NASA Successfully Tests The ‘Impossible’ Microwave Thruster
OLD NEWS NEEDS ATTENTION. Gently Moving into the Public Eye - a lot of catch up from the 1940s. (Remarkable, the news still almost as quiet, silent, hidden, as the 'Drive' potential - another reason for the silence could be NASA running behind British and Chinese researchers.)
The thruster works by harnessing the power of subatomic quantum particles that consistently pop in and out of existence. Researchers performed the test on a low-thrust torsion pendulum that could detect force at a single-digit MicroNewton (mN) level in a steel vacuum chamber. If replicated at a large-scale, the discovery could bring down the cost of maintaining satellites and interstellar travel.
NASA running behind British and Chinese researchers
The origins of this kind of propulsion system go back to a British scientist named Roger Shawyer, who developed EmDrive. Shawyer claimed that his EmDrive could generate thrust “by rocketing microwaves around in a chamber.” It doesn’t need any propellant because microwaves could easily be produced using solar power. Chinese scientists also developed their own version of the system in 2012.
This paper describes the eight-day August 2013 test campaign designed to investigate and demonstrate viability of using classical magnetoplasmadynamics to obtain a propulsive momentum transfer via the quantum vacuum virtual plasma. This paper will not address the physics of the quantum vacuum plasma thruster, but instead will describe the test integration, test operations, and the results obtained from the test campaign
Publication Date: Jul 28, 2014
Document ID: 20140006052 (Acquired Jun 03, 2014)
Subject Category: MECHANICAL ENGINEERING
Report/Patent Number: JSC-CN-30345
Document Type: Conference Paper
Meeting Information: AIAA/ASME/SAE/ASEE Joint Propulsion Conference;
50th; 28-30 Jul. 2014; Cleveland, OH; United States
Meeting Sponsor: American Inst. of Aeronautics and Astronautics; Washington, DC, US
American Society of Mechanical Engineers; Naperville, IL, US Society of Automotive Engineers, Inc.; Warrendale, PA, US American Society for Electrical Engineers; United States
Financial Sponsor: NASA Johnson Space Center; Houston, TX, United States
Description: 1p; In English
Publicly available; Unlimited Rights: No Copyright
NASA Terms: MAGNETOPLASMADYNAMICS; TORSION; PENDULUMS;
LOW THRUST; ANOMALIES; RADIO FREQUENCIES; THRUST
AUGMENTATION; CAVITY RESONATORS; VACUUM
CHAMBERS; VACUUM TESTS; PROPULSIVE EFFICIENCY;
LESSONS LEARNED; MOMENTUM TRANSFER; LOADS (FORCES)
NASA's Cannae drive was able to produce a thrust of less than one thousandth of the Chinese model.
What are the physics behind these devices? NASA’s explanation follows:
"Test results indicate that the RF 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."
However it appears that the Chinese quietly tested their own version of the EMDrive up to about 72 grams of thrust, enough to be a satellite thruster. The test was not widely reported in the West, possibly because few if any people believed it was possible. That seems to have changed thanks of the test of the Cannae Drive.
The Cannae Drive seems to have been developed independently of the EmDrive, though it seems to have a similar mechanism. The NASA test, which was presented at the 50th Joint Propulsion Conference in Cleveland, Ohio, showed that the Cannae drive was able to produce a thrust of less than one thousandth of the Chinese model. Nevertheless it constitutes a third test of a working propellant-less engine.
NASA tested an impossible space engine and it somehow worked
NASA has been testing new space travel technologies throughout its entire history, but the results of its latest experiment may be the most exciting yet — if they hold up. Earlier this week at a conference in Cleveland, Ohio, scientists with NASA's Eagleworks Laboratories in Houston, Texas, presented a paper indicating they had achieved a small amount of thrust from a container that had no traditional fuels
Integrate, make the connections: The Connected Universe
Integrate, make the connections: The Connected Universe
A good review of Atoms to Galaxies, and StarSteps in the links below, provide a cleaner, simplified view of spins and wobbles and propellentless mass propulsion possibilities.
- Field Propulsion - abandon the obsolete and inefficient concept of reaction propulsion and replace it with the concept of field propulsion, the Natural and Universal means of producing Kinetic Energy Differentials