The "Impossible" Engine is real, NASA says so!

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Cragvis

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http://sploid.gizmodo.com/nasa-reveals-new-impossible-engine-can-change-space-t-1614549987

Until yesterday, everyone in the international community was laughing at this engine and its inventor, Roger Sawyer. It's called the EmDrive and everyone said it was impossible because it went against the laws of physics. But the fact is that the quantum vacuum plasma thruster works in the lab and scientists can't explain why.
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Basically it gives us the ability to have fuel-less engines in space, we would no longer be limited by fuel limitations in terms of space travel. We could keep them on and keep going faster and faster, a trip to mars could take a week instead of 6 months.

NASA doesnt know why it works, its troll science, but they were able to replicate it like the Chinese did. Its reality but we dont know why.

Send me to space if old.

EDIT: More source links below as well as some fishy info on if this is actually real or not:

http://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?R=20140006052

http://emdrive.com/

http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/...le-space-drive

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I found this comment on reddit. This person is bringing up the questionable integrity of the original inventor of the Emdrive, but also that of the man who convinced NASA to conduct the research. Looks like he's a managing director at a company called Cannae LLC, and him providing the equipment and hiding the results does indeed smell fishy.

http://www.cannae.com/

Also, take it all with a rock of salt:

http://arstechnica.com/science/2014/08/dont-buy-stock-in-impossible-space-drives-just-yet/
 
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Renzoku said:
So like a perpetual ion engine?
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Almost, it still needs electricity, which we can get from solar panels and a light source from a star, but yes.


lednerg said:
"...a trip to mars could take a week instead of 6 months."​

WHAT? Holy... WHAT?
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The only reason it takes a long time to get anywhere is because our fuel would be finite, we cant burn all our fuel to get to mars fast because then we cant get back. let alone be able to launch a rocket with that much fuel to have enough to burn for the whole trip.

With this, there is no fuel, so we can turn the engine on and keep accelerating as close to light speed as we want i believe, thus cutting down the amount of time it takes to get anywhere, as long as we had light to use as energy from the sun.
 
"quantum vacuum plasma thruster"

so it has something to do with quantum mechanics? Everything in this area sounds like Magic :O
 
The last people I except to be such skeptics are scientist. These are the people that should think almost anything is possible when it comes to space right?
 
Cragvis said:
The only reason it takes a long time to get anywhere is because our fuel would be finite, we cant burn all our fuel to get to mars fast because then we cant get back. let alone be able to launch a rocket with that much fuel to have enough to burn for the whole trip.

With this, there is no fuel, so we can turn the engine on and keep accelerating as close to light speed as we want i believe, thus cutting down the amount of time it takes to get anywhere, as long as we had light to use as energy from the sun.
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This is so fricken cool. lol
 
Micronewtons of thrust.... heheh



LQX said:
The last people I except to be such skeptics are scientist. These are the people that should think almost anything is possible when it comes to space right?
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Uh, what...

Science is pretty much based on scepticism and critical peer-review.
 
Cess007 said:
I suppose this may also make space travel cheaper, right?
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much, all we need is enough fuel to break earths gravity, once in 0g we turn on these suckers and slowly accelerate till we are going as fast as we want.

Just have to remember to turn them off and turn on reverse thrusters to slow down lol.
 
Finally, now that science has crumbled, we can use *Quantum Physics* to justify these magic crystals that cure all sorts of maladies, from cancer to rheumatisms.
2 for 200$.
 
LQX said:
The last people I except to be such skeptics are scientist. These are the people that should think almost anything is possible when it comes to space right?
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Anything that fits into the already accepted laws of physics, yes. This doesn't, which is why it faces a lot of initial skepticism.
 
I want to believe

This will be debunked I'm sure, but I hope to god I'm wrong. It's been a long time since the world has had a game changing invention.
 
Cragvis said:
much, all we need is enough fuel to break earths gravity, once in 0g we turn on these suckers and slowly accelerate till we are going as fast as we want.

Just have to remember to turn them off and turn on reverse thrusters to slow down lol.
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Watch this become the first generation of impulse drive.
 
kswiston said:
Cool experiment, but 30 micronewtons of thrust is a long way from sub light speed travel.
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True, but since this is still in the discovery phase, im sure once we figure it all out we can start making very powerful versions :)

Htown said:
can somebody please explain this to me like i'm a damn moron?
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From what I gather a good way to explain it would be like this:

A normal thruster produces force by burning fuel, by burning it, it makes something move in a certain direction, like you see in movies with fictional space ships. All those thrusters at the back end of a star destroyer.

What this is like, is if you had a box full of marbles, and you started to shake the box, making the marbles bounces off the inside walls of the box randomly. Normally this does nothing but annoy your spouse. Instead for some reason, it creates thrust that would push you in a certain direction.

No one knows WHY this is yet.I could be wrong in this description too, it is confusing.
 
Cautiously optimistic after reading the Wired Uk article.

If this is real, this would be a brilliant testamony of how science can accept radical new theories, they just need to be proved in a lab. When that happens, it gains momentum that snake oil salesmen never get.
 
Htown said:
can somebody please explain this to me like i'm a damn moron?
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I'm no scientist, but this is basically how I understand it.

-You use electricity to generate microwaves inside a closed container (think a microwave oven, basically).
-Those waves bounce around inside the container, which somehow causes thrust. This is the part our accepted laws of physics can't currently explain.

The amount of thrust is apparently very small, although with refinement it may get bigger. Either way, you don't need much thrust at all to get things moving in space. And with a constant supply of electricity (eg solar power), this engine could run forever without needing to refuel.
 
As it's solely powered by electricity a nuclear powered ship would have the range to pretty much go anywhere on an inter-planetary level.
 
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