"The future is here - coming soon " Topic

to a spaceship near you!

link

Thanks for the link. This has some really exciting possibilities.

Probably not real, just a combination of wishful thinking and hype. One article (of many) questioning the find:
link

As I said in the other thread, I'm really skeptical a microwave and a copper pot is going to rewrite physics as we know it.

-Will

My McAfee didn't like that site.

My site or the first one?

-Will

Or, how about Nasa's official stance, as of today:
link

NASA itself is certainly not claiming they invented a warp drive.

-Will

Will, that NASA statement isn't dealing with the engine in the article, which is an EM drive, but with FTL or Warp Drive, which the EM drive is not. You've muddled two separate issues, which I'm surprised you didn't recognize.

NASA's Warp Drive research is in the area of the Alcubierre Warp Bubble concept, and has nothing to do with the EM drive discussed in the article.

The EM drive is a simple mechanism for producing thrust via microwaves. Setting aside the significant questions regarding Conservation of Momentum, if it were to prove to be viable, it's still just a device for relatively conventional travel, if much speedier than current chemical and ion-based systems (though we could come close to its speed with nuclear pulse engines, if we weren't such weenies about tiny nukes in space). What happens when this thing accelerates a vehicle to relativistic speeds is anybody's guess, but FTL is not what it is, and Warp Drive is certainly not what it is.

The whole idea is simply whether microwaves could be generated and given a single directional component, thus creating thrust. So, basically, it's a rocket that doesn't need propellant (but it still needs fuel; you just don't throw the fuel away as you go along, which conventional rockets basically do). The issue about whether this violates Conservation of Momentum as we understand it is the big deal. If it works, then we don't truly understand Conservation of Momentum (shock, surprise, science has to reexamine itself! Quelle horreur!). If it doesn't, then life goes on uninterrupted.

Here's a better general article on the whole thing, if a bit hopeful: link

Here's the First Rule of Science: What we know, changes— and then we know better.

@wminsing: The first website.

@Parizal- Except if you plow all the way through the material posted on the nasaspaceflight forum, the current 'theory' is that the thrust is being generated by an undetectable 'warp field bubble'. Here's a link as an example what is currently being discussed as 'facts':
link

So the current claim is indeed that not only is the emdrive reactionless, but it may enable FTL travel as well. That's what has gotten folks so worked up over the last few days. I'm not the one doing the muddling; it's the emdrive advocates who are already doing that for me. :)

-Will

Here's another site claiming the emdrive is actually a warp drive:
link

-Will

I'm skeptical of that the claimed emdrive functions as advertised to begin with, and asking me to believe that actually will enable FTL travel as well is a bridge too far. :)

-Will

Days later and the ONLY place this is to be seen is on blog posts and chat rooms. The news industry may be bad but it is NOT that bad.

Dynaman, it's on CNET, io9, The Independent (first link I saw), and will probably make its way to the big Infotainment media soon enough. (Badly mangled, of course.)

@ Will,

Okay, yeah, I see that. Of course, I'm not exactly crediting a forum post as being the news here. "It's a warp bubble" or whatever is not what the EM drive test is about or what it claims, so a comment buried in a forum is hardly the appropriate target that disproves the EM drive itself. It's just a wild claim in a forum (imagine that! People offering nutty explanations on the Internet! Why, that *never* happens!).

The question is, what is going on with the EM drive and why does it work as it does (if it does). I give active scientific experimentation and observation of the phenomenon more credit than speculative "certainty" debates on the Internet, one way or the other.

IMHO, it's time for the proponents to invite in the opponents to test everything themselves, or provide the stats so that effective tests can be done. In short, bring on the falsifiable independent testing and the peer review!

(Interestingly, I do recall when "Quantum Thrusters" were being speculated upon a year or so ago, it was suggested that they might create the "exotic matter" which is suggested as the primary material for the Alcubierre Warp Ring. But that's all speculation. I love it, but I doubt it.)

The advantage with em drive if it works (which it probably dosnt) is it only need electricity. So if we can make small power plants, whe can fly around the solar system, at relaivly fast speeds, and not having to worry about the whole mass of fuel vs fuel needed to get places. Right now you would need fueling stations all around the solar system, and only carry fuel to get one place then refuel to get back, with very little corse correction ability..

With em drive you could start towards pluto, then decide to go to saturn instead, then go back to mars, before going home to earth. No refuelling needed.

Of course, I'm not exactly crediting a forum post as being the news here. "It's a warp bubble" or whatever is not what the EM drive test is about or what it claims, so a comment buried in a forum is hardly the appropriate target that disproves the EM drive itself. It's just a wild claim in a forum (imagine that! People offering nutty explanations on the Internet! Why, that *never* happens!).

Except the folks making the comments are supposedly directly associated with EagleWorks, which is currently running the tests…. If true then they should have been smart enough to know they needed to publish some data. If they *aren't* associated with Eagleworks someone from there should have gotten on the horn with the actual information. Either way this looks incredibly bad from reliability standpoint. The fact that nothing at all has yet been published in a peer reviewed source doesn't look good either.

-Will

The advantage with em drive if it works (which it probably dosnt) is it only need electricity. So if we can make small power plants, whe can fly around the solar system, at relaivly fast speeds, and not having to worry about the whole mass of fuel vs fuel needed to get places. Right now you would need fueling stations all around the solar system, and only carry fuel to get one place then refuel to get back, with very little corse correction ability..

Yes, if EM drive worked (and it probably doesn't) you've just invented a reaction-less low-powered torch drive that would enable you to go anywhere you wanted in the solar system at any time, and would enable slower-than-light interstellar missions as well. It would, with the proper engineering, also serve as the foundation of a free-energy satellite system. To say it would be the most important physics discovery in the history of the human race would probably be understating the fact; it would rewrite our relationship with the physical universe.

Which only increases my skepticism that it's not something like copper ablating off the device or something equally mundane. If it really was something there it's well past time to publish it.

-Will

No data?
No discovery.

wminsing 01 May 2015 8:48 a.m. PST:

I'm skeptical of that the claimed emdrive functions as advertised to begin with, and asking me to believe that actually will enable FTL travel as well is a bridge too far

Yep, so far it looks like a case of "drawing vast conclusions from half-vast data" (to quote Jerry R. Ehman). Tho in this case I'm not sure even about the extent of the data. But obviously I'll have to wait for proper scientific paper made available for peer review and the independent experiments to verify what's been presented in the paper.

For a less diplomatic commentary on the subject, you can always trust Luboš Motl:
link

For those looking for a little bit less hard-core reaming, the Wired piece referenced in the blog post above is appropriate:
link

BTW please note that these are just in regards to IRL. No need to let them rain on your parade if you just want (pseudo)scientific excuses to do space battles or whathavewe.