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"Reactionless" Thruster Tested Again, This Time in a Vacuum

posted by takyon on Friday May 01 2015, @06:00PM   Printer-friendly
from the newtons-per-kilowatt dept.

Immerman writes:

An article at NasaSpaceFlight.com is claiming that the superficially reactionless EmDrive has again been tested at NASA Eagleworks, this time in hard vacuum, and the anomalous thrust is still being detected:

A group at NASA's Johnson Space Center has successfully tested an electromagnetic (EM) propulsion drive in a vacuum – a major breakthrough for a multi-year international effort comprising several competing research teams. Thrust measurements of the EM Drive defy classical physics' expectations that such a closed (microwave) cavity should be unusable for space propulsion because of the law of conservation of momentum.

With the popular explanations of thermal convection or atmospheric ionization being ruled out by operation in vacuum, and thrust thousands of times greater than expected from a photon rocket, is it time to start taking the EM Drive seriously as a fundamentally new form of propulsion, and possibly a door to new physics?

Roger Shawyer, the inventor of the EmDrive, claims that the device's efficiency will scale even further with greater levels of power, potentially enabling fast interstellar travel powered by a radioisotope thermoelectric generator or nuclear fission.

Previously: NASA Validates "Impossible" Space Drive's Thrust

 
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  • (Score: 3, Touché) by soylentsandor on Friday May 01 2015, @08:41PM

    by soylentsandor (309) on Friday May 01 2015, @08:41PM (#177606)

    How about all the people who aren't crazy pants take it one step at a time in the lab for a while and let the first deployed system be an unmanned satellite that only does a couple of weeks of testing?

    That would be the sensible and responsible thing to do.

    But come on, where's the fun in that?

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  • (Score: 2) by frojack on Saturday May 02 2015, @03:26AM

    by frojack (1554) on Saturday May 02 2015, @03:26AM (#177749) Journal

    Besides, if you want a visit from the Vulkans, we'v got to strap this thing to a ship named Phoenix, and go for it. 2063 is just around the corner guys.

    --
    No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.