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[Mango The Magician]

In Star Trek terms this would be the Impulse Engine.

It's great for local transport but to get to another star system you still want some sort of warp drive.

Well I mean traveling to Mars, and Europa, and so on in a efficient manner is still cool, but man there's so much out there, it's a shame that even with this it's still cut off from us.

By the time we send manned missions to every corner of our solar system using this EM technology, we may very well have developed a better technology that could cut the trip time down.

Probably won't happen in our lifetimes, but still pretty exciting. We could theoretically send a probe out in the direction of Voyager and pass it in only a couple years.

Well this is true, and hopefully we will have bettered the technology, it's just daunting and a bit depressing how big space is.

This is forgetting the need to stop. Calculating that into the trajectory would be additional 32 years.

Someone please invent immortality. X(

 

[andycapps]

Wow, I hope that this pans out into something useful. Was skeptical at first and now I'm cautiously optimistic that they can do something with this.

 

[Tal Shiar Agent]

Is anything similar to a deflector shield possible?

Going at those speeds without some sort of shielding seems like a bad idea with micrometeorites.

 

[ahoyhoy]

So how long would it take to reach the Asteroid belt?

This could potentially end resource scarcity on earth right?

Assuming we can successfully capture and safely redirect asteroids back towards earth, yeah.

Would rather they just start making ships and shit out in the asteroid belts before we start flinging rocks towards us.

 

[Orbis Tabula]

Is anything similar to a deflector shield possible?

Going at those speeds without some sort of shielding seems like a bad idea with micrometeorites.

Hell, keep accelerating and it's not even meteorites that are an issue. The rare errant hydrogen atom would be a problem if you were going fast enough.

 

[Deleted member 231381]

I'm still skeptical. Interested, but skeptical.

.

 

[frankie_baby]

In Star Trek terms this would be the Impulse Engine.

It's great for local transport but to get to another star system you still want some sort of warp drive.

Hasn't there been talk that this basically is a warp drive?

 

[Concept17]

Damn, talk about awesome news!!! I hope we can figure out why this works before I die...

Right? I hope NASA and others go crazy researching this.

 

[The Elite]

Assuming we can successfully capture and safely redirect asteroids back towards earth, yeah.

Would rather they just start making ships and shit out in the asteroid belts before we start flinging rocks towards us.

Wouldn't we just do remote mining with automated craft?

I don't think we would send asteroids back to Earth.

Hasn't there been talk that this basically is a warp drive?

I don't think this is warping space. There was another thread about a Warp bubble potentially being discovered but I don't believe that has been tested or peer reviewed.

 

[NH Apache]

Hasn't there been talk that this basically is a warp drive?

You're thinking of the other article from the other day where they may have accidentally created a warp field.

 

[Norfair]

Actually NASA was recently kicking around the idea of moving an asteroid into orbit of the moon and sending astronauts there. The funding will be cut out from under it before it ever happens but a cool idea.

 

[Ahasverus]

Any application on earth?

 

[The Elite]

Actually NASA was recently kicking around the idea of moving an asteroid into orbit of the moon and sending astronauts there. The funding will be cut out from under it before it ever happens but a cool idea.

It just seems to make more sense to mine in the belt and bring resources back.

 

[ahoyhoy]

Wouldn't we just do remote mining with automated craft?

I don't think we would send asteroids back to Earth.

We'd still need to work on the economics of escaping the atmosphere and whether or not the haul would offset those costs. Until otherwise proven we'll still need to use fossil fuels to generate that kind of thrust.

Unless you're mining extremely rare minerals, I'm guessing it'll only become economically viable to mine space minerals once we build a space elevator or something of the kind.

 

[i-Lo]

What about time dilation for the travellers; well it be still 92( (+38) years them too?

 

[Eighty Deuce]

So I can become a space cowboy bounty hunter now?

 

[frankie_baby]

You're thinking of the other article from the other day where they may have accidentally created a warp field.

Using the EM drive if I remember right

 

[Futurematic]

I have a question that someone with a better understanding of spaceflight and the structure of space could hopefully answer.

Is the density of micro-meteorites and other small particles so low that we could ever conceivably travel at percentages of the speed of light? I feel like a spacecraft moving at 10% the speed of light would get torn to shreds traveling through a solar system.

Is anything similar to a deflector shield possible?

Going at those speeds without some sort of shielding seems like a bad idea with micrometeorites.

Atomic Rockets is your friend.

To answer your question though, it is easily within modern material technology to build such a shield (a Whipple Shield I think would be the current plan if we had to build a starship right now).

What about time dilation for the travellers; well it be still 92( (+38) years them too?

At a mere 10% the speed of right they would experience almost all those years, yes. Atomic Rockets has all the math in the link above.

 

[TheGreatDirector]

Any application on earth?

Transportation wise, it would probably be disastrous to try anything like this even for aircraft.

 

[KimiNewt]

It should be noted that even the hyper-optimistic scientist talking about Mars and Alpha Centauri is saying that if everything is as it seems, any practical implementations are 50 years away.

Spoiler

Yet all of us are still imagining a summer holiday on Mars in five years, aren't we?

 

[gutshot]

What about time dilation for the travellers; well it be still 92( (+38) years them too?

The article states that the speeds are still slow enough that time dilation would not really be a factor.

 

[Mango The Magician]

^that answers my question, I should probably read the article. :3

 

[The Elite]

It should be noted that even the hyper-optimistic scientist talking about Mars and Alpha Centauri is saying that if everything is as it seems, any practical implementations are 50 years away.

Spoiler

Yet all of us are still imagining a summer holiday on Mars in five years, aren't we?

I think 50 years is pretty good.

 

[Tapiozona]

Why would they only accelerate at one milli-g? At 1g constant acceleration you could reach planets in days and Alpha Centari in a few years with deceleration.

http://space.stackexchange.com/questions/840/how-fast-will-1g-get-you-there

Does the engine not supply enough power for that?

 

[Orbis Tabula]

If we're gonna start harvesting asteroids and shit, I say we fling them into Mars. Heat it up a bit and get some water up in there.

 

[CDX]

Cautiously optimistic.

I've been hearing/reading about this for awhile now, waiting for it to be debunked and so far it hasn't been. So yeah, I'm cautiously optimistic right now.

Damn, talk about awesome news!!! I hope we can figure out why this works before I die...

IF this works, I really do hope we figure out WHY it works.

 

[Noirulus]

Aliens gonna be rollin' up in here soon.

 

[ActuallyHulk]

Space. The final frontier.

 

[frankie_baby]

It should be noted that even the hyper-optimistic scientist talking about Mars and Alpha Centauri is saying that if everything is as it seems, any practical implementations are 50 years away.

Spoiler

Yet all of us are still imagining a summer holiday on Mars in five years, aren't we?

I've got a feeling the vast savings on fuel could see work on this happening faster we might otherwise expect, I believe most of can expect a probe or something to be launched to alpha centauri in our lifetimes, even if we don't live to to see what it finds there

 

[Veritigo_X]

Aliens gonna be rollin' up in here soon.

 

[TheGreatDirector]

Why would they only accelerate at one milli-g? At 1g constant acceleration you could reach planets in days and Alpha Centari in a few years with deceleration.

http://space.stackexchange.com/questions/840/how-fast-will-1g-get-you-there

Does the engine not supply enough power for that?

Perhaps they're thinking in terms of spacecraft design being able to handle those accelerating velocities.

 

[Delta Assault]

Hope Roger Sawyer applied for that patent.

 

[gutshot]

Why would they only accelerate at one milli-g? At 1g constant acceleration you could reach planets in days and Alpha Centari in a few years with deceleration.

http://space.stackexchange.com/questions/840/how-fast-will-1g-get-you-there

Does the engine not supply enough power for that?

I assume it is because of the diminishing returns that the drive experiences at input powers above 50 kiloWatts.

The computer code also shows that the efficiency, as measured by the thrust to input power ratio, decreases at input powers exceeding 50 kiloWatts.

 

[Cookie18]

I've got a feeling the vast savings on fuel could see work on this happening faster we might otherwise expect, I believe most of can expect a probe or something to be launched to alpha centauri in our lifetimes, even if we don't live to to see what it finds there

Does anybody know if it would be theoretically possible to send a probe to Alpha Centauri but one which could maybe be close enough to view it through a telescope way before it would get there? That way we could begin observing it after say 70 years and not have to worry about slowing down?

 

[Tal Shiar Agent]

I assume it is because of the diminishing returns that the drive experiences at input powers above 50 kiloWatts.

Could multiple drives be used in tandem to produce faster acceleration?


This reminds me of the short story The Road Not Taken by Harry Turtledove.

 

[mentallyinept]

Could multiple drives be used in tandem to produce faster acceleration?


This reminds me of the short story The Road Not Taken by Harry Turtledove.

My exact thoughts.

If the engine efficiency peaks at 50kW, put an array of them running at peak efficiency.

 

[V_Arnold]

Even the "wait for peer review" cult cannot overshadow my excitement over this.

 

[crazyprac]

I was born too soon gdamnit!

 

[frankie_baby]

Does anybody know if it would be theoretically possible to send a probe to Alpha Centauri but one which could maybe be close enough to view it through a telescope way before it would get there? That way we could begin observing it after say 70 years and not have to worry about slowing down?

I'm not an expert but I don't see why not

 

[edible_candle]

I was born too soon gdamnit!

So was everyone else, and everyone who ever will be. Unless progress stops or humanity ends.

 

[VoidVR]

Born too late to explore Earth and too early to explore space. :/

Can someone funnel vast amounts of money to these guys please? I'm not getting any younger!

 

[Alexlf]

So was everyone else, and everyone who ever will be. Unless progress stops or humanity ends.

Knowing humans it'll be the latter.

 

[Graphics Horse]

If you want to really test one just send one up to the ISS, the worst that can happen?

 

[Deleted member 13876]

Why wouldn't they?

The aliens who control the shadow governments won't let them.

 

[Badlucktroll]

So they've had some breakthroughs? Will we populate the galaxy with our blessed presence? We will probably go to planets and rape them for resources. Trillions of humans populating the galaxy.

 

[Epsilon-delta]

By the time we send manned missions to every corner of our solar system using this EM technology, we may very well have developed a better technology that could cut the trip time down.

Probably won't happen in our lifetimes, but still pretty exciting. We could theoretically send a probe out in the direction of Voyager and pass it in only a couple years.

In biomedical engineers we trust.

Fund NASA now you dumb congress fucks.

This please.

 

[Niks]

HOly shit, if true this could change everything.
Jupiter moons, here we come!

 

[OmniOne]

Is there a laymens explanation of how this engine works. I'm ashamed to admit I'm not quite understanding.

 

[mentallyinept]

Is there a laymens explanation of how this engine works. I'm ashamed to admit I'm not quite understanding.

No one knows why it works. That's the crazy part.

What we do know is microwaves are generated in an enclosed space and thrust is generated.

 

[NastyBook]

It’s still early days, but the implications are mind-boggling to say the least. A full-fledged EM drive could be used on everything from satellites working in low Earth orbit, to missions to the Moon, Mars, and the outer solar system.

This is cooooooooooool.