New Space Engine - EM Drive - Latest Tests show it works...

_Tombstone_ · 01-05-2015 12:32am #1

http://www.theverge.com/2015/4/30/8521691/nasa-seemingly-impossible-space-drive-test-succeeds

New tests conducted in a Vacuum for the first time to rule out the possibility that the drive's thrust is being created by heat transfer outside of the drive, rather than inside of it, shows it still works.

The theory is that this drive can create force by bouncing electromagnetic waves around inside of a chamber, with some of their energy being transferred to a reflector to generate thrust.

Big breakdown in the link above.

shedweller · 01-05-2015 12:41am

_Tombstone_ wrote: »

http://www.theverge.com/2015/4/30/8521691/nasa-seemingly-impossible-space-drive-test-succeeds

New tests conducted in a Vacuum for the first time to rule out the possibility that the drive's thrust is being created by heat transfer outside of the drive, rather than inside of it, shows it still works.

Big breakdown in the link above.

phenomenal. Hopefully it will result in a spacecraft test.

emo72 · 01-05-2015 12:42am

so? it works? we live in star trek days?

shedweller · 01-05-2015 12:47am

emo72 wrote: »

so? it works? we live in star trek days?

Well, there is the small matter of bailing out a few lads that lost money around 2008!
So star trek is a bit away yet! But yes, if it weren't for that we could be well on our way by now.

Thargor · 01-05-2015 11:36am

Yeah was surprised to see a very bullish article on this from NASAspaceflight.com a couple of days ago who don't usually tolerate any BS, this is the best article Ive read and is a good summary of the whole thing:

http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2015/04/evaluating-nasas-futuristic-em-drive/
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=37438.0

Theres still a lot to be skeptical about but it just keeps rolling along where any snake oil story would have been long dead by now.

Infuriating how the testing is being held back by low budgets though, they cant even free up a million to do the test properly, the big copper thruster thing was built for free by one of the researchers at home on his dining room table.

EDIT: Just realised that Verge article was reporting on the story I linked, ah well, worth reading anyway, and the forum discussion is good too.

Captain Chaos · 01-05-2015 11:39am

shedweller wrote: »

Well, there is the small matter of bailing out a few lads that lost money around 2008!
So star trek is a bit away yet! But yes, if it weren't for that we could be well on our way by now.

That's why Star Trek scrapped the concept of money. We should do that step first.

Maximus Alexander · 01-05-2015 11:57am

This is super exciting but I'm also super skeptical. So conflicted.

Capt'n Midnight · 05-05-2015 5:52pm

_Tombstone_ wrote: »

New tests conducted in a Vacuum for the first time to rule out the possibility that the drive's thrust is being created by heat transfer outside of the drive, rather than inside of it, shows it still works.

I'm more than sceptical, especially since it's mostly old links rehashed.

very low pressure but without complete vacuum and energy will produce thrust http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crookes_radiometer since 1873

2.5Kw of electricity in a small place means lots of magnetic effects too. It's microwave so that means high voltage so you need to rule out electrostatic too.

And outgassing and spluttering

There are LOTS of mechanisms where you get thrust against your surroundings.

CBA figuring out if there is enough energy for diamagnetic effects

_Tombstone_ · 29-07-2015 2:51am

To Pluto in 18 Months!

EM Drive shown to work again.

https://hacked.com/scientists-confirm-impossible-em-drive-propulsion/

More testing to come.

Zubeneschamali · 29-07-2015 9:19am

_Tombstone_ wrote: »

https://hacked.com/scientists-confirm-impossible-em-drive-propulsion/

Shawyer has often been dismissed by the research establishment for not having peer-reviewed scientific publications, but White and Tajmar have impeccable credentials that put them beyond cheap dismissal and scorn.

Oh yeah? Ha!

_Tombstone_ · 29-07-2015 11:00am

Zubeneschamali wrote: »

Oh yeah? Ha!

What do you mean?

Anyway, here's a much better link, http://io9.com/no-german-scientists-have-not-confirmed-the-impossibl-1720573809

Problems with testing equipment generating heat which they shouldn't be.

Zubeneschamali · 29-07-2015 1:28pm

_Tombstone_ wrote: »

What do you mean?

I mean this nonsense is not beyond cheap dismissal and scorn.

Non-newtonian drives which work by magic expose new physics don't actually work are not new.

Capt'n Midnight · 29-07-2015 9:53pm

_Tombstone_ wrote: »

To Pluto in 18 Months!

Oh dear.

VASMIR is full of that non-Newtonian fluid too. I'd be willing to be they calculated the 18 months the same way by completely ignoring the mass of the power source and associated fixings.

Ion drives work , Hall effect drives work

Can't find a link but iirc you may be able to get ridiculous exhaust velocities if you vaporise the reaction mass with lasers.

Another option might be to use a solar powered neutron generator to start fission cf. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusor )does the name Philo T. Farnsworth sound familiar ?)

Zubeneschamali · 30-07-2015 8:46am

_Tombstone_ wrote: »

To Pluto in 18 Months!

If you were really in a hurry, you could use an Orion drive, which has the advantage of working even with old-fashioned 1940s physics, no science fiction at all, and you could send a battleship instead of some feeble little probe.

seamus · 30-07-2015 9:20am

This one seems to be getting some traction though rather than being straight-out science fiction. New results out of Dresden seem to indicate that there's something in this, with their experimental data matching Shawyer's calculations.

Of course, it could still be an instrumental error, or something missed. And it probably is. But I think as the experiment is reproduced by more people independently, the odds of a glaring error being missed, reduce. So even if at the end we don't get reactionless drive, it will probably open some new doors in physics or new ways of carrying out better experiments.

The only problem with this experiment now though is that everyone wants it to be real so badly that small labs will start taking up the mantel in the hopes of securing funding, and the liklihood of data falsification increases.

NASA or one of the big universities needs to grab this one by the horns and do a proper round of experimentation, and publish at the end.

Zubeneschamali · 30-07-2015 9:59am

seamus wrote: »

This one seems to be getting some traction though rather than being straight-out science fiction.

You canna break the laws of physics.

Conservation of momentum beats quantum foam virtual particle vacuum energy Lorentz force yadda yadda every time.

And when magic seems to be happening in a lab set-up, error is far more likely than quantum magic.

seamus · 30-07-2015 10:13am

Zubeneschamali wrote: »

You canna break the laws of physics.

I'm sure some people who saw the Wright brothers' machine take to the sky would have thought there was black magic in it

My point being that just because something appears to violate what we know about the world, doesn't mean it necessarily does.

In this case, you're putting energy in and allegedly getting some thrust. So although it may appear to be violating some laws, the most fundamental laws appear to be intact. And the creator has theorised the nature of how it works which doesn't violate any principles.

And when magic seems to be happening in a lab set-up, error is far more likely than quantum magic.

No disagreement here. But still, no-one has yet managed to find the source of any error. So like I say, quantum magic or otherwise, it's likely we'll learn something of significance from these experiments, even if it is just a new type of experimental error we didn't know existed.

Zubeneschamali · 30-07-2015 10:36am

seamus wrote: »

In this case, you're putting energy in and allegedly getting some thrust. So although it may appear to be violating some laws, the most fundamental laws appear to be intact. And the creator has theorised the nature of how it works which doesn't violate any principles.

Wrong. It is a reactionless drive and breaks conservation of momentum.

The creators are engineers, not physicists, and they have no clue what they are talking about with all the Lorentz forces and quantum vacuums.

This is not unusual when an engineer "invents" a device which breaks the laws of physics.

Capt'n Midnight · 30-07-2015 9:44pm

seamus wrote: »

NASA or one of the big universities needs to grab this one by the horns and do a proper round of experimentation, and publish at the end.

Waste of time and money.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.

I could probably fake an antigravity drive using electro-permanent magnets and bismuth.

The amounts of heat, em radiation and magnetic effects generated would make it difficult to measure small levels of thrust. The telling bit was that it they were still measuring "thrust" after the power was turned off.

But hey since it needs energy let's ask Steorn for their Orbo power thing.
to infinity and beyond !

Thargor · 30-07-2015 10:02pm

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Waste of time and money.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.

I could probably fake an antigravity drive using electro-permanent magnets and bismuth.

The amounts of heat, em radiation and magnetic effects generated would make it difficult to measure small levels of thrust. The telling bit was that it they were still measuring "thrust" after the power was turned off.

But hey since it needs energy let's ask Steorn for their Orbo power thing.
to infinity and beyond !

I had a big post written out with that as the main point when my phone decided to spaz out. Why is that not being shouted from the rooftops at the top of every article reporting on the latest round of critically flawed "experiments"?

Tbh at this stage Im just waiting for them to start begging for money through grants/Kickstarter etc.

_Tombstone_ · 30-07-2015 10:36pm

Thargor wrote: »

I had a big post written out with that as the main point when my phone decided to spaz out. Why is that not being shouted from the rooftops at the top of every article reporting on the latest round of critically flawed "experiments"?

Tbh at this stage Im just waiting for them to start begging for money through grants/Kickstarter etc.

This was only this Test though with an obvious flaw, wasn't it? Plus the Articles are saying it, I linked to it.

Thargor · 30-07-2015 10:59pm

Theres a lot of dodgy stuff in the Chinese and US tests aswell though, like the results being the exact same with and without the internal baffles that the designer claims were the reason for the thing working in the first place, uncertainty about it being isolated etc, I wish someone would do proper testing on it and get it over with, I wouldnt bet the price of a scratchcard on this coming to fruition the way people hope and I was very excited about it in the beginning.

EDIT: Actually maybe the baffles were on a different but similar device now that I think of it, on a phone now so cant check..

Zubeneschamali · 31-07-2015 8:40am

Thargor wrote: »

I wish someone would do proper testing on it and get it over with

That's not how it works.

When stringent tests by a real lab show it does nothing, that will just be evidence that the Men in Black from Area 51 have suppressed the real results, because they got the thrusters from a crashed saucer back in the 40s, and are now colonizing the far side of the Moon.

_Tombstone_ · 03-11-2015 2:57pm

More testing añnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnd its still rocking

http://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/researchers-conduct-successful-new-tests-of-emdrive/

Zubeneschamali · 03-11-2015 3:36pm

_Tombstone_ wrote: »

More testing añnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnd its still rocking

http://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/researchers-conduct-successful-new-tests-of-emdrive/

March still reported a contamination caused by thermal expansion. Unfortunately, this reported contamination proves even worse in a vacuum (i.e. outer space) due in large part to its inherently high level of insulation. To combat this, March acknowledged the team is now developing an advanced analytics tool to assist in the separation of the contamination, as well as an integrated test which aims to alleviate thermally induced errors altogether.

Will the anomalous thrust still appear when all sources of error are removed? Watch this space! (but the answer is no).

Thargor · 03-11-2015 5:50pm

This thread over on NASASpaceFlight is interesting, the people doing the experiments are replying to it, not as much cynicism as there was in the beginning I notice, I'm still expecting the paper that kills it to arrive any time though:

http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=38577.800

All:

I wish I could show you all the pictures I've taken on how we saluted and mitigated the issues raised by our EW Lab's Blue-Ribbon PhD panel and now Potomac-Neuron's paper, on the possible Lorentz force interactions. That being the Lorentz Interactions with the dc currents on the EW torque pendulum (TP) with the stray magnetic fields from the torque pendulum's first generation open-face magnetic damper and the Earth's geomagnetic field, but I can't due to the restrictive NASA press release rules now applied to the EW Lab.

However since I still can't show you this supporting data until the EW Lab gets our next peer-reviewed lab paper published, I will tell you that we first built and installed a 2nd generation, closed face magnetic damper that reduced the stray magnetic fields in the vacuum chamber by at least an order of magnitude and any Lorentz force interactions it could produce. I also changed up the torque pendulum's grounding wire scheme and single point ground location to minimize ground loop current interactions with the remaining stray magnetic fields and unbalanced dc currents from the RF amplifier when its turned on. This reduced the Lorentz force interaction to less than 2 micro-Newton (uN) for the dummy load test. Finally we rebuilt the copper frustum test article so that it is now fully integrated with the RF VCO, PLL, 100W RF amp, dual directional coupler, 3-stub tuner and connecting coax cables, then mounted this integrated test article at the opposite end of the torque pendulum, as far away as possible from the 2nd generation magnetic damper where only the required counterbalance weights now reside. Current null testing with both the 50 ohm dummy load and with the integrated test article rotated 90 degrees with respect to the TP sensitive axis now show less than one uN of Lorentz forces on the TP due to dc magnetic interactions with the local environment even when drawing the maximum RF amp dc current of 12 amps.

Given all of the above TP wiring and test article modifications with respect to our 2014 AIAA/JPC paper design baseline needed to address these Lorentz force magnetic interaction issues, we are still seeing over 100uN of force with 80W of RF power going into the frustum running in the TM212 resonant mode, now in both directions, dependent on the direction of the mounted integrated test article on the TP. However these new plus and minus thrust signatures are still contaminated by thermally induced TP center of gravity (cg) zero-thrust baseline shifts brought on by the expansion of the copper frustum and aluminum RF amp and its heat sink when heated by the RF, even though these copper and aluminum cg shifts are now fighting each other. (Sadly these TP cg baseline shifts are ~3X larger in-vacuum than in-air due to the better insulating qualities of the vacuum, so the in-vacuum thrust runs look very thermally contaminated whereas the in-air run look very impulsive.) So we have now developed an analytical tool to help separate the EM-Drive thrust pulse waveform contributions from the thermal expansion cg induced baseline shifts of the TP. Not being satisfied with just this analytical impulsive vs thermal signal separation approach, we are now working on a new integrated test article subsystem mounting arrangement with a new phase-change thermal management subsystem that should mitigate this thermally induced TP cg baseline shift problem once and for-all.

And yet the anomalous thrust signals remain...

Best, Paul March

littlemac1980 · 05-11-2015 6:04pm

It's understandable that people are sceptical about this "development" particularly those with a great deal of education and practical experience in contemporary physics.

I myself have little real physics education beyond the leaving cert and some college a good number of years ago - any thing I had learnt I think I've long forgotten.

I do recall that there have been fundamental breakthroughs that occurred throughout history and one constant associated effect of each such breakthrough has been the discovery that what previously considered a fundamental law of physics is shown to be not as fundamental as had previously been thought to be the case.

For true scientists this can be readily accepted (following necessary corroboration which can take many many years) because actual scientists are aware that rules of reality and "laws" of science are not in fact absolute - they are only the best fit law based on our current understanding and current knowledge and limits of experimentation.

So when Newtonian gravity was eventually shown to not apply absolutely - as had previously been considered to be the case - it didn't destroy the value of those laws, it arose, as far as I know, because there was an extension of those laws that arose from Einsteins theory of relativity which enabled the scientists at the time to recall that the laws were never really laws at all - they were simply theories that best fit contemporary models of scientific understanding.

Now I'm not saying this EMDrive is going to come to pass and re-write our current understanding of physics, but the possibility that it could exist and the current indications to the effect that there may be some as yet Unobserved phenomenon which could develop our understanding of physics is something truly exciting on the scale of which is a once in a generation type sense.

I'm writing this on my phone so apologies for the structure.

My view is skepticism is all well and good but dreaming is also within the realm of science - particularly resonant with the next generation of would be Einsteins or Newtons. The duty of the scientific community here is to approach this development with an open mind and an inquisitive soul in my humble opinion.

Capt'n Midnight · 06-11-2015 11:49am

littlemac1980 wrote: »

For true scientists this can be readily accepted (following necessary corroboration which can take many many years) because actual scientists are aware that rules of reality and "laws" of science are not in fact absolute - they are only the best fit law based on our current understanding and current knowledge and limits of experimentation.

So when Newtonian gravity was eventually shown to not apply absolutely - as had previously been considered to be the case - it didn't destroy the value of those laws, it arose, as far as I know, because there was an extension of those laws that arose from Einsteins theory of relativity which enabled the scientists at the time to recall that the laws were never really laws at all - they were simply theories that best fit contemporary models of scientific understanding.

The laws of thermodynamics are pretty much written stone.

In theory the arrow of time can go both ways and we don't fully understand gravity but NASA doesn't need to add corrections to Newton when moving it's space probes. The corrections only come into effect when the energy supplied to the probe is such that it's kinetic energy is similar to a atomic bomb. (IIRC 3Km/s is when your kinetic energy is the same as TNT)

Now you do have to compensate for relativity and the effects of earths gravity well for the clocks on GPS satellites. They run at 10.22999999543 MHz instead of 10.23 MHz. But that's like saying a Saturn V has a take off thrust of three thousand tonnes but you have to take into account 1.3 grammes at a time when the Up Goer Five is burning over ten million times that mass of propellant ever second.

So yes there are areas of doubt and uncertainty in science. But in a lot of cases they are small areas. In the case of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle the area of doubt is directly related to Planck's constant which we have measured to seven decimal places. And even then that uncertainty decreases as you increase the mass of the system being measured.

seamus · 06-11-2015 12:03pm

I think my post from July still stands here:

Of course, it could still be an instrumental error, or something missed. And it probably is. But I think as the experiment is reproduced by more people independently, the odds of a glaring error being missed, reduce. So even if at the end we don't get reactionless drive, it will probably open some new doors in physics or new ways of carrying out better experiments.

Thargor · 06-11-2015 2:33pm

They're not reproducing it properly though, its the same contamination of the experiment every time because of the low budget. Id kick in some money for a proper cubesat test if they wanted to crowsource it.

Capt'n Midnight · 06-11-2015 9:44pm

Thargor wrote: »

They're not reproducing it properly though, its the same contamination of the experiment every time because of the low budget. Id kick in some money for a proper cubesat test if they wanted to crowsource it.

I wouldn't bother until they get reproducible results down here.

We can already get low thrust from solar sails. IKAROS has already been to Venus.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IKAROS
http://global.jaxa.jp/projects/sat/ikaros/topics.html#topics4743

_Tombstone_ · 31-01-2016 2:09am

nyarlothothep · 06-02-2016 1:57am

I know nothing about physics and apparently this drive violates the 2nd law of thermodynamics but...if the Chinese found warp effects and also NASA isn't it worth pumping a bit more money into verifying if it works which is what NASA seems to be doing but why not a bit more and more of a rapid more disciplined approach? Basically chemical rockets while awesome from the 1940s-60s, aren't going to get us anywhere beyond our own solar system so what's there to lose with this kind of blue skies research. Why not pump more money into pie in the sky ideas because we're going nowhere with chemical rockets.

Zubeneschamali · 06-02-2016 1:39pm

nyarlothothep wrote: »

I know nothing about physics and apparently this drive violates the 2nd law of thermodynamics but...

There is no but.

Capt'n Midnight · 06-02-2016 1:43pm

nyarlothothep wrote: »

I know nothing about physics and apparently this drive violates the 2nd law of thermodynamics but...if the Chinese found warp effects and also NASA isn't it worth pumping a bit more money into verifying if it works which is what NASA seems to be doing but why not a bit more and more of a rapid more disciplined approach? Basically chemical rockets while awesome from the 1940s-60s, aren't going to get us anywhere beyond our own solar system so what's there to lose with this kind of blue skies research. Why not pump more money into pie in the sky ideas because we're going nowhere with chemical rockets.

Even if this engine works (it doesn't) it would still need chemical rockets to get it to orbit.

Japan has flown solar sails to Venus. Potentially it's ridiculously cheap and reliable low thrust propulsion.

As for ion drives Russia has had hundreds of hall effect thrusters in orbit over decades without a failure. Cheap, reliable and efficient off the shelf technology.

VASMIR is con job. It's an ordinary ion drive. The claims for it being useful on the journey to Mars are purely based on ignoring the mass of the power source. But unlike EM it actually works. It's just that it doesn't work as well as they claim and isn't a big enough jump to justify pumping lot of money into it and diverting fund from other project.

For the solar system we don't need EM. We have stuff that works.

EM drive is throwing lots of power into a small area and then trying to measure an effect that could easily be explained by something else. Like harmonic vibrations in the restraining mechanism.

The Bloodhound SSC will have a jet engine and a rocket engine. The Rocket engine has a 550hp 5 Litre supercharged V8 just to pump the oxidiser into the rocket engine. We know that some of the energy from the pumping action will contribute to the thrust. Not much but it's still there. Now work out the contribution of the V8's starter motor, easy enough to calculate if you know the wattage. Now imagine that the effect is less than that contributed by paint fumes evaporating or the magnetic interaction of the cars electrics with earth's magnetic field. You could put strain gauges on the starter motor to measure it's thrust. Now try and measure those strain gauges while the V8 and rocket and jet engines are on full thrust. Unsurprisingly you will see some readings but you may have difficulty ruling out the vibrations. This is pretty much what the EM results seen so far are.

Back in the days of cold fusion hype a lot of the results were explained by the simple realisation that people were pumping the system with low amounts of energy for days and then somehow miraculously getting a short run where the output exceeded the average input. Energy wasn't being produced. All that was happening was that previously stored energy was being released.

Maxwell's demon has been tamed so we still obey the second law.

nyarlothothep · 06-02-2016 3:02pm

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Even if this engine works (it doesn't) it would still need chemical rockets to get it to orbit.

Japan has flown solar sails to Venus. Potentially it's ridiculously cheap and reliable low thrust propulsion.

As for ion drives Russia has had hundreds of hall effect thrusters in orbit over decades without a failure. Cheap, reliable and efficient off the shelf technology.

VASMIR is con job. It's an ordinary ion drive. The claims for it being useful on the journey to Mars are purely based on ignoring the mass of the power source. But unlike EM it actually works. It's just that it doesn't work as well as they claim and isn't a big enough jump to justify pumping lot of money into it and diverting fund from other project.

For the solar system we don't need EM. We have stuff that works.

EM drive is throwing lots of power into a small area and then trying to measure an effect that could easily be explained by something else. Like harmonic vibrations in the restraining mechanism.

The Bloodhound SSC will have a jet engine and a rocket engine. The Rocket engine has a 550hp 5 Litre supercharged V8 just to pump the oxidiser into the rocket engine. We know that some of the energy from the pumping action will contribute to the thrust. Not much but it's still there. Now work out the contribution of the V8's starter motor, easy enough to calculate if you know the wattage. Now imagine that the effect is less than that contributed by paint fumes evaporating or the magnetic interaction of the cars electrics with earth's magnetic field. You could put strain gauges on the starter motor to measure it's thrust. Now try and measure those strain gauges while the V8 and rocket and jet engines are on full thrust. Unsurprisingly you will see some readings but you may have difficulty ruling out the vibrations. This is pretty much what the EM results seen so far are.

Back in the days of cold fusion hype a lot of the results were explained by the simple realisation that people were pumping the system with low amounts of energy for days and then somehow miraculously getting a short run where the output exceeded the average input. Energy wasn't being produced. All that was happening was that previously stored energy was being released.

Maxwell's demon has been tamed so we still obey the second law.

Even so we'll just be limited to our solar system and it will be a law of diminishing returns, we'll learn slightly more about Mars, Europa, Venus, Saturn etc after a few centuries. I want to see the view from Alpha Centauri and further. I'm not saying dispense with rockets altogether, even with warp we'd need some form of rocket to navigate a new solar system but we're never going to go anywhere cool without some way to get around the light barrier. Correct me if I'm wrong as I'm terrible with details but aren't they still testing it at NASA to verify if there are warp effects being created or whether they're even possible? I saw this recently. I think given the alternative which is just to be bound to the solar system with what amounts to an incredibly slow form of propulsion which renders manned missions hazardous and comparatively more difficult, isn't it worth considering and experimenting with fringe/crazy ideas? I mean the holographic universe idea was considered crackpot when it was first proposed? Wouldn't it be great if a new discovery that allowed ftl turned known physics on its head? Physicists would have so much more work to do, wouldn't they enjoy that?

Capt'n Midnight · 06-02-2016 4:04pm

nyarlothothep wrote: »

Wouldn't it be great if a new discovery that allowed ftl turned known physics on its head? Physicists would have so much more work to do, wouldn't they enjoy that?

Pipe dream. Wishful thinking.

The universe is big.Human lives are short. Recently a planet was found that will take a million years to orbit it's planet, Helliconia taken to the extreme. Even with chemical rockets that took 50,000 years to get to the nearest star we'd be able to colonise lots of star systems within that time.

nyarlothothep · 06-02-2016 7:51pm

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Pipe dream. Wishful thinking.

The universe is big.Human lives are short. Recently a planet was found that will take a million years to orbit it's planet, Helliconia taken to the extreme. Even with chemical rockets that took 50,000 years to get to the nearest star we'd be able to colonise lots of star systems within that time.

I think there is a bias in society toward experimental/"wishful" thinking in favour of the pragmatic even though the former can sometimes yield big results. Any colony ships would essentially have to be mini earths, and if the tech for them were to progressively break down, then it would be a disaster. 50,000 years would also be a hell of a long time, what's to say the original mission of the ship would become distorted or lost, there might be several bloody revolutions in that time. Chemical propulsion is inadequate for getting around the galaxy let alone the universe. With rockets we are basically stuck in the solar system forever. Also centrifuges for artificial gravity are kind of pointless, it's a horribly messy and expensive solution. There must be a better way otherwise, long duration manned spaceflight is dead in the water. We also need better lift vehicles than chemical rockets. It would be great if scientists figured out fusion power, we could have fusion rockets which would open up a whole world of possibilities for spacecraft design, in fact we would actually have ships rather than capsules. I think that solutions to these problems could be found with more time and energy invested into blue skies research.

Capt'n Midnight · 06-02-2016 9:07pm

nyarlothothep wrote: »

I think there is a bias in society toward experimental/"wishful" thinking in favour of the pragmatic even though the former can sometimes yield big results.

check out how venture capitalism works. Every venture that succeeds has to pay for 9 that didn't.

Here we are spend too much of our R&D spend on applied science rather than blue sky research

BTW Hinkley C costs more than ITER.

During wars vast amounts are spent on speculative ventures.
The B29 Bomber cost more than the atomic bomb. And by the time they figured out how to stop the engines burning Japan was pretty much on the retreat. After the war they found that the most productive use of them would have been to drop sea-mines so none of it's features were needed. Also it's use on the atomic bomb was a red herring, they could have bought Lancasters.

Radar was another program that cost more than the atomic bomb, but the payback was happening all the time.

The atomic bomb didn't win the war, people are still arguing if it even ended it early.

Any colony ships would essentially have to be mini earths, and if the tech for them were to progressively break down, then it would be a disaster. 50,000 years would also be a hell of a long time, what's to say the original mission of the ship would become distorted or lost, there might be several bloody revolutions in that time.

It's not going to happen tomorrow. The sooner we learn about suspended animation the better

Thing is unless we land on an suitable planet we'd have to survive in space anyway. And by suitable you'd have to consider things like selenium and beryllium levels in the soil.

There must be a better way otherwise, long duration manned spaceflight is dead in the water.

Project Orion.
Just need to clean it up.

Laser initiated fusion would be cool.

Thargor · 06-02-2016 9:20pm

I doubt a colony ship will ever be launched where people actually live out multiple lives inside, that would be ridiculously inefficient. Its only 2016 and we're right on the edge of having technologies like cold sleep and maybe even artificial wombs, a billionaire could probably fund those to a viable point in our lifetimes nevermind governments, in another 100 or 1000 years the technologies available will be insane.

nyarlothothep · 06-02-2016 11:21pm

Even if you have a ship that's travelling through space for 50,000 years that's a long time for things to go wrong with people in suspended animation. Furthermore, it will be impossible to have a galactica empire without some form of ftl communications at the very least. I think ftl research should be a priority. For a mars mission, they really just need to speed things up, they ought to launch the habitat module in 4 launches max, then fire off the fuel depots to orbit around Mars in advance of the mission taking place. In terms of radiation shielding would an outer shell of water be sufficient I wonder? They should manufacture some kind of ultra light weight material that performs the same function of filtering out radiation. The lander would be the trickiest part but I think with fuel sent ahead of schedule it shouldn't be to difficult to launch from the surface of Mars. The cool thing about going to Mars is to say, we can do it! There would also be technological advances as with the Apollo program that would pay off.

SNAKEDOC · 06-02-2016 11:48pm

The mars direct mission simplifies it a whole lot by simply using the martian environment to make a propellant for a return to earth vehicle. So when astronauts leave earth there is a ship waiting for them on mars fully fueled. They launch with a second return ship that is their lander plus a hab module that has been launched ahead of them with the first return vehicle. No need for fuel depots in space or any complex docking or multi vehicle docking or lunar bases or a madsive single vehicle that is too complex. Two to three launches of existing technology that could be implemented inside ten years. Not overly complex and using technology that is tried and tested including the oxygen methane fuel plant needed to refine fuel on mars. Can be done in two- three months

_Tombstone_ · 07-02-2016 2:45am

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

The universe is big.Human lives are short.

We'll live forever soon.

Billionaires hate parting with the dough.

nyarlothothep wrote: »

Even so we'll just be limited to our solar system and it will be a law of diminishing returns, we'll learn slightly more about Mars, Europa, Venus, Saturn etc after a few centuries. I want to see the view from Alpha Centauri and further. I'm not saying dispense with rockets altogether, even with warp we'd need some form of rocket to navigate a new solar system but we're never going to go anywhere cool without some way to get around the light barrier. Correct me if I'm wrong as I'm terrible with details but aren't they still testing it at NASA to verify if there are warp effects being created or whether they're even possible? I saw this recently. I think given the alternative which is just to be bound to the solar system with what amounts to an incredibly slow form of propulsion which renders manned missions hazardous and comparatively more difficult, isn't it worth considering and experimenting with fringe/crazy ideas? I mean the holographic universe idea was considered crackpot when it was first proposed? Wouldn't it be great if a new discovery that allowed ftl turned known physics on its head? Physicists would have so much more work to do, wouldn't they enjoy that?

Warp Drive When?

Lad from NASA set up this,

The Tau Zero Foundation is a global volunteer group of scientists, engineers, writers, and entrepreneurs working together to advance the goal of interstellar flight.

Thargor wrote: »

in another 100 or 1000 years the technologies available will be insane.

This really.

But probably nearer 1000 cuz we are gonna send ourselves back to the Stone age with a WW3 at some stage, theirs just to many assholes in power thinking about No1. Even Musk mentioned it as a reason to get a move on to Mars lately aswell.

It's coming....or a few billion are gonna get sick with a mystery illness, one or the other.

Maximus Alexander · 07-02-2016 2:49am

_Tombstone_ wrote: »

This really.

But probably nearer 1000 cuz we are gonna send ourselves back to the Stone age with a WW3 at some stage, theirs just to many assholes in power thinking about No1. Even Musk mentioned it as a reason to get a move on to Mars lately aswell.

It's coming....or a few billion are gonna get sick with a mystery illness, one or the other.

If we send ourselves back to the stone age then that's the end of it. We'll still be in the stone age 1000 years later. We've already used all of the easily accessible resources on the Earth. What's left can't be extracted without technology. There is no reset for humanity, no second chance.

Capt'n Midnight · 07-02-2016 1:27pm

Maximus Alexander wrote: »

If we send ourselves back to the stone age then that's the end of it. We'll still be in the stone age 1000 years later. We've already used all of the easily accessible resources on the Earth. What's left can't be extracted without technology. There is no reset for humanity, no second chance.

In the past guilds kept trade secrets and stuff wasn't stored anywhere except memory.

To go back to the stone age now would involve destroying all records and killing lots of people, worldwide. Simple stuff like knowing clean water prevents disease would give us a head star on repopulation. No there is no easy oil anymore. But metals are everywhere, so stone age descendants will have tools. Even if roads and canals degraded they offer an easier route through the landscape than before.

we know that we can get energy from renewables it's just that fossil fuel is cheaper

Capt'n Midnight · 07-02-2016 1:47pm

_Tombstone_ wrote: »

Lad from NASA set up this

The British interplanetary society was setup in 1933 and proposed Project Daedalus back in the 1970's. The problem being the lack of antimatter.

The German VHR dated from 1930 and we all know where that led to.

Meanwhile this stuff is old hat. Maxwell explained sunlight pressure and it was actually measured in the 19th century so not much to see.
https://tauzero.aero/about/how/steps-taken/

Jim Benford, “We Should Develop Beamed Power Sailships”, to be published. JBIS, (2013).

Flying Abruptly · 09-02-2016 3:12pm

_Tombstone_ wrote: »

Lad from NASA set up this,

The guy who set up the Tau Zero Foundation did some calculations and predicts that interstellar travel wont be possible for another 200 years.

Its based on a "wait equation" and argues that an interstellar mission that cannot be completed within 50 years should not be started at all. Instead, assuming that a civilization is still on an increasing curve of propulsion system velocity, not yet having reached the limit, the resources should be invested in designing a better propulsion system. This is because a slow spacecraft would probably be passed by another mission sent later with more-advanced propulsion.

http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2011-01/interstellar-travel-wont-be-possible-least-200-years-according-new-calculations

_Tombstone_ · 19-03-2016 1:21am

Another New Paper on this is currently working it's way through peer review - http://nextbigfuture.com/2016/03/nasa-is-in-process-of-getting-another.html

If this works all ye nay sayers have to hand in your Space Cards.

Antimatter to ion drives: NASA's plans for deep space propulsion

_Tombstone_ · 19-03-2016 1:26am

BBC Programme will cover abit of this on 23 - next Wednesday.

Documentary exploring science's long-standing obsession with the idea of gravity control, including recent breakthroughs in the search for loopholes in conventional physics. The programme examines how the groundwork carried out by Project Greenglow in the mid-1990s by UK defence manufacturer BAE Systems has changed the understanding of the universe, making the dream of flying cars and journeys to the stars no longer quite so distant

BBC2 WED @ 8

Be there or B Square.

Capt'n Midnight · 19-03-2016 3:06am

_Tombstone_ wrote: »

Antimatter to ion drives: NASA's plans for deep space propulsion

Anything that repeats the old claim of VASMIR to Mars in 39 days isn't exactly peer reviewed. Because that claim kinda falls apart when you include the weight of power source.

Even on their own page http://www.adastrarocket.com/aarc/technology the specific impulse isn't amazingly better than other ion engines.

Thargor · 19-03-2016 10:51pm

How long do we have to wait for a bit of confirmation here in peoples opinion?

New Space Engine - EM Drive - Latest Tests show it works...

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