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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
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Saturday August 12 2017, @10:18PM (7 children)
This con artist is on "generation 3" and has yet to demonstrate a single working device. Sorry, time to call bullshit here and move on. Show me a damned flying car prototype or shut up already. I don't even care if the power system isn't ready, just stuff some big ass batteries in the thing and demo it lifting off the stage and hovering for three minutes without an umbilical cord. Do that and then shut up and take my money because I'd be ready to invest heavily. Everybody would be throwing Sagans at the guy wanting to get in on the ground floor. And the years go by, more press releases, videos of people in labs doing science looking things and white papers come out instead. Enough.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Saturday August 12 2017, @11:47PM
It's not clear that he hasn't shown a marginally working device. But it's not clear that he has. Some examined the device and said it appeared to produce a small thrust. The amount was small enough that it would need to be tested in a satellite to be sure.
I don't think any certainty is reasonable about this thing, one way or the other.
OTOH, his proposed second and third generation devices appear to never have been built. much less tested.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 13 2017, @12:43AM (5 children)
Haha! Ok, was this on Rush Limbaugh or something or did Sean Hannity have a segment covering the EM drive? Did Trump tweet something about it?
I don't want to look like the AC that just keeps posting the same shit over and over again, but.. um... I was pretty sure I read that there was a verifiable effect. What analysis did you read that put that effect within error?
Jeezus, you people are just as bad as feminists. This entire species is insane.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Sunday August 13 2017, @05:56AM (4 children)
If that's accurate then it's probably the single weakest and most inefficient thruster known to man, and has absolutely no potential for the applications that Mr Shawyer claims when he's promoting it. Flying cars, for example, would never work with such a weak and inefficient thruster. So already we see a huge disconnect between the promotional claims and the supposedly tested reality. This is going to give us flying cars and cheap orbital boost? Not in a million years, not with such an anemic effect.
That's the best case. Even that, if it were true, would astonishing from a theoretical physics point of view. But what's more likely? That our entire view of the universe needs to be re-written to explain this contraption, or that the tiny thrust observed was an error? It's such a small result it has the look of rounding error, or some tiny flaw in the experimental apparatus.
Why has it still not been replicated, hmmm?
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(Score: 1) by nsa on Sunday August 13 2017, @06:38AM
I've been following this news story for years. Sounds like it has been replicated, paired exhaust photons might explain the effect without rewriting established views of the universe. Indeed the power levels and applications such as flying cars sound sketchy. But satellite adjustment thrusters and long space voyages sound like potentially interesting things. I probably have misunderstood the story somewhat, but you clearly have given your implication that replication has not happened. Now, the 10X more efficient version the Chinese claim to have, is something that AFAIK has not been replicated, and AS SUCH IN THAT CASE should be dismissed (after being noted).
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday August 13 2017, @12:02PM
That incidentally would be about the thrust from a photonic drive, say if they had just beamed the microwaves rather than dump them into a resonance chamber.
(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Sunday August 13 2017, @12:25PM (1 child)
Even a really crappy EmDrive can be useful. It could outcompete ion drives by using solar power and no propellant to counteract orbital decay. Scaling it up could allow it to be used anywhere in the inner solar system, and adding nuclear could allow it to go to the outer solar system.
The technology is supposed to scale better at higher power levels and increased "Q factor".
https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2017/06/emdrive-inventor-shawyers-latest-information-on-military-applications-and-superconducting-emdrive-progress.html [nextbigfuture.com]
Some stupid error could still be behind the thrust observed even if they are measuring thrust above the sensitivity level of the instruments. Results reported by China can't be trusted [retractionwatch.com] until replicated.
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday August 14 2017, @03:59AM
So can light pressure on the solar panels. And you don't even need to generate electricity in order to get that.
Is higher Q factor possible? As I've noted before, it sounds like a overly complex photonic or ion drive. Some of the current observed thrust per input power levels are low enough that one could improve it by merely beaming the microwaves into space.