Star Trek impulse drive has been developed

[MAKG1]

My feeling exactly.......

The originator of this concept needs to accurately demonstrate a functioning prototype with proven thrust.. Or it is vaporware......

I'll be satisfied with a repeatable experiment with a positive result significantly greater than the measurement uncertainty.

Science has to prove existence. Engineering is where the challenge of making it actually practical happens.

 

[ElPaso Pilot]

Why are you limiting your investigation to one article to 'prove' it's BS? Again, I guess you have a predetermined outcome, meaning you are not interested in science.

---
"Test results indicate that the RF [radio frequency] resonant cavity thruster design, which is unique as an electric propulsion device, is producing a force that is not attributable to any classical electromagnetic phenomenon and, therefore, is potentially demonstrating an interaction with the quantum vacuum virtual plasma," the NASA team wrote in their study, which they presented Wednesday (July 30) at the 50th Joint Propulsion Conference in Cleveland.

http://www.space.com/26713-impossible-space-engine-nasa-test.html

Yet later articles from your same sources dispute the results:

No Warp Drive Here: NASA Downplays 'Impossible' EM Drive Space Engine

NASA is downplaying the research and its potential to deliver a huge propulsion breakthrough in the near future.

"While conceptual research into novel propulsion methods by a team at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston has created headlines, this is a small effort that has not yet shown any tangible results," NASA officials told Space.com in a statement. "NASA is not working on 'warp drive' technology."

http://www.space.com/29363-impossible-em-drive-space-engine-nasa.html


We all want to believe. Some of us want to see peer reviewed, reproducable studies prior to the media hype that we see here.

Unfortunately, the excitement and noise is not coming from reputable sources.

 

[Henning]

This has nothing to do with "warp drive", that is a different concept entirely.

 

[bullwinkle]

Read the articles, they reference several peer reviewed papers presented, one by NASA.

I guess you really do know everything, no need to question anything you know.

 

[bullwinkle]

Yet later articles from your same sources dispute the results:


http://www.space.com/29363-impossible-em-drive-space-engine-nasa.html


We all want to believe. Some of us want to see peer reviewed, reproducable studies prior to the media hype that we see here.

Unfortunately, the excitement and noise is not coming from reputable sources.

The article said NASA was not working on warp drive, it was silent on the EM drive. The release was put out by NASA following several sources speculating the EM drive could lead to warp drive. NASA wanted to nip that talk in the bud.

 

[Henning]

The article said NASA was not working on warp drive, it was silent on the EM drive. The release was put out by NASA following several sources speculating the EM drive could lead to warp drive. NASA wanted to nip that talk in the bud.

EM Drive would more likely lead to teleportation than warp drive.

 

[N801BH]

Read the articles, they reference several peer reviewed papers presented, one by NASA.

I guess you really do know everything, no need to question anything you know.

Is that the same organization that sent the Hubble telescope into space with a defective mirror that was ground wrong... Of the same organization that sent the Mars lander with metric conversions instead of MPH calculations and it hit the surface of Mars at 500+ MPH ???..

Yeah.... I trust those guys 100%...

 

[MAKG1]

Is that the same organization that sent the Hubble telescope into space with a defective mirror that was ground wrong... Of the same organization that sent the Mars lander with metric conversions instead of MPH calculations and it hit the surface of Mars at 500+ MPH ???..

Yeah.... I trust those guys 100%...

NASA was not the cause of any of those.

NASA does not publish papers. NASA employees and contractors might, but they DO NOT speak for the agency when they do.

And the spacecraft problems were mistakes by contractors in both cases. NASA didn't find the mistakes, but they didn't make them either.

If you wan't to blame NASA for something, a launch decision on the Challenger over the objection of the contractor's engineers would be a good choice.

As for what these were responding to, I did read the article and found conference papers and a link to the NASA technical report server. None of those are refereed. You could put a paper that says Mr. Spock did it onto those servers.

The only people who think this is a big deal are various tabloids and those that take them much too seriously.

Some people really want to believe it's true. It would be quite interesting if it were. But there are a lot of untrue things that would be quite interesting. Like, say, all the travel modes in Harry Potter.

 

[N801BH]

NASA was not the cause of any of those.

NASA does not publish papers. NASA employees and contractors might, but they DO NOT speak for the agency when they do.

And the spacecraft problems were mistakes by contractors in both cases. NASA didn't find the mistakes, but they didn't make them either.

If you wan't to blame NASA for something, a launch decision on the Challenger over the objection of the contractor's engineers would be a good choice.

As for what these were responding to, I did read the article and found conference papers and a link to the NASA technical report server. None of those are refereed. You could put a paper that says Mr. Spock did it onto those servers.

The only people who think this is a big deal are various tabloids and those that take them much too seriously.

Some people really want to believe it's true. It would be quite interesting if it were. But there are a lot of untrue things that would be quite interesting. Like, say, all the travel modes in Harry Potter.

Interesting.... NASA was not involved in the Hubble program

And was not involved in the Mars lander program....

And didn't write checks to those " subcontractors" who clearly FAILED in their contract......

Can you say QUALITY CONTROL...

 

[bullwinkle]

I state clearly I don't know if it's true, but there are experimental results supporting it that need validation. You say it is simply not true.

That is the difference between science and orthodoxy right there.

 

[MAKG1]

Read the articles, they reference several peer reviewed papers presented, one by NASA.

I guess you really do know everything, no need to question anything you know.

Did you read those articles yourself?

Here's a quote from the NASA technical report:

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).

Since you're a true believer, let me summarize for you exactly what that means.

Their experimental results were not distinguishable from a control.

It's a null result. Their entire signal is attributable to a systematic. It is not real.

What that paper actually says, rather than what the BS tabloid representation of them say it says, is that they couldn't explain how they F'd up, but they know they F'd up.

 

[docmirror]

Is that the same organization that sent the Hubble telescope into space with a defective mirror that was ground wrong... Of the same organization that sent the Mars lander with metric conversions instead of MPH calculations and it hit the surface of Mars at 500+ MPH ???..

Yeah.... I trust those guys 100%...

Perkin-Elmer ground the mirror, and had final say on the aperture calibration for testing. They failed, big time. I was working part time for Jacobs Eng during the time, and we were all having a good laugh at PE - not NASA. Those in the know realized that the vendor screwed up, but the media blamed it on NASA. NASA is not in the business of grinding mirrors for astronomy, they are rockets, and spacecraft.

LockMart and another vendor were responsible for the incorrect SI units conversion. This one, NASA prolly should have caught, but didn't, but they weren't the originator.

Generally speaking, blaming the QC inspector for faulty work, particularly when it was a vendor issues isn't really the way engineering works. In the case of the Mars lander however, NASA was notified of a trajectory discrepancy prior to the catastrophic failure and they didn't find the flaw between the two vendors. Sort of 20-20 hindsight and a keen grasp of the obvious(once it failed).

 

[ElPaso Pilot]

Did you read those articles yourself?

Here's a quote from the NASA technical report:



Since you're a true believer, let me summarize for you exactly what that means.

Their experimental results were not distinguishable from a control.

It's a null result. Their entire signal is attributable to a systematic. It is not real.

What that paper actually says, rather than what the BS tabloid representation of them say it says, is that they couldn't explain how they F'd up, but they know they F'd up.

Bullwinkle, the engineering and scientific community would rejoice if this were real, and the possibilities that it would open up.

Don't you think NASA (and the other private space flight ventures) would love to use their existing budgets to dramatically increase the number and quality of missions they could pull off???

This was not reviewed or published through normal channels. It shows up on science chat forums and low hurdle alternate journals, and was leaked to low quality news sites. There is almost always a reason for that. If the real science guys thought this had half a chance, they'd be opening their pockets to fund verification builds.

As it stands, these are being constructed in basements and poorly funded side labs. It has the appearance of another yet leap of faith driven by improper and/or not fully vetted test conditions -- yet probably not maliciously.

However, most real scientists try not to risk their careers publishing until they've really got the theory and data nailed.

And by the way, I really, really want to believe...

 

[docmirror]

Well, this wasn't ever my field, I mostly worked on nuke stuff, but I can follow along ok. When it comes to rocketry, and physics, I generally rely on what the Russians are doing. In this case - they aren't doing squat about it.

An EM type of drive, or really any kind or non-reaction drive method would be the holy grail of interplanetary rocketry, and the Russians would be all over it. So would Musk, and LockMart, and a few other big players. Since they aren't really making any commentary about it, we could possibly deduce they are working feverishly in secret on the EM project, or they are ignoring it like cold fusion. Right now, I vote the latter.

Maybe it's not fair that the small inventor isn't taken seriously, and that they are the source of some great engineering is prolly true in some cases. However - big breakthroughs like usable nuclear fission, and the usable computing system come from big players like the feds, or IBM, or Rand, etc.

One more thing, of all the four forces the EM force is the one that is most widely understood, and used in engineering. Sure - there's plenty we don't know about it, but the EM force is kind of a well-trod path, and paradigm shifts in EM engineering of this magnitude are exceedingly rare. So, much as I hope they found a fault in the law of conservation, I'm not holding my breath.

 

[N801BH]

Perkin-Elmer ground the mirror, and had final say on the aperture calibration for testing. They failed, big time. I was working part time for Jacobs Eng during the time, and we were all having a good laugh at PE - not NASA. Those in the know realized that the vendor screwed up, but the media blamed it on NASA. NASA is not in the business of grinding mirrors for astronomy, they are rockets, and spacecraft.

LockMart and another vendor were responsible for the incorrect SI units conversion. This one, NASA prolly should have caught, but didn't, but they weren't the originator.

Generally speaking, blaming the QC inspector for faulty work, particularly when it was a vendor issues isn't really the way engineering works. In the case of the Mars lander however, NASA was notified of a trajectory discrepancy prior to the catastrophic failure and they didn't find the flaw between the two vendors. Sort of 20-20 hindsight and a keen grasp of the obvious(once it failed).

I view the project relationship a bit different... Take Hubble for instance..

NASA took tax payer money and invested it into a space program... Hired the subs and ran the entire program... From picking subs to launching it, all the way to mission completion ....

They post pics that are outstanding and take FULL credit for those pictures.... If you are going to bask in the glory, you need to admit and take responsibility for the failures.. It is a package deal in my eyes..

I compare it to a construction job...

I am a General Contractor.

I sign a contract to build a structure.

I oversee ALL aspects of that structure, From soil samples, to excavation, to foundation pours, to rough framing, electrical, plumbing, insulation,interior work, sheetrock work, roofing work, painting,... the ENTIRE job I oversee and confirm it is all done to specs....

As the General contractor , it is MY responsibility to make the deal perfect for the owner and the person who paid for the project....

To say NASA was not responsible for improperly ground mirror is incorrect.. You can bet they had NASA employees in that optic plant to oversee its construction.. If they were incompetent , then NASA is at fault... I agree the sub clearly screwed the pooch,,,, BUT, that taxpayers got hosed on the quality... And you can bet PE did not pay the full cost of the additional launch and repair mission, which I think was in the 800 MILLION dollar range...

Bottom line... the Customer ( TAXPAYER) got screwed...

 

[Henning]

Quite a number.

Dark energy would be one close to your heart.

It came out of a paper written by Einstein in 1917, to make a stationary universe possible (and it was wrong). By the 70s, it was realized that it looked a lot like vacuum energy, though there was no evidence at the time it actually existed. It was detected in the 90s by the Supernova Cosmology Project, who had been looking for it for several years.

The top quark and Higgs boson were also the end result of long searches.

Universal gravitation was probably not serendipitous, though Newton claimed it was many decades after it happened. There are no accounts of the apple falling on his head contemporaneous with the Principia, and the chain of reasoning in the Principia is pretty straightforward.

Relativity came in a rather straightforward manner from taking the Michelson-Morley experiment (already almost 20 years old at the time) literally.

Serendipitous discovery happens, but it's not the only way discovery happens. Not by a longshot.

BS "discoveries" that supposedly happen and then turn out to be totally and completely wrong happen on a very regular basis.

Dark Energy has yet to be discovered, it is mathematically inferred. What it is, where it comes from, and exactly how it works; the rules of physics that govern it, are yet to be discovered.

The Higg's is proving not to be what was projected.

 

[azure]

What great discoveries have not been serendipitous?

Oh, let's see... the Higgs for one, to name a recent example. Nuclear fission was predicted theoretically before it was demonstrated. Both special and general relativity were the result of pursuing "pet" ideas, Einstein didn't stumble on them. Continental drift was proposed long before the serendipitous discovery of seafloor magnetic striping that brought it into the mainstream. The greenhouse effect - predicted theoretically as long ago as the early 1800s. Humphrey Davy's idea for the incandescent light bulb also appears to have been a deliberate endeavor. Darwin's theory of evolution.

Sure, lots of great discoveries were based on serendipitous observations. Superconductivity... antibiotics... the transistor. The photoelectric effect. Many more. But not all important discoveries, far from it.

 

[Henning]

Oh, let's see... the Higgs for one, to name a recent example. Nuclear fission was predicted theoretically before it was demonstrated. Both special and general relativity were the result of pursuing "pet" ideas, Einstein didn't stumble on them. Continental drift was proposed long before the serendipitous discovery of seafloor magnetic striping that brought it into the mainstream. The greenhouse effect - predicted theoretically as long ago as the early 1800s. Humphrey Davy's idea for the incandescent light bulb also appears to have been a deliberate endeavor. Darwin's theory of evolution.

Sure, lots of great discoveries were based on serendipitous observations. Superconductivity... antibiotics... the transistor. The photoelectric effect. Many more. But not all important discoveries, far from it.

The Higg's is not as predicted though, what we find from the truth of the Higg's will be serendipitous.

 

[docmirror]

I view the project relationship a bit different... Take Hubble for instance..

NASA took tax payer money and invested it into a space program... Hired the subs and ran the entire program... From picking subs to launching it, all the way to mission completion ....

They post pics that are outstanding and take FULL credit for those pictures.... If you are going to bask in the glory, you need to admit and take responsibility for the failures.. It is a package deal in my eyes..

I compare it to a construction job...

I am a General Contractor.

I sign a contract to build a structure.

I oversee ALL aspects of that structure, From soil samples, to excavation, to foundation pours, to rough framing, electrical, plumbing, insulation,interior work, sheetrock work, roofing work, painting,... the ENTIRE job I oversee and confirm it is all done to specs....

As the General contractor , it is MY responsibility to make the deal perfect for the owner and the person who paid for the project....

To say NASA was not responsible for improperly ground mirror is incorrect.. You can bet they had NASA employees in that optic plant to oversee its construction.. If they were incompetent , then NASA is at fault... I agree the sub clearly screwed the pooch,,,, BUT, that taxpayers got hosed on the quality... And you can bet PE did not pay the full cost of the additional launch and repair mission, which I think was in the 800 MILLION dollar range...

Bottom line... the Customer ( TAXPAYER) got screwed...

ok...

 

[azure]

The Higg's is not as predicted though

(a) it's Higgs, not Higg's - named for Peter Higgs
(b) Not sure what you mean exactly, since it's a theoretical prediction of several different theories.

what we find from the truth of the Higg's will be serendipitous.

We don't yet know what we will find from it, but even if that's true, so what?

 

[Datadriver]

this whole concept is fraud

 

[MAKG1]

this whole concept is fraud

That's possible, but it looks a lot more like foolishness to me.

 

[Palmpilot]

True, but you have to have a feel for where the frontier is. I would put money on it not being in an asymmetrically-shaped microwave resonant cavity. This thing is no closer to the limits of known physics than Pons and Fleischmann's electrolysis apparatus.

If it's producing thrust, it's much likelier via a known mechanism that people don't realize yet is operating. Escaping gases, convection from the heat generated, even radiation reaction. All well-understood in terms of classical physics.

And when you're dealing with micro Newtons, I would bet that eliminating the possibility of artifacts is not an easy task.

 

[ElPaso Pilot]

And when you're dealing with micro Newtons, I would bet that eliminating the possibility of artifacts is not an easy task.

Yes, that too. There are 4.4 million micro newtons in one pound-force.

 

[Jim Logajan]

Yes, that too. There are 4.4 million micro newtons in one pound-force.

Must take forever to count them!

 

[Bob Noel]

And just to put it into perspective, how many micro newtons are there in someone exhaling?

 

[azure]

Must take forever to count them!

Nah, they're sold by weight.

 

[N801BH]

Nah, they're sold by weight.

And.....
Disclaimer " some settling my happen"

 

[asechrest]

A few days ago, a pair of German scientists published a paper in which they claim to substantiate the EmDrive’s performance. The scientists claim to have measured thrusts of roughly 20 micro-Newtons, which is in line with what NASA measured last year. There are significant problems with this analysis, however. Eric W. Davis, a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Austin said to io9: “I noted in [the study’s] conclusion paragraphs that [Tajmar’s] apparatus was producing hundreds of micro-Newtons of thrust when it got very hot, and that his measuring instrumentation is not very accurate when the apparatus becomes hot,” Davis told io9. “He also stated that he was still recording thrust signals even after the electrical power was turned off, which is a huge key clue that his thrust measurements are all systematic artifact false positive thrust signals.”

http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/...ve-remains-long-on-speculation-short-on-proof

[Edit]The counter to that.