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from the that-still-doesn't-mean-it-will-work dept.
After months of speculation and leaked documents, NASA's long-awaited EM Drive paper has finally been peer-reviewed and published [open, DOI: 10.2514/1.B36120] [DX]. And it shows that the 'impossible' propulsion system really does appear to work. The NASA Eagleworks Laboratory team even put forward a hypothesis for how the EM Drive could produce thrust – something that seems impossible according to our current understanding of the laws of physics.
In case you've missed the hype, the EM Drive, or Electromagnetic Drive, is a propulsion system first proposed by British inventor Roger Shawyer back in 1999. Instead of using heavy, inefficient rocket fuel, it bounces microwaves back and forth inside a cone-shaped metal cavity to generate thrust. According to Shawyer's calculations, the EM Drive could be so efficient that it could power us to Mars in just 70 days.
takyon: Some have previously dismissed EmDrive as a photon rocket. This is addressed in the paper along with other possible sources of error:
The eighth [error:] photon rocket force, RF leakage from test article generating a net force due to photon emission. The performance of a photon rocket is several orders of magnitude lower than the observed thrust. Further, as noted in the above discussion on RF interaction, all leaking fields are managed closely to result in a high quality RF resonance system. This is not a viable source of the observed thrust.
[...] The 1.2 mN/kW performance parameter is over two orders of magnitude higher than other forms of "zero-propellant" propulsion, such as light sails, laser propulsion, and photon rockets having thrust-to-power levels in the 3.33–6.67 μN/kW (or 0.0033–0.0067 mN/kW) range.
Previously: NASA Validates "Impossible" Space Drive's Thrust
"Reactionless" Thruster Tested Again, This Time in a Vacuum
Explanation may be on the way for the "Impossible" EmDrive
Finnish Physicist Says EmDrive Device Does Have an Exhaust
EmDrive Peer-Reviewed Paper Coming in December; Theseus Planning a Cannae Thruster Cubesat
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Tuesday November 22 2016, @04:30PM
I ran another creepy or bad or maybe good set of numbers and if you built a somewhat bigger version and bolted it to the ISS with a realistic amount of solar power, it would just be in the noise of accepted noise level of ISS orbital parameters. If you could get ten times the power out the panels with the same weight or area they'd already have done it (cost is no object). The ISS orbital parameters are always changing a little and its always slowly re-entering and needing boosts but at an even lower level there's just random noise from the thing like thermal radiation or whatever, and the drive as reported isn't quite powerful enough to bolt on, power up, and show a statistically noticable provable kick in the graphs. Close but not there.
Again, either exciting that its close, or if its a scam the quy who put the scam together really did his physics to max out the result without making it too obvious and too easily testable. Its inconclusive to a peculiar same level as my theoretical speaker experiment.