'Impossible' rocket drive works and could get to Moon in four hours

Nagative matter is still more efficient, but this is a nice novelty.

a reply to: neoholographic

Neo, generally I'm rather "with you" on many scientific and technological things, but, this is an item / instance where I am 180 degrees out of phase...

EM, or electromagnetic drives don't work, and, if One were to actually check the scientific literature I doubt any thing could be found that actually supports such a device working as required.

There are many reasons that such a device can't work, but the simplest and most direct is that Electromagnetic radiation does not product thrust, at any power levels. This can be easily evidenced by the fact that there are no "flying microwave ovens" ever reported, to the best of my knowledge, save perhaps those thrown from a window or mounted in an aircraft.

This is a fun pipe dream, but, IF there were any properties like that, they would have been noticed on a very large scale back in the 50's or 60's. When the microprocessor was invented in the early 70's the two would have been married quickly and the result would have been flying everything, especially cars by the 80's. Today, off world trips to other planets would be common place, and almost everyone would have been off world at least once...

But, alas, EM doesn't create thrust.

Here is a link to the full interview from roger Shawyer. It also contains other Emdrive content.

www.envisionation.co.uk...

originally posted by: darkbake
a reply to: Nibbles

The G-Force depends on how fast the rocket accelerates, not its velocity. So if they take it slow and steady, it should be fine.

Not 100% correct you could be going at a constant speed but change direction and you will feel a g force, ever had the pleasure of being in a really fast car going into a tight bend.

originally posted by: Wide-Eyes
a reply to: Nibbles

Do you even get g-forces in a vacuum?

Yes. However, speed does not cause g-forces, but acceleration does.

The acceleration need to get up to 96,000 mph is what will cause g-forces. And as someone mentioned above, it would take about 1 hour or so to get up to that speed. It would also take an hour to slow down safely, because deceleration also causes g-forces.

But moving at a constant speed of 96,000 mph (or ANY constant speed in a straight line) would feel the same as not moving at all.

a reply to: network dude

You don't break the Law, ay?

Study the design of this engine. It does!

originally posted by: Nibbles
Oooer...

Hoping with 4 hours getting to the moon that the first vessels will not be manned???

Just a quick calculation here : If the average distance from the Earth to the moon is around 384,403 km (semi-major axis)

Then that means that the speed for travelling would be roughly 96,000 km per hour.... Thats a hell of a lot of G force?

a reply to: neoholographic

This is something I cannot clarify as I do not have links to or about but I have heard of such possibilities as inertia cancelling within a craft for humans to travel within. The ability to create an almost non g-force environment, as if you wasn't moving with the craft but the craft moves. Anti-gravity? Something along those lines. So if so, if possible then we could be taking any craft to high speeds without feeling a single motion.

Anyhow, I read other posters and possibly as they mentioned, are g-forces felt in certain areas of space.

originally posted by: wmd_2008
Not 100% correct you could be going at a constant speed but change direction and you will feel a g force, ever had the pleasure of being in a really fast car going into a tight bend.

You mean the force you feel when your car accelerates in a different direction relative to your initial direction?

Still acceleration.

a reply to: BlackProject

G-Forces are the result of acceleration and changes in direction in correlation with mass.

They use the "g" in "g-force" to say the force felt is similar to the force you feel of earth pulling you down. For instance, standing still on the earth you feel exactly one "g" of force, downward toward your feet.

The whole notion that g-forces are tied to gravity is due to the this misconception caused by using the earth's gravitational force as the baseline measurement of the force of acceleration.

Any change in direction or velocity is, technically, called acceleration. Even what we call deceleration is still acceleration.

a reply to: neoholographic

I was unable to find a Youtube video of such a device going up one foot. I think before someone tries to get several trillion feet away, maybe they should try going one foot up first, no?

when they demonstrate it, I'll believe it....until then, pipe dream

Apparently, yes, Eagleworks has now tested the device in a vacuum chamber. But the amount of thrust that anyone testing this technology has detected has been extremely low.

And astronauts don't float because they are traveling at escape velocity. They float because they are basically in a constant state of freefall.

Just reminder that the g-force is much weaker in space, depending on the distance from massive body. Earth has quite strong gravitational pull, while moon has much weaker. The satellites around Earth experience about 0.95 g's. The gravitational force between two masses is inversely proportional to square of their distances, like Newton said.

Cool. Love the idea and the possibilities of and the innovation that comes from space travel.

However, I'd me more interested in something that got me the 24 miles to work in under 2 hours, so maybe something like that can come of something like this.

a reply to: pfishy

Thrust is thrust, though. Heck, Ion drives are also incredibly low thrust, but in space, are incredibly efficient in terms of total Delta-V available to the craft.

a reply to: Thebel

The force of gravity is different for each object, and the further from an object you get the weaker it's gravitational pull on you is. You are quite correct.
But the G Force being discussed is the force experienced during acceleration. Which is measured in equivalent to the force of Earth's gravity at sea level. 1 G.

a reply to: ScientificRailgun

No, I fully agree. The current ion drives are many times stronger than early prototypes, as well.
I'm just pointing out that this test technology isn't currently capable of sending anything anywhere as it stands now.

Oh, and Hi, ScientificRailgun! How's kicks?

a reply to: pfishy

True enough, though if proven viable, this could be yet another propulsion method that could (in the future) potentially free us from traditional chemical rockets. After all, 90% of a current orbital insertion vehicle's mass is in chemical fuel and the support systems for it.

I'm all for finding alternative methods of propulsion!

a reply to: ScientificRailgun

Absolutely correct. I just posted what I did so people don't start clearing their schedules for trips to Mars quite yet.