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Greetings all. After MAAAAAAANY tutorials I'm starting a development thread! I've been out of 3D modeling for a while, and I've never been great at textures (GIMP tutorials are next on the list) but, I've got a new mesh in KSP now! I Started with something simple. I made a solar 'race' car mostly inspired by the number of projects done by various universities. There'd be a picture here but, I've apparently not posted enough to be able to do that yet. (Perhaps a mod can fix this?) I'm having a annoying simple issue with adding a solar panel module into the .cfg file. WHen it loads into the game it behaves like it's orbiting slightly, although i'm sitting on the ground. I've made a wheel or it, but i'm having issues understanding the parent part layout for it to load right. Pretty sure I've got something wrong or missing something in Blender/Unity. Onto future plans! As i have a slight obsession with centrifuges, I plan on making a fairly conventional one in the 3.25M size, and as discussed in another thread a expanding one with a internal centrifuge. EDIT* Alpha on Spacedock: http://spacedock.info/mod/764/SpaceMouse's very alpha parts pack

So I did some research, and basically an EM drive works by bouncing microwaves around in a resonating cavity and it magically produces thrust. From a physics perspective, this is mind-blowing. But from an engineering perspective, it's quite a simple machine. The ones that have been made are basically just a hollow truncated cone made of a conductive material like copper or silver, with a hole in the side with a magnetron from a microwave oven. Turn on the magnetron and the Kraken pushes it a little harder on one end than the other, producing thrust. The thrust measured has been minuscule, but there is a mention on the official website (scroll to the very bottom) that if the cavity is superconducting, it would produce a lot of thrust. So basically, in order to do this, you need the cavity in the right truncated cone shape, made of a superconductive material, cooled to superconducting temperatures while it's being blasted with microwaves originally intended specifically for heating things up. That takes a bit of effort. My idea would be to have the cavity made of a high-temperature superconductor like yttrium beryllium copper oxide, with another cavity surrounding it which is filled with liquid nitrogen which is continuously pumped through and refrigerated, as what is in there will quickly heat up from the magnetron's heat. In order to do this, I would basically have to make the cavity myself. I would do so using this method, but I'm not sure how i would manage to get a truncated cone out of that. Then I would have to make the outer shell out of something that retains heat and is airtight so that the nitrogen stays in and doesn't get heated up from outside. Then I would need a refrigeration system that would keep the nitrogen cold and thus keep the cavity cold. Also, I would need some liquid nitrogen. So all in all that's kind of a lot, but it would be doable if I had a few thousand dollars to spare. I don't expect to be doing it anytime soon, but I'd just like to know how feasible it is. The non-superconducting version would be easy, just get some sheet metal and gut an old microwave. But the superconducting version would be much harder to do, but possible if I had the materials readily available, and it would produce really definite thrust that can actually be used for something if it works. What do you think?

Would it be possible to make a electricity powered spacecraft/probe that consumes no fuel at all? Obviously launching it wouldn't count, but could electricity only thrust be produced in space in ksp? Thanks!

Seems an older thread was locked down after I offered to answer legitimate questions on EmDrives as I understand them. Not sure if this is a verboten topic here or wise-guys abuse the topic, but for those honestly interested in what I know about it, my design, build and testing of 2 engineering models, fire your questions here...unless the powers to be want the topic to be excluded.