NASA confirms a propellant-less space drive?

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NASA confirms a propellant-less space drive? - 8/1/2014 2:39:01 PM

Cauldyth

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I know this is off-topic, but these forums have been receptive to these subjects before. NASA tested, and got a positive result, for a propulsion system that doesn't fire out any propellant. Its advocates claim that it pushes against the virtual particles that are constantly being created and destroyed (also the origin of Hawking radiation from black holes).

http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-07/31/nasa-validates-impossible-space-drive\

< Message edited by Cauldyth -- 8/1/2014 3:39:39 PM >

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RE: NASA confirms a propellant-less space drive? - 8/1/2014 3:05:20 PM

Werewolf13

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Very cool... Thanks for the link.

Mars in weeks instead of months and without carrying any kind of fuel.

Interesting times we live in, indeed.

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RE: NASA confirms a propellant-less space drive? - 8/1/2014 3:34:42 PM

DeadlyShoe

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quote:

Thrust was observed on both test articles, even though one of the test articles was designed with the expectation that it would not produce thrust. Specifically, one test article contained internal physical modifications that were designed to produce thrust, while the other did not (with the latter being referred to as the "null" test article)

this is the part that's really weird. even if the effect is legit, it doesn't seem like the guy who created the drive acually understands it.

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RE: NASA confirms a propellant-less space drive? - 8/1/2014 3:39:40 PM

lurchi

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quote:

ORIGINAL: DeadlyShoe

this is the part that's really weird. even if the effect is legit, it doesn't seem like the guy who created the drive acually understands it.

I don't care if absolutely nobody understands it as long as it works. Interstellar space travel could be possible with this and we might live to see it.

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RE: NASA confirms a propellant-less space drive? - 8/1/2014 4:56:31 PM

Cauldyth

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Yeah, if the operational lifespan of a craft is only limited by how many nuclear reactors you can cram on board, rather than how much mass you can store on board to fling out the back, that's a game changer. You could maintain constant acceleration/deceleration during the entire trip.

Let's hope it's legit!

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RE: NASA confirms a propellant-less space drive? - 8/1/2014 5:48:38 PM

Gregorovitch55

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Well,Shawyer's drive would appear to defy Conservation of Momentum. That would require extraordinary evidence to accept. Wikipaedia tells us:

"According to Costella, the angles of the force vectors are calculated incorrectly. You can use high school physics to find the correct angles and reach the conclusion that momentum is conserved and the drive can't work as postulated. He says that the rest of of the paper has theory that is correct, but which doesn't demonstrate anything about how the drive works."

"Shawyer has since published an updated theory paper (version 9.4) where the diagram criticized by Costella is simply omitted.[20] Yet it should be noted in this debate that Shawyer does not compute theoretical thrusts subtracting vectors off a diagram, but uses thrust equations whose derivation is done from Cullen's work[31] involving wavelengths, frequencies, group velocities, Q factors, relativistic law of addition of velocities, and so on. As a consequence, a valid refutation of Shawyer's theory would show where the maths are wrong."

"Dr. Costella avoided providing a scientific analysis of the equations and basically answered on his blog that he didn't have time to find a possible mathematical flaw in the papers and suggested a simple graduate student should do it,[57] ignoring the fact the papers were already published in three scientific journals, i.e. after validation from referees.

As Dr. Costella implied, Shawyer may have incorrectly identified the forces on the sides of the waveguide. If an error is present, it is most likely that the thrust is eliminated and the drive then cannot accelerate. Following this hypothesis, the Chinese team would have done the same basic error, and their positive experimental results correlated with their theoretical predictions would be another coincidence."

Hmmm. I would like to know why Costella, who is apparently am authority in this specific area, has not debunked Shawyer's calculations if as he says a graduate student could do it. I would also like to know how this drive could be expected to work if it's design is based on a flawed model, which Shawyer appears to accept as such since he has removed the offending diagrams from his paper.

I'm not going to get too exited until those points are resolved.

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RE: NASA confirms a propellant-less space drive? - 8/2/2014 9:01:37 AM

feygan

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Not too exited about this one as there are too many unresolved issues at hand. Once again we have a pretty cool set of results that do offer up avenues for more research and insight, however someone in the low level science media gets hold of it and suddenly blows it out of all proportion making wild claims they know nothing about.

To begin with while the only real figure given is 72g of thrust. But what size what the drive that did this and how much energy went into creating it? Also if this is a very small scale drive then we already know very strange things happen and small scales, this could simply be a byproduct of some of those phenomenon and thus impractical once scaled up.

Like others I reserve judgement until someone can demonstrate the technology move something table sized at a reasonable velocity and provide a full explanation of how it does what it does.

(in reply to Gregorovitch55)

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RE: NASA confirms a propellant-less space drive? - 8/4/2014 11:54:07 AM

Icemania

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Don't Get Too Excited

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RE: NASA confirms a propellant-less space drive? - 8/4/2014 12:42:09 PM

Cauldyth

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Oh well, guess it's back to hoping for the aliens to come take me away...

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RE: NASA confirms a propellant-less space drive? - 8/4/2014 1:52:29 PM

feygan

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Icemania

Don't Get Too Excited

I knew there was something fishy about the whole thing, even reporters don't normally do that useless a job of explaining facts. Now I realise they and it was because there were no facts to report.

On the far more important note though, never mind all the garbles about science facts etc. What about those two pieces of space art! Awesomeness itself, anyone happen to know the artist so I can hunt out more of their work?

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RE: NASA confirms a propellant-less space drive? - 8/4/2014 2:03:49 PM

Icemania

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They provide a link to the artist at the bottom of the first paragraph ... Cuba Lee.

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