Story. The short version is that NASA has been doing some independent testing of the so-called "EmDrive" thruster and it seems to actually work. Details are not fully disclosed yet, but a bunch of rocket scientists are apparently raising their eyebrows and saying "sonofabitch!" This might be for real, kids.
I got yer EM thruster hangin' right here.......! Anyway I read this earlier today, pretty interesting. But here is why this is (to me) important. All these folks who say "there might be life in the universe, but it can only be primitive" - or go the opposite way and say "if there is intelligent life, they could never leave their solar system, distances are too far" might have to step back and think. We have made incredible, exponential technological strides between discovering farming and today in a fraction of the time life in general has been on this planet. Assuming the laws of evolution and physics are uniform throughout the universe, then if other planets have had even a 10,000 year lead on us, who knows what they are capable of? So why do some people discard the idea of other life forms visiting our planet?
If this is real and if it scales, this could really open up manned spaceflight deep into the Solar System. If.
Likely stupid question: Why spend so much creating new chambers to test this in, and now new analytics to try and strip out the interference the new chamber can't get rid of in when we can just put one of the fuckers in space? Yeah, yeah, I know it's not cheap, but SpaceX took a block of cheese up b/c they were Monty Python fans. If you think we've got a possible super engine, PUT THE FUCKER UP THERE!
Several reasons, I think: 1. Building a test setup costs a lot, lot less than putting something in space. 2. Apart from the expense, the resources for putting things into space are better used for less speculative things. Better to send up a satellite that will work than a science project that might. 3. There's a lot more to turning this into a functioning spacecraft than just putting this thing in space. It and all of its associated technology (e.g., power supply) has to be engineered to work in space. 4. Until we have a better understanding of how this thing works, no one's going to take hugely expensive risks or attract publicity with it lest they wind up with egg on their face. (Remember the cold fusion debacle.)
A theory that might explain the thrust Abstract: Recent reports about propulsion without reaction mass have been met on one hand with enthusiasm and on the other hand with some doubts. Namely, closed metal cavities, when fueled with microwaves,have delivered thrust that could eventually maintain satellites on orbits using solar power. However, the measured thrust appears to be without any apparent exhaust. Thus the Law of Action-Reaction seems to have been violated. We consider the possibility that the exhaust is in a form that has so far escaped both experimental detection and theoretical attention. In the thruster’s cavity microwaves interfere with each other and invariably some photons will also end up co-propagating with opposite phases. At the destructive interference electromagnetic fields cancel. However, the photons themselves do not vanish for nothing but continue in propagation. These photon pairs without net electromagnetic field do not reflect back from the metal walls but escape from the resonator. By this action momentum is lost from the cavity which, according to the conservation of momentum, gives rise to an equal and opposite reaction. We examine theoretical corollaries and practical concerns that follow from the paired-photon conclusion.
Physics would work the same everywhere, hence the name universal laws. Earth is one incalcuable fraction of the rest of the universe but we only exist because the laws of physics are what they are. The earth is not unique in this aspect. We are one snapshot of how the universe operates. The universe may have a lot of things we haven't encountered yet or that we would even understand if we did encounter, but none of these things will break the laws of physics. As for evolution, that might (and must) vary depending on the environmental conditions that life must adapt to - but nothing can exist without evolving & morphing to some degree. Evolution is life.
I want there to be some breakthrough in space propulsion. I really do. But I sense all this activity around drive systems that run counter to understood physics are equal parts wishful thinking, bad science, and snake oil. If any of these schemes produced an effect that clearly stood out from likely experimental error, there would be a mad dash to develop and commercialize them. I think some people can make careers out of hyping the potential of technology that will never work. And I think they know it will never work, but they keep finding suckers to pay for further "research."
