Message boards :
Science (non-SETI) :
Speeding up space travel - EM Drive
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Author | Message |
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Gordon Lowe Send message Joined: 5 Nov 00 Posts: 12094 Credit: 6,317,865 RAC: 0 |
As usual, lack of money slows things down, but the wheels of progress are moving... http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2015/04/evaluating-nasas-futuristic-em-drive/ The mind is a weird and mysterious place |
Bob DeWoody Send message Joined: 9 May 10 Posts: 3387 Credit: 4,182,900 RAC: 10 |
Good for travelling around our solar system but a bit slow for interstellar flight. Bob DeWoody My motto: Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow as it may not be required. This no longer applies in light of current events. |
Gordon Lowe Send message Joined: 5 Nov 00 Posts: 12094 Credit: 6,317,865 RAC: 0 |
Still better than what we have now. ;~) The mind is a weird and mysterious place |
KLiK Send message Joined: 31 Mar 14 Posts: 1304 Credit: 22,994,597 RAC: 60 |
Good for travelling around our solar system but a bit slow for interstellar flight. You can always build a BIGGER ONE! :D non-profit org. Play4Life in Zagreb, Croatia, EU |
William Rothamel Send message Joined: 25 Oct 06 Posts: 3756 Credit: 1,999,735 RAC: 4 |
My radiometer spins with no ejection of any fuel. It has run now for ten years or more but still requires energy from the sun. If this work here is actually real then this amounts to a way of rectifying circular motion into linear motion. I did my master's thesis on semi-confocal microwave cavities (Fabry-Perot interferometer). Didn't look for any thrust but obtained a Q-factor that was 30,000 or so. |
Bob DeWoody Send message Joined: 9 May 10 Posts: 3387 Credit: 4,182,900 RAC: 10 |
Good for travelling around our solar system but a bit slow for interstellar flight. Bigger isn't necessarily going to be faster. Bob DeWoody My motto: Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow as it may not be required. This no longer applies in light of current events. |
KLiK Send message Joined: 31 Mar 14 Posts: 1304 Credit: 22,994,597 RAC: 60 |
Good for travelling around our solar system but a bit slow for interstellar flight. Bigger should be stronger...or make an array of them...so could have MORE POWER! ;) It's not like they would run out of juice in Space! :D non-profit org. Play4Life in Zagreb, Croatia, EU |
cov_route Send message Joined: 13 Sep 12 Posts: 342 Credit: 10,270,618 RAC: 0 |
They report this thing converts electrical power into a force. Not energy to energy or power to power or force to force. Power to force. That's a remarkable claim. We could put the engine on a wheel and make it drive the wheel round and round. Hook the wheel up to a generator and you can generate electricity. The faster it turns the more power it generates because the force is constant (or so it seems). You could generate arbitrary amounts of power depending how fast it can spin without flying apart. No reason you couldn't generate more power than you are using to run the engine itself. You are talking about extracting energy out of nothingness. So not only does it appear to violate conservation of momentum, but conservation of energy too. I dunno... |
cov_route Send message Joined: 13 Sep 12 Posts: 342 Credit: 10,270,618 RAC: 0 |
Further to my last wetblanketry, I did some calcs... With the engines they claim to have already built that generate 0.75N force with 1200 W input power, a 4 meter diameter rotor with two of the engines mounted on the periphery rotating at 57,000 rpm (ok thats fast) would be a perpetual motion machine. Spin it faster and you get free electricity. Engineering-wise that would be a challenge but not completely out of the question. And we are talking about prototypes. They seem to believe they can improve them so it would be even more feasible. If these things are real then we will have free electricity in unlimited quantities. No more green house gasses, gigantic desalination plants in California (and any desert you care to mention), total recycling because energy is not an issue. And on and on, use your imagination. Why power your spaceships with nuclear reactors? Just use EM drives to generate the power and the thrust out of the void. It all seems like a bit much. |
KLiK Send message Joined: 31 Mar 14 Posts: 1304 Credit: 22,994,597 RAC: 60 |
Electric power is energy...and force during some time, makes work - which is also energy... So it's energy to energy...and works OK! But no...it is't perpetum mobile...nothing is! Not even Stars... ;) non-profit org. Play4Life in Zagreb, Croatia, EU |
KLiK Send message Joined: 31 Mar 14 Posts: 1304 Credit: 22,994,597 RAC: 60 |
But no...it is't perpetum mobile...nothing is! Not even Stars... ;) Perpetuum mobile or any perpetuum device...it should give more energy than it's put in the system... It doesn't exist! Even those null-drives use the energy from a GBR or some other Universe source... ;) non-profit org. Play4Life in Zagreb, Croatia, EU |
edjcox Send message Joined: 20 May 99 Posts: 96 Credit: 5,878,353 RAC: 0 |
I think we can take it beyond Ludicrous speed all the way to Plaid.... All you have to do is wait for the specific impulse to build up to something useful although that might take a long long long time. People don't have the time to wait for the speed to build up.... Wonder exactly how long even a short flight to Mars might take waiting for this EM Thruster to build up momentum.. Never engage stupid people at their level, they then have the home court advantage..... |
janneseti Send message Joined: 14 Oct 09 Posts: 14106 Credit: 655,366 RAC: 0 |
I think we can take it beyond Ludicrous speed all the way to Plaid.... It only takes 1 year to reach nearly speed of light with 1 G acceleration. But it takes a LOT of fuel. |
Darth Beaver Send message Joined: 20 Aug 99 Posts: 6728 Credit: 21,443,075 RAC: 3 |
If it works great nuclear reactors for space are the only time they make sense , plenty of uranium for that , or better still Helium 3, and there's plenty of that for fusion power They use Iron drives for satilites so why not E.M drives Beam me up Scotty is not that far away |
janneseti Send message Joined: 14 Oct 09 Posts: 14106 Credit: 655,366 RAC: 0 |
They use Iron drives for satilites so why not E.M drives I Think you mean ion drives. But ion drives have VERY low acceleration. Humans need 1G to survive. Thats about 10 m/s². And how could nuclear reactors be used for propulsion? Steam is of course possible but then you need a LOT of water. |
KLiK Send message Joined: 31 Mar 14 Posts: 1304 Credit: 22,994,597 RAC: 60 |
I think we can take it beyond Ludicrous speed all the way to Plaid.... Sure you have...just give me few blonds or brunetes & I populate the planet before we get there... :D in current technology, without EM drive...a baby can be born before we get into Mars orbit! ;) non-profit org. Play4Life in Zagreb, Croatia, EU |
cov_route Send message Joined: 13 Sep 12 Posts: 342 Credit: 10,270,618 RAC: 0 |
Sure you have...just give me few blonds or brunetes & I populate the planet before we get there... :D Love triangles between people stuck in a spaceship the size of a kitchen for weeks and months? What could possibly go wrong? |
Gordon Lowe Send message Joined: 5 Nov 00 Posts: 12094 Credit: 6,317,865 RAC: 0 |
Sure you have...just give me few blonds or brunetes & I populate the planet before we get there... :D That's a very good point. The psychology of space travel really is just as important as the method of propulsion, imo. The mind is a weird and mysterious place |
Darth Beaver Send message Joined: 20 Aug 99 Posts: 6728 Credit: 21,443,075 RAC: 3 |
I Think you mean ion drives. Yep hehehe , they may have low acceleration but it builds up , you don't need to do the 1/4 mile in 2 sec you build up speed . You just don't need big fuel tanks and extra weight . Not shore what you mean by 1G to survive ! yes our body's need 1g but that's air pressure not speed , our body would boil at lower pressure's . Have you seen what happens to a glass of water in a vacuum'd space . It boil's , we are 70% water . 1G for gravity can be simulated by spinning the work space the humans use |
janneseti Send message Joined: 14 Oct 09 Posts: 14106 Credit: 655,366 RAC: 0 |
1G for gravity can be simulated by spinning the work space the humans use Yes. I forgot. Otherwise the muscles and bones will detoriate. And pressure have to be 1 atm othervise we can't breath... Because of the great height of the air pressure on Mount Everest is only 326 mbar, barely a third of the air pressure at sea level (which also means that there are about a third as much oxygen as at sea level). Therefore is the boiling point of water already at 70 degrees Celsius at the top of Mount Everest, instead of the normal 100 degrees Celsius at sea level. Hmm. Seems easy to cook food in space:) |
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