Tex Posted August 2, 2014 Share Posted August 2, 2014 I was browsing my news feed on Facebook when a little article caught my eye. This new engine concept is powered entirely by electricity. That means that, given enough solar arrays, your supply of fuel is limited only by how much of the Sun you can capture with those panels.Here's a link to the news article on the engine.And here's one to the primary source.Now, the technology IS still in its infancy, and NASA testing was only able to deliver a fraction of the total power output a working engine would deliver, but it DOES still work. What do you think this means for the future of space/interstellar travel? Will it become a major source of propulsion? Do you think that the inventor's claims of "Proxima Centauri in 30 years" could be possible?Discuss! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ralathon Posted August 2, 2014 Share Posted August 2, 2014 There's at least 2 other threads about this exact same thing.Do not believe the media hype. They're misrepresenting what's happening here. NASA took one of those engines and it produced thrust. Then they intentionally disabled the engine and it STILL produced thrust. This suggests that whatever is causing the force, it isn't the momentum conservation breaking mechanism the engine is supposed to work on. The thrust is most likely caused by electrodynamic interactions or some kind of photon thruster effect. Do not jump the shark with this, it is extremely likely its just some experimental flaw like the faster than light neutrinos. The media just likes to hype these things up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vexx32 Posted August 2, 2014 Share Posted August 2, 2014 Yeah, there are already a few threads on this. As an example: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/89142-NASA-New-impossible-engine-works-could-change-space-travel-foreverAs such, closing this one as an unnecessary duplicate. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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