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posted by martyb on Saturday August 12 2017, @09:28PM   Printer-friendly
from the Would-an-EnDrive-be-half-as-wide? dept.

The man behind the disputed thruster technology EmDrive has published a presentation detailing the third generation of the device. Roger Shawyer envisions EmDrive 3.0 enabling personal flying vehicles and a "space elevator without cables":

[Although] the second generation of the EmDrive can theoretically produce 3 tonnes of thrust for 1 kilowatt of power, it isn't able to move very far, so it is only useful for marine applications or for diverting asteroids, like in the new CBS sci-fi TV drama Salvation.

Shawyer has long said that his aim for inventing the EmDrive was to help get satellites into space cheaply, to enable more applications and new ways for the human race to combat global warming and the energy crisis. Essentially, the EmDrive needs to be able to move and work as well as a conventional rocket, in order to be a viable solution.

To negate these shortfalls, Shawyer's firm Satellite Propulsion Research Ltd (SPR) has also been researching a third generation of the EmDrive, which solved the acceleration problem by reducing the specific thrust.

So instead of getting 3 tonnes of thrust for every kilowatt, substantially less thrust is produced – but it can be used to accelerate the device (more about this theory can be read in a paper Shawyer presented in Beijing in 2013).

Speaking of that TV show, Roger would like some credit please.

Related UK patent application. Also at Next Big Future.

Previously: Finnish Physicist Says EmDrive Device Does Have an Exhaust
It's Official: NASA's Peer-Reviewed EmDrive Paper Has Finally Been Published
Space Race 2.0: China May Already be Testing an EmDrive in Orbit
Physicist Uses "Quantised Inertia" to Explain Both EmDrive and Galaxy Rotation


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  • (Score: 3, Disagree) by ledow on Saturday August 12 2017, @09:58PM (12 children)

    by ledow (5567) on Saturday August 12 2017, @09:58PM (#552985) Homepage

    Same place as all the other EMDrives.

    In the bin, along with the ECat.

    Nothing past experimental error has ever been proven by any of them and if that video is the INVENTOR'S explanation of how it works, then to my mind it's dead in the water already. And the biggest proven effects - in Earth-based experiments - are heat and magnetic fields caused by the very power cabling that is "powering" it, causing a tiny force on the thing in a certain direction. In space, under it's own power, those forces wouldn't even be present for the most part, and when removed from the data, experimental error is all that's left.

    Snakeoil and bollocks.

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  • (Score: 4, Disagree) by kaszz on Saturday August 12 2017, @11:17PM (10 children)

    by kaszz (4211) on Saturday August 12 2017, @11:17PM (#553022) Journal

    There's plenty of online videos where experimenters verify the thrust. It's small, but it's there.

    What I don't get is why not anyone just launch a test module into space and falsify the whole deal. Unless some people have an interest to keep it under wraps..

    If the EMdrive can produce 29 kilonewton of thrust for 1 kilowatt of power reliably. Then we got hovering saucers right now. It's just to go ahead and build them.

    I noticed some changes since the first version in version 3 [emdrive.com]:
      * RF at 1.5 GHz instead of standard 2.4 GHz microwave oven.
      * The large side surface being liquid hydrogen (LH2) cooled YBCO. This should mean a temperature below 14.01 kelvin.
      * Improved thrust at 1.54 kN / kWm. (what unit is this?)
      * Piezoelectric elements (to alter thrust vector?).
      * Feedback detector antenna.

    Obviously the liquid hydrogen will not come cheap and the whole package now has a significantly increased weight.

    • (Score: 4, Insightful) by HiThere on Saturday August 12 2017, @11:44PM (3 children)

      by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Saturday August 12 2017, @11:44PM (#553034) Journal

      IIUC, the one you're referring to is the version one of the EMDrive. And when I read yesterday that appeared to be the only one actually ever built. Versions 2 and 3 require some sort of superconductor, so that probably means liquid helium. Patent applied for doesn't mean that an actual model has ever been built. Neither does patent granted...though it OUGHT to mean a working model had been demonstrated to the patent examiner.

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      • (Score: 2) by kaszz on Sunday August 13 2017, @12:06AM (1 child)

        by kaszz (4211) on Sunday August 13 2017, @12:06AM (#553045) Journal

        emdrive.com/3GEMDrive.pdf is the version one?

        • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Sunday August 13 2017, @06:42PM

          by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Sunday August 13 2017, @06:42PM (#553321) Journal

          Sorry, don't know or have a link. Until something definite turns up I'm not going to be real interested...though I sure would have been when I was younger. Dreaming with a possible reality can be great fun.

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      • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday August 13 2017, @08:29PM

        by JoeMerchant (3937) on Sunday August 13 2017, @08:29PM (#553352)

        MRIs have been running LN2 superconductors for a long time now.

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    • (Score: 2, Informative) by pinchy on Sunday August 13 2017, @01:27AM (5 children)

      by pinchy (777) on Sunday August 13 2017, @01:27AM (#553064) Journal

      What I don't get is why not anyone just launch a test module into space and falsify the whole deal.

      I read last year that china was planning on doing just that.

      A search pulled up this:
      https://www.sciencealert.com/the-impossible-em-drive-is-about-to-be-tested-in-space/ [sciencealert.com]

      Looks like someone was planning to launch on one a cubesat

      • (Score: 2) by kaszz on Sunday August 13 2017, @01:33AM (4 children)

        by kaszz (4211) on Sunday August 13 2017, @01:33AM (#553067) Journal

        Great, then we can start to get some hard data instead of this shouting match.
        Any hints on when they will launch?

        • (Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday August 13 2017, @01:45AM (3 children)

          by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Sunday August 13 2017, @01:45AM (#553069) Journal

          There is an unverifiable claim that China is testing it in space: https://www.rfglobalnet.com/doc/china-claims-em-drive-technology-tested-in-space-0001 [rfglobalnet.com]

          Or even on the X-37B (but USAF officials say it is a Hall effect thruster instead).

          https://www.aerosociety.com/news/flights-of-fancy/ [aerosociety.com]

          A published SPR EmDrive timetable from 2014 gives 2019 as the date for a demonstrator flying vehicle. Fetta’s Cannae Drive is planned to be launched into orbit in a cubesat before late July 2018.

          [...] A claim by the online news publication, International Business Times, in November 2016 that EmDrive type propellantless drives have been flown on China’s Tiangong-2 space laboratory and the US Air Force’s X-37B spaceplane could not be verified by Aerospace. Tiangong-2 was launched in September last year. This space laboratory programme is run by the China Manned Space Program (CMSP) but the CMSP did not respond to email contact.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 13 2017, @12:40AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 13 2017, @12:40AM (#553052)

    Um... I was pretty sure I read that there was a verifiable effect. What analysis did you read that put that effect within error?