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New Test suggests NASA's EM Drive will work in space

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gutshot

Member
The Romanian engineer who posted the earlier video of his homemade EmDrive measuring thrust is back with another video. This time he's pointed the drive downward, because critics of his earlier test posited that the measured upward thrust was actually from a "hot air balloon" effect. If he points it downward and it still has thrust, that would disprove that assertion.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAMttfMC8PI&hd=1

And, what do you know, he measured thrust! Much less than the upward thrust, but this is likely because the drive has to pull on the spring and could possibly be having to counteract the "hot air balloon" effect.
 

Wreav

Banned
All the hoopla over the "imperfect vacuum chamber" at eagleworks, and we're going to take this Romanian guy seriously with that ghetto rig? And isn't his measured thrust still within the deviation range of error?
 

Soi-Fong

Member
As more tests are done, this video adds proof that there is directional thrust and this isn't just some one-off thing.

Anyway, here's an interesting paper that's come out of this.

PDF: http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=36313.0;attach=831166

It's a paper confirming thrust and putting out a possible explanation for this phenomenon. The math is way above my head, but the abstract is interesting. What's important to note is that the Law of Conservation does not seem to be violated according to this paper which is a sticking point for many people.

Anway, the paper itself is not peer-reviewed so there you go. It's being discussed over though in the NSF forum.

"Resonant cavities and space-time thrust Marco Frasca∗ (Dated: May 20, 2015) Abstract I analyze the behavior of electromagnetic fields inside a cavity by solving Einstein field equations. It is shown that the modified geometry of space-time inside the cavity due to a propagating mode can affect the propagation of a laser beam. The effect is the appearance of components of laser light with a shifted frequency originating from the coupling between the laser field and the mode cavity due to gravity. The analysis is extended to the case of a frustum taken to be a truncated cone. It is shown that a proper choice of the geometrical parameters of the cavity can make the gravitational effect significant. In this case a thrust can be present due to gravity without violating any conservation law."
 
Wow... Do people really not understand how the scientific method works...?

As more tests are done, this video adds proof that there is directional thrust and this isn't just some one-off thing. You're making it sound like it's a waste of time for these people to test it.

What the fuck do you expect from a home builder? I'd like to see you come up with a better rig to test this phenomenon.

Anyway, diverting from this asinine statement that Wreav made, here's an interesting paper that's come out of this.

PDF: http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=36313.0;attach=831166

It's a paper confirming thrust and putting out a possible explanation for this phenomenon. The math is way above my head, but the abstract is interesting. What's important to note is that the Law of Conservation does not seem to be violated according to this paper which is a sticking point for many people.

Anway, the paper itself is not peer-reviewed so there you go. It's being discussed over though in the NSF forum.
Yeah, that's the same one that Wreav posted.
 

Wreav

Banned
I posted that paper yesterday, and my question is valid.

Why are we simultaneously worried about the vac chamber at eagleworks and taking non vac tests seriously?
 

Soi-Fong

Member
Yeah, that's the same one that Wreav posted.

Oh whoops, didn't look at the previous page. My apologies.

I posted that paper yesterday, and my question is valid.

Why are we simultaneously worried about the vac chamber at eagleworks and taking non vac tests seriously?

Any testing of this phenomenon is good for either verifying or discrediting the Em drive. Not everyone has access to a vacuum chamber. That doesn't mean though that people can't test this out for themselves.
 

gutshot

Member
I posted that paper yesterday, and my question is valid.

Why are we simultaneously worried about the vac chamber at eagleworks and taking non vac tests seriously?

Everyone is free to interpret any of the tests as valid or not valid based on their own individual merits. It doesn't have to be an all or nothing thing.

Personally, I just find the thought of this thing being reproducible on a DIY level pretty exciting.
 

Soi-Fong

Member
Everyone is free to interpret any of the tests as valid or not valid based on their own individual merits. It doesn't have to be an all or nothing thing.

Personally, I just find the thought of this thing being reproducible on a DIY level pretty exciting.

I would try it out for myself, but don't think I have the expertise too. I heard magnetrons can be pretty dangerous if not handled properly.
 
Every time I see this thread bumped the pessimist in me expects some news that totally debunked/shoots this down. But so far the updates have been encouraging.

Keep it up humanity!
 

DieH@rd

Banned
Still won't mean shit if we don't have any means of proper radiation shielding.

We'll be sending astronauts to their graves.

Yeah, sending non-maned probes to neighboring stars will be shit. Also, propelling any type of spacecraft [even well shielded ones] without the need to bring propellant fuel will also be shit.
 
All you need is some thick metal to shield from radiation. It adds weight, for sure.

A bigger issue with going 5% the speed of light is that even a few dozen molecules will mess your ship up with giant holes.
 

Akira

Member
All you need is some thick metal to shield from radiation. It adds weight, for sure.

A bigger issue with going 5% the speed of light is that even a few dozen molecules will mess your ship up with giant holes.

That's where the deflector shields come in. Gene Roddenberry was ahead of his time.
 

GDGF

Soothsayer
New?

http://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/researchers-conduct-successful-new-tests-of-emdrive/

Engineer Roger Shawyer’s controversial EmDrive thruster jets back into relevancy this week, as a team of researchers at NASA’s Eagleworks Laboratories recently completed yet another round of testing on the seemingly impossible tech. Though no official peer-reviewed lab paper has been published yet, and NASA institutes strict press release restrictions on the Eagleworks lab these days, engineer Paul March took to the NASA Spaceflight forum to explain the group’s findings. In essence, by utilizing an improved experimental procedure, the team managed to mitigate some of the errors from prior tests — yet still found signals of unexplained thrust.
 
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