NASA successfully trials an EM drive, possibly Warp drive!

[pErvinalia]

NASA has trialled an engine that would take us to Mars in 10 weeks

And may have inadvertently created a warp drive in the process.
FIONA MACDONALD
1 MAY 2015

NASA scientists have reported that they've successfully tested an engine called the electromagnetic propulsion drive, or the EM Drive, in a vacuum that replicates space. The EM Drive experimental system could take humans to Mars in just 70 days without the need for rocket fuel, and it's no exaggeration to say that this could change everything.

But before we get too excited (who are we kidding, we're already freaking out), it's important to note that these results haven't been replicated or verified by peer review, so there's a chance there's been some kind of error. But so far, despite a thorough attempt to poke holes in the results, the engine seems to hold up.

......

So what does all this mean? If the results can be replicated and verified in a vacuum (something that Eaglework engineers plan to do in the coming months), it would change the way we travel in space, and open up access not only to planets in our own Solar System, but in the systems beyond.

For starters, our payloads would become a whole lot lighter without the need for rocket fuel. It would also speed things up incredibly.

Harold (Sonny) White, the leader of the research group at Eaglework, predicts that a crewed mission to Mars inside a 2 MegaWatt nuclear electric propulsion spacecraft, powered by an EM Drive with a thrust/power input of 0.4 Newton/kW, could get to Mars in a mind-boggling 70 days.

Even more impressively, the NASA researchers predict that a trip to Alpha Centauri, the closest star system to our Solar System, would take just 92 years.

But Shawyer has some applications closer to home in mind - primarily, he hopes that the engine could be used to send cheap solar-harvesting satellites into space, with the ability to beam the power back to Earth.

.....

So where does warp drive come into all of this? The NASA engineers also reported on the forums that they'd fired lasers into the EM Drive's resonance chamber and that some of the laser beams had travelled faster than the speed of light, at around 300,000 kilometres per second... suggesting that the EM Drive may have produced a warp bubble like the kind that allows travel faster than the speed of light in Star Trek.

In reality, a spacecraft travelling at warp speed doesn't actually move faster than the speed of light, but it creates a bubble that warps spacetime around it so it has less distance to travel. NASA has already created designs of what this kind of ship might look like (spoiler: awesome). The presence of this kind of warp bubble is something that the engineers at Eaglework are going to investigate with an interferometer.

Of course, all of this requires a lot of gaps to be filled before we can even verify that results like these are possible. But it seems that we're now in a position where the engine warrants further investigation.

"After consistent reports of thrust measurements from EM Drive experiments in the US, UK, and China - at thrust levels several thousand times in excess of a photon rocket, and now under hard vacuum conditions - the question of where the thrust is coming from deserves serious inquiry," the NASASpaceflight authors conclude.

We couldn't agree more.

http://www.sciencealert.com/nasa-has-tr ... n-10-weeks

[cronus]

It doesn't work. Aliens using a tractor beam from the edge of the solar system. You want to risk getting half way to mars on a impossible engine? Watch them turn the tractor beam off and let you drift for a while. A good long while.

[pErvinalia]

What in the fuck are you on about now??

[Tero]

It's a resonant cavity! Yey!! Whatever
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/EmDrive

Hang on to your particles. They may get sucked in if you stand too close.

[JimC]

...The NASA engineers also reported on the forums that they'd fired lasers into the EM Drive's resonance chamber and that some of the laser beams had travelled faster than the speed of light, at around 300,000 kilometres per second...

I call bullshit...

[cronus]

...The NASA engineers also reported on the forums that they'd fired lasers into the EM Drive's resonance chamber and that some of the laser beams had travelled faster than the speed of light, at around 300,000 kilometres per second...

I call bullshit...

I'll second that emotion, or go for time travel...breaking the speed limit like that, that did.

[JimC]

NASA engineers are just hyper jocks, anyway...

[Svartalf]

...The NASA engineers also reported on the forums that they'd fired lasers into the EM Drive's resonance chamber and that some of the laser beams had travelled faster than the speed of light, at around 300,000 kilometres per second...

I call bullshit...

Isn't the Cherenkov effect due to some photons going beyond the normal speed of light?

[JimC]

...The NASA engineers also reported on the forums that they'd fired lasers into the EM Drive's resonance chamber and that some of the laser beams had travelled faster than the speed of light, at around 300,000 kilometres per second...

I call bullshit...

Isn't the Cherenkov effect due to some photons going beyond the normal speed of light?

Yes, but not photons, matter particles such as electrons, entering a medium like water, where light speed is about two thirds of the speed in a vacuum.

The electrons, realising they are being illegal, immediately decelerate, releasing their excess energy as photons with a very characteristic frequency...

[cronus]

...The NASA engineers also reported on the forums that they'd fired lasers into the EM Drive's resonance chamber and that some of the laser beams had travelled faster than the speed of light, at around 300,000 kilometres per second...

I call bullshit...

Isn't the Cherenkov effect due to some photons going beyond the normal speed of light?

When Superman went that fast the planet went backwards and he only had his cape, no engine.

[Brian Peacock]

"Rocket Morton takes off into the wind. What do you run on Rocket Morton?"
"I run on beans. I run on laser beans. "

[Xamonas Chegwé]

"Rocket Morton takes off into the wind. What do you run on Rocket Morton?"
"I run on beans. I run on laser beans. "

Rockette Morton, surely?

[mistermack]

I'm wondering how momentum is conserved in this device.

If it doesn't use reaction mass, at first sight it looks like you are creating momentum out of nothing. A heck of a lot of it, in a space vehicle that can travel to Mars at blinding speeds.

[pErvinalia]

That has been one of the queries about this. Did you read the article? They discuss this.

[mistermack]

That has been one of the queries about this. Did you read the article? They discuss this.

Oh yeh, I was going by the quote.
They haven't explained it though. If you accelerate a heavy space craft to mind-blowing speeds, that's a hell of a lot of momentum in the direction of Mars.
They haven't said where the equal and opposite momentum is at all.

That is an embarrassingly bad omission which make it look like bollocks.
What kind of scientist would promote something like this without explaining how momentum is conserved?

It really looks like a con, but you have to keep an open mind I guess. But they shouldn't be getting government money as it stands.