinese researchers were supposedly able to create a practical thruster while Fetta's effort would need to be vastly improved to ever actually move a spacecraft around.
But for a space community looking at everything from solar sails to ion drives as a means to travel more efficiently between the planets—as well as for potential asteroid deflection missions —another innovative propulsion system is likely to get a long, studious look.

Tail Docker

Guidos work is always a bit cheesy.

Sir Arthur Daley

What is its potential speed in kph?

Frank Lee Midere

Hmm. There is energy being collected by this system producing thrust in a manner we can't understand but not necessarily a violation of physical laws.

Capt'n Midnight

steddyeddy wrote: »

From PC magazine

"At an input power of 2.5kW, their 2.45GHz EmDrive thruster provides 720mN of thrust,"

2.5Kw will cause a lot of air currents , not to mention the magnetic and electrostatic effects.

Look at the ISS http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/structure/elements/solar_arrays.html

Two blankets of solar cells make up a solar array wing, or SAW. Each wing is 115 feet long by 38 feet wide. Each SAW weighs more than 2,400 pounds and uses 32,800 solar array cells. Image Credit: NASA

...
Altogether, the four sets of arrays can generate 84 to 120 kilowatts of electricity

So 2,400lbs of panels will generate between 21-30Kw

let's say a tonne of panels will generate 25KW , you now have 0.0072 N of thrust.

F=MA so you you now have 7.2 micro g's of acceleration

after one week you'll have a speed of 3.27m/s

so it'll take about 2,000 weeks to get anywhere since you need Km/s velocities
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta-v_budget#Earth-Moon_space_.E2.80.94_low_thrust


Anyone remember VASIMR and 39 days to Mars ?
It's the same BS of assuming an infinite power supply and no mass apart from the motor. It's like saying my car would have an amazing power to weight ratio if I got rid of the wheels and body and fuel tank until the only thing left was an engine and then I changed that for an electric motor.