Whoa! New type of space drive discovered

[Ruptga]

I don't think that even if this turns out to work as described it will lead to anything like hover cars. We are talking about it generating considerably less push than a slight breeze. Sure, if it works as described it will scale up, but it is already pretty big to create that little bit of force, to move anything here on Earth it would have to be huge, like building sized, but in space where there is virtually no resistance even a very a little constant pressure can accomplish a whole lot.

Yeah, if you want hovercars you need to look at progress with ducted fans, electric motors, and batteries. That's still a long way off, btw.

 

[norseamd]

Yeah, if you want hovercars you need to look at progress with ducted fans, electric motors, and batteries. That's still a long way off, btw.

Liquid fuels and ICE could still play a good part in early flying cars, especially as a multi-fuel generator. Battery technology just isnt good enough right now to store the sufficient energy required, but liquid fuels have a good energy density. That is the best combination for new cars right now, electric car torque with even better ranges than normal ICE cars.

 

[Paratus]

I don't think that even if this turns out to work as described it will lead to anything like hover cars. We are talking about it generating considerably less push than a slight breeze. Sure, if it works as described it will scale up, but it is already pretty big to create that little bit of force, to move anything here on Earth it would have to be huge, like building sized, but in space where there is virtually no resistance even a very a little constant pressure can accomplish a whole lot.

Yeah, if you want hovercars you need to look at progress with ducted fans, electric motors, and batteries. That's still a long way off, btw.

If this thing works it's likely we are doing the equivalent of flailing at the water in a canoe. We flail a little more in one direction at get a bit of thrust. Once we understand the underlying principles, (if there are any), we can maybe move to design the equivalent of a propeller driven craft. One with significant thrust per kW and thrust per weight.

The thrusters themselves aren't large nor heavy being hollow aluminum or copper cones. I'd say the biggest problems to using them in 1G would end up being power delivery.

 

[Ruptga]

Liquid fuels and ICE could still play a good part in early flying cars, especially as a multi-fuel generator. Battery technology just isnt good enough right now to store the sufficient energy required, but liquid fuels have a good energy density. That is the best combination for new cars right now, electric car torque with even better ranges than normal ICE cars.

Gas engines are also really heavy, the first jetpack that works will be electric because of the better power/weight.

 

[Ruptga]

If this thing works it's likely we are doing the equivalent of flailing at the water in a canoe. We flail a little more in one direction at get a bit of thrust. Once we understand the underlying principles, (if there are any), we can maybe move to design the equivalent of a propeller driven craft. One with significant thrust per kW and thrust per weight.

The thrusters themselves aren't large nor heavy being hollow aluminum or copper cones. I'd say the biggest problems to using them in 1G would end up being power delivery.

That's a fair point, but it's going to take a pretty long time to get there. It took 40 years to go from Goddard to the Moon, and we're still somewhere between him and Tsiolkovsky on this technology.

 

[Phoenix86]

I don't think that even if this turns out to work as described it will lead to anything like hover cars. We are talking about it generating considerably less push than a slight breeze. Sure, if it works as described it will scale up, but it is already pretty big to create that little bit of force, to move anything here on Earth it would have to be huge, like building sized, but in space where there is virtually no resistance even a very a little constant pressure can accomplish a whole lot.

Basically correct, it's low thrust. The massive benefit is no on board propellant, provide the energy and you can go full thrust forever. Most engines are shorter burns at high thrust. Once you have enough velocity to get where you're going you stop the engine and just coast.

With this design you don't stop when you have enough velocity, you keep burning, then when you reach the half way point, you turn around and burn retrograde. This means you can get there MUCH less time. Also, since there's no on board fuel the craft is MUCH lighter.

 

[Paratus]

Basically correct, it's low thrust. The massive benefit is no on board propellant, provide the energy and you can go full thrust forever. Most engines are shorter burns at high thrust. Once you have enough velocity to get where you're going you stop the engine and just coast.

With this design you don't stop when you have enough velocity, you keep burning, then when you reach the half way point, you turn around and burn retrograde. This means you can get there MUCH less time. Also, since there's no on board fuel the craft is MUCH lighter.

Checkout the potential reduction in transit times for various th
EM drive efficiencies.

 

[Phoenix86]

Checkout the potential reduction in transit times for various th
EM drive efficiencies.

Damn, that nuts, Mars insertion is damn near a straight shot. The difference in return is even more dramatic though!

Both craft are 90t though, I don't expect that'd be the case with the em drive craft. That or you could take a shit load more sciency stuffs. If you used similar payload (+supplies for extra days) it'd be way lighter than the more conventional craft.

edit: I assume the left one is a conventional craft, correct?

 

[flexy]

Realization is at his point (relatively) irrelevant, this is about the principle. When it's really confirmed this works, sky's the limit, literally. That's how I see it.

PS. In space travel, BRAKING is actually as big a problem as getting a craft up to speed. Correct me if I am wrong, but it's not as easy as determining the hypothetical max. speed of a new type of engine and then calculate that a mission to Mars, Alpha Centauri etc. would take that and that time, based on that speed. Because halfway through the journey you will have to brake, eg. applying (almost) as much energy to the craft as you did to get to speed, but now *in the opposite direction*. (Respective you'd need to work out some elaborate ways how you can brake using planet's gravity etc.)

Am I wrong if I assume that this is sort-of a darn problem, the faster a craft...the more energy/effort must be spent if you want to actually arrive somewhere, in one piece?

PS: I myself am a "believer" in the warp drive, I think in the very far future we're able to "bend" time and space. MAYBE this EM drive brings us closer to understand the build-up of "space" and then also closer to realizing a warp drive. (Which in theory, I think, is already thought to work). In a proposed warp-drive, a hypothetical craft would not move "from A to B, at speed X" in a Newtonian sense. It would be in it's own "space bubble" of sorts and basically pull/push space in front of it while actually *standing still* ===> no whatever crazy forces would affect the craft or those in it. I am a strong believer that interstellar space drive is not viable within "conventional", Newtonian physics.

 

[Phoenix86]

In space travel, BRAKING is actually as big a problem as getting a craft up to speed. Correct me if I am wrong, but it's not as easy as determining the hypothetical max. speed of a new type of engine and then calculate that a mission to Mars, Alpha Centauri etc. would take that and that time, based on that speed. Because halfway through the journey you will have to brake, eg. applying (almost) as much energy to the craft as you did to get to speed, but now *in the opposite direction*. (Respective you'd need to work out some elaborate ways how you can brake using planet's gravity etc.)

Am I wrong if I assume that this is sort-of a darn problem, the faster a craft...the more energy/effort must be spent if you want to actually arrive somewhere, in one piece?

It's kind of a problem because if you are doing this type of burn you're spending propellant the whole time. However, this engine (again assuming it works), doesn't carry propellant. There are other low thrust lower propellant engines but not 0 propellant.

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

From my understanding though you don't spend more energy to brake from a given speed than you do to accelerate to that speed. Conservation of momentum.

 

[Markbnj]

edit: I assume the left one is a conventional craft, correct?

The left looks like a classical Hohmann Transfer orbit, while the right is a straight acceleration out to the rendezvous point.

 

[Ichinisan]

edit: I assume the left one is a conventional craft, correct?

Both are theoretical EM drive missions. One is 10x the efficiency/thrust of the other.

Conventional would take much, MUCH longer.

 

[Paratus]

Damn, that nuts, Mars insertion is damn near a straight shot. The difference in return is even more dramatic though!

Both craft are 90t though, I don't expect that'd be the case with the em drive craft. That or you could take a shit load more sciency stuffs. If you used similar payload (+supplies for extra days) it'd be way lighter than the more conventional craft.

edit: I assume the left one is a conventional craft, correct?

They are both EM drive. The left most graphic assumes the thruster efficiency scales to .4N/kW.

The second assumes 4N/kW. A standard Hohmann transfer orbit to Mars with a chemical rocket takes about 9 months compared to 2.75 months for the .4N/kW case and less than a month for the 4N/kW case.

That's the potential if it works. Right now they are at only .007N/kW. The Chinese group was around .3N/kW. (NASA was running at only 17W of power vs 2+Kw for the Chinese group. So it appears to scale well with power. )

(Edit: part of the reason for skepticism is the thrust signature could be caused by thermal or electromagnetic interference which could easily scale with input power)

 

[norseamd]

Gas engines are also really heavy, the first jetpack that works will be electric because of the better power/weight.

You only need one big enough that it generates enough electricity to replace the energy used by the electric motors from the battery. And since it will run at a constant RPM at the highest efficiency, it can be fine tuned for maximum results.

 

[Phoenix86]

They are both EM drive. The left most graphic assumes the thruster efficiency scales to .4N/kW.

The second assumes 4N/kW. A standard Hohmann transfer orbit to Mars with a chemical rocket takes about 9 months compared to 2.75 months for the .4N/kW case and less than a month for the 4N/kW case.

That's the potential if it works. Right now they are at only .007N/kW. The Chinese group was around .3N/kW. (NASA was running at only 17W of power vs 2+Kw for the Chinese group. So it appears to scale well with power. )

(Edit: part of the reason for skepticism is the thrust signature could be caused by thermal or electromagnetic interference which could easily scale with input power)

Got it. As I understand the drive is scaling well, is 4N/kW feasible assuming of course the drive works and we're not accounting for something in testing? Or rather, could we generate 2MW? That seems slightly over the high end of current tech.

 

[skyking]

the reactor technology needed a reason to be developed. Big reactor plus big fuel mass is a lifting problem. Now the impetus is *almost* there to run with the reactor tech.

 

[Paratus]

Realization is at his point (relatively) irrelevant, this is about the principle. When it's really confirmed this works, sky's the limit, literally. That's how I see it.

PS. In space travel, BRAKING is actually as big a problem as getting a craft up to speed. Correct me if I am wrong, but it's not as easy as determining the hypothetical max. speed of a new type of engine and then calculate that a mission to Mars, Alpha Centauri etc. would take that and that time, based on that speed. Because halfway through the journey you will have to brake, eg. applying (almost) as much energy to the craft as you did to get to speed, but now *in the opposite direction*. (Respective you'd need to work out some elaborate ways how you can brake using planet's gravity etc.)

Am I wrong if I assume that this is sort-of a darn problem, the faster a craft...the more energy/effort must be spent if you want to actually arrive somewhere, in one piece?

PS: I myself am a "believer" in the warp drive, I think in the very far future we're able to "bend" time and space. MAYBE this EM drive brings us closer to understand the build-up of "space" and then also closer to realizing a warp drive. (Which in theory, I think, is already thought to work). In a proposed warp-drive, a hypothetical craft would not move "from A to B, at speed X" in a Newtonian sense. It would be in it's own "space bubble" of sorts and basically pull/push space in front of it while actually *standing still* ===> no whatever crazy forces would affect the craft or those in it. I am a strong believer that interstellar space drive is not viable within "conventional", Newtonian physics.

Well warp drive is Eagleworks other investigation. Before someone jumps in with relativity says nothing can travel faster than light, let me tell you why it may not be BS.

Miguel Alcubierre found a possible work around that satisfies relativity. - Link By compressing space in front of the vehicle and stretching it behind the vehicle would appear to move faster than light but locally would travel slower than light. With the vehicle in the flat area of space-time the crew feels no G forces nor relativistic time dilation.

Problems with his work are it would require enormous amounts of energy, somewhere between converting Jupiter to energy and more mass than the universe contains. It also required negative pressure from exotic matter which doesn't actually seem to exist.

Inflationary theory of the early universe indicates that shortly after the Big Bang space time expanded faster than the speed of light. So it seems that it's at least been physically possible.

The head of Eagleworks and others have taken a look at Alcubierre's work and think there are methods to reduce the energy required to something manageable. They also believe it's possible that exotic matter wouldn't be required and that something similar to the Casimir Effect could provide the same effect.

Finally they think they have a way to test for space-time warping using the White–Juday warp-field interferometer. It's basically the same type of instrument used to detect gravity waves, except much smaller because it would be detecting space-time changes from a device, like an EM drive, that was sitting right next to it instead of colliding black holes a billion light years away.

Now after getting your hopes up. It's likely impossible.

• The energy requirements may always be impossible to meet
• Exotic matter may not exist and neither do replacement for its effects
• Realtivity may allow it but quantum mechanics probably doesn't.
• Or my favorite : It works but dropping out of warp destroys your destination in hail of high energy particles! Maybe that's a feature. :hmm:

 

[Paratus]

Got it. As I understand the drive is scaling well, is 4N/kW feasible assuming of course the drive works and we're not accounting for something in testing? Or rather, could we generate 2MW? That seems slightly over the high end of current tech.

the reactor technology needed a reason to be developed. Big reactor plus big fuel mass is a lifting problem. Now the impetus is *almost* there to run with the reactor tech.

The ISS could generate at most ~250Kw instantaneous with brand new arrays. If you replaced the 1980's solar cells with 2016 cells you could probably get 800KW.

We really need a fission reactor. The largest ever flown was the Russian Topaz and it was only a few KW. We planned for a 100KW Jupiter probe but it was cancelled by congress.

It's more than possible as naval vessels have reactors ranging from 30-200MW. However A LOT of design work is needed for a lightweight space based fission power system. Would probably need something like SLS block 2 or Falcon Heavy to launch it.

 

[Ruptga]

You only need one big enough that it generates enough electricity to replace the energy used by the electric motors from the battery. And since it will run at a constant RPM at the highest efficiency, it can be fine tuned for maximum results.

k, but efficient or not an engine is still a heavy chunk of metal. It makes no sense to try combing a generator with batteries and motors until there's one that works with just batteries and motors, since all a generator can do is extend flight time.

 

[William Gaatjes]

Would be fun to start a scientific (sci fi) thread with combined topics like space engines.

For example, humanity finds out something interesting in manipulating matter aroud 2052. By that time computational power is sufficient to do a small simulation of getting matter into a state that should not be possible according to current known laws of physics. They discovered that it can be done but only when very strict conditions are met. The simulation is sufficient, but actually creating enough of the matter is not possible at this time.


Fast rewind to 2016 : The ligo detects the first gravity ripple.


Fast forward to 2093 :

The wave front of a gravity ripple send out as has been discovered in 2016. This gravity ripple is send out when black hole collide or absorb vast amounts of material like a sun. As it turns out, we can not produce enough energy even on a small scale. But as luck and science progresses, combined experts groups find a away.

The first space engine ship is build in space. For the gravity engine to start, they need to wait for a gravity ripple to pass through our solar system. Months before a sophisticated means of keeping the particles into the ready state is used. And then the waiting starts for the gravity ripple. Space probes detect it first and send the critical time. When it hits the gravity engine, A matter state is created, but with a big difference from a black hole, the way the gravity of this gravity engine is influencing the surroundings can be controlled. Space can be manipulated...

 

[norseamd]

k, but efficient or not an engine is still a heavy chunk of metal. It makes no sense to try combing a generator with batteries and motors until there's one that works with just batteries and motors, since all a generator can do is extend flight time.

Fair enough.

 

[Fritzo]

PS: I myself am a "believer" in the warp drive, I think in the very far future we're able to "bend" time and space. MAYBE this EM drive brings us closer to understand the build-up of "space" and then also closer to realizing a warp drive. (Which in theory, I think, is already thought to work). In a proposed warp-drive, a hypothetical craft would not move "from A to B, at speed X" in a Newtonian sense. It would be in it's own "space bubble" of sorts and basically pull/push space in front of it while actually *standing still* ===> no whatever crazy forces would affect the craft or those in it. I am a strong believer that interstellar space drive is not viable within "conventional", Newtonian physics.

For a warp drive to exist, we need to find a way of making negative energy. There's nothing that says negative energy can't exist, and in physics if it can happen, it usually does. The key to negative energy may be related to understanding the mechanics of gravity (which is the least understood of the fundamental forces). Being able to harness negative energy would bring a lot more sci-fi tech than the warp drives. We'd also be able to create gravity/anti-gravity generators (floating vehicles would be a reality and artificial gravity in space would make travelling more comfortable), mass manipulators (make large masses act like small masses, making things very maneuverable and saving fuel), and even repulsor drives/weapons (like Iron Man!).

However, we're in the infancy of this kind of research, so even with today's sophisticated monitors and an unprecidented amount of brilliant minds in the field, it's likely going to be dozens (if not hundreds) of years before we figure out if negative energy exists and can be harnessed.

For example, we've theorized that tachyons probably exist for decades. These are particles that go faster than light and they probably exist around laser beams. They've never been detected, and it's unlikely they'll ever be detected because of their strange properties:
- they can never go slower than c. They always move at 300,000.00000...1km/s or faster
- they will propegate backwards in time, being destroyed before being created
- the more energy they lose, the faster they will go

We don't have any way of detecting such a particle because it's incompatible with our reality. The same might be true of negative energy.

 

[Vdubchaos]

Yeah, if you want hovercars you need to look at progress with ducted fans, electric motors, and batteries. That's still a long way off, btw.

but....but...but......Tesla

 

[Viper GTS]

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/...-anomaly-and-the-impossible-emdrive-thruster/

Viper GTS

 

[SlitheryDee]

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/...-anomaly-and-the-impossible-emdrive-thruster/

Viper GTS

That was quite fascinating.