Cannae/EmDrive

[Scotius]

He doesn't mean the paper, but rather the stipulation that scientists involved in the project may no longer share information about it outside of approved press releases.

Originally they started out with a perfectly open information policy, and scientists like Paul March provided what was almost a daily play-by-play reporting of what was going on in the lab. And then the press picked up on it and told the public that NASA was building a spaceship with a miracle warp drive. Considering that (contrary to what the press says) this isn't even an officially funded project, this caused so much confusion and so many problems for NASA, for Eagleworks and for the invovled people that at some point everyone was called into a room and issued a gag order. No more talking about EMdrive testing, period.

That Paul March is even saying anything at all right now can probably be attributed to the fact that the press stopped paying attention when they could no longer get any scoops on their imaginary warp drive. I get the impression from his posts that he wants to say more, but needs to stick to what's been cleared for release.

And in more recent post, Paul March actually inquired about the cost of sending a Cubesat into orbit. Coincidence?

[prophet_01]

Looks like he's now quite confident that there is more to it than an error. Of course it's not an open support or anything, but considering that this has still a lot of potential to hurt the reputation of anyone involved, it's more than I expected.

I kinda doubt that he asks those questions without any reason at all. While NASA is probably not rly interested in funding a test on a cube sat right now, I do wonder what the chances are that a private investor or an aerospace company steps in to fund such an experiment.

Edited November 3, 2015 by prophet_01

[PB666]

Looks like he's now quite confident that there is more to it than an error. Of course it's not an open support or anything, but considering that this has still a lot of potential to hurt the reputation of anyone involved, it's more than I expected.

I kinda doubt that he asks those questions without any reason at all. While NASA is probably not rly interested in funding a test on a cube sat right now, I do wonder what the chances are that a private investor or an aerospace company steps in to fund such an experiment.

Yes, but I have skepticism it will work as well in space as it does on earth. You guys have got it wrong, its not about spacing a new kind of drive, its about the experiment ........if it works well in space the there is flaw(s) in QFT. Most notably the statistical contraint that conserve momentum over superplanck lengths appears to have a tweekable hole in it. More importantly we have no idea how or why it works at a particular resonance wavelength.

If that is the case it could open the door to much more powerful equipment, including much more efficient power generation. This not simply a launch, as i thought, they need to orbit the device outside of earths magnetic field.

[Scotius]

The fact that despite numerous experiments, no one can say with any certainty what the source of the mysterious thrust is, indicates pretty clearly that physicists somehow missed a rather large "something". It's not some obscure interaction of particles in a large and expensive collider. It's a thing that can be built in a freaking garage - using parts from a microwave and a current from a wall socket.

[Frozen_Heart]

I still think that its something rational causing this and its not a reactionless drive. I still think it needs to be pursued as if we are getting such consistent unexplained results then we need to find out why whether or no something comes out of it. At the very least it will improve experimental technique.

[PB666]

Assuming that whatever is causing it will be explained by physics, known or unknown, rational is assumed.

[K^2]

Assuming that whatever is causing it will be explained by physics, known or unknown, rational is assumed.

Assuming reactionless is still irrational at this point. Even if it's completely new physics, which is unlikely enough, we still expect a reaction mass.

[Streetwind]

And in more recent post, Paul March actually inquired about the cost of sending a Cubesat into orbit. Coincidence?

Yeah, I already mentioned that here a few posts up from the one you qouted

Unfortunately he also made it clear that it's just his own curiosity. There's no budget for such a thing - neither for the cubesat itself, nor for a launch. The EMdrive project is still not an official NASA project and has no money assigned to it; it operates on 'discretionary funding'. Which his another word for "spare change that the Eagleworks lab management doesn't need for something else". It has held the research back in the past, since they need to run tests with substandard equipment. The first vacuum tests were performed with components that weren't even vacuum rated (and promptly died in the process, causing further delays) because they had no money to get anything else.

As much as I would love to see a cubesat going up ASAP, I think it's in the project's best interest to put what little money they have into continually improving the test rig and methodically checking off one possible source of error after another.

[vger]

The EMdrive project is still not an official NASA project and has no money assigned to it; it operates on 'discretionary funding'. Which his another word for "spare change that the Eagleworks lab management doesn't need for something else". It has held the research back in the past, since they need to run tests with substandard equipment. The first vacuum tests were performed with components that weren't even vacuum rated (and promptly died in the process, causing further delays) because they had no money to get anything else.

I'm guessing there's some kind of legal issue that would prevent any chance of Kickstarting such a project?

[Streetwind]

You'd have to ask someone who actually knows anything at all about US laws, unlike me

[magnemoe]

I'm guessing there's some kind of legal issue that would prevent any chance of Kickstarting such a project?

Only legal issue might be patented technology, however not sure that even applies as the satellite would be an prototype.

However the main reason why em-drive goes on an low budget is that it probably don't work.

Yes using more money would probably answer the work / don't work question faster.

[PB666]

Only legal issue might be patented technology, however not sure that even applies as the satellite would be an prototype.

However the main reason why em-drive goes on an low budget is that it probably don't work.

Yes using more money would probably answer the work / don't work question faster.

Again missing the point; if we use your logic the LHC never gets built. Its not about the propulsion system or whether it works or fails. The mission is about the physics, pretty much only about the physics. Just like the probe to hunt down quantum gravity. You really do't care if you have a packageless cubesat up there with infinite dV, what are you going to do with it, pick up space debris?

Earth

- large gravity well (subtle but means there are lots of things closeby to allow spooky momentum transfers)

- rather heafty magnetic field.......one of the problems takled in the blurp.

Space

- no mass for spooky local momentum transfers

- much lower magnetic field

Situation 1. Device produce the same amount of force as on earth ... . . . . uh, oh. Time to retire alot of physics professors and get a new crew.

Situation 2. Device doesn't produce the same amount of force . . . . . . . . pull those physics professors out of retirement, QFT needs a rather heafty dose of computer modeling. Those minor unknown connotations of quantum mechanics are not so minor.

Notice that nowhere above have i mentioned space travel or perpetual motion machines, that is for popular science magazines.

[Mazon Del]

I'm guessing there's some kind of legal issue that would prevent any chance of Kickstarting such a project?

While we could Kickstarter a non-Eagleworks affiliated project in this regard, federal law prohibits donations of money and services to such agencies/groups. There is apparently some sort of roundabout method in place to get donations to places that end up helping Eagleworks, but not in a direct sense of "I gave them $100 and they were able to buy a better magnetron as a result.".

[PB666]

Assuming reactionless is still irrational at this point. Even if it's completely new physics, which is unlikely enough, we still expect a reaction mass.

Which means that would be a first experiment. If you assume quantum local momentum transfers and you point the back-end of the drive into a relatively empty part of the universe (i.e. not toward our galactic core), and it still produces some significant fraction of the thrust precedence, then yes I would say irrational. If not then there are issues relating to quantum space.

There are two ways of looking at the problem, the one is from a physics rules POV in which this is irrational and from an empirical rules POV in which some aspect of physics is irrational.

Almost all physics you know of evolved from the second point of view (recalling that earth was once the center of the Universe).

Thus the word irrational is biasing and ultimately damages physics (it actually creates a straw-man argument), lets use the phrase empirical observations with weak but significant unexpained tensors.

I just want to put my two cents on the design.

The Cubesat should have four (eight if possible) steering engines and one main engine. The steering engines should be not be composed of miniature versions of the Cannae drive and they should be highly calibrated for dV performance. Aside from the typical stuff, the device needs a very good gyroscope and a very sensitive accelerometer.

I would recommend that its course be set to pass on the far side of the moon as far from earths-moon CoG as possible to avoid the earths magnetic field (something the moon basically lacks). In this orbit the engine should be tested on the moons night side so it needs a decent battery as well as a RTG, with smallish side mounted solar panels.

1. Test 1 should be to maintain course - Increasing energy to the drive in the smallest of increments, will it produce thrust along the drives axis, and if not how much thrust needs to be applied from the smaller devices to keep it strait. To do this the device needs a very precise set of minature thrusters, capable of producing uN of thrust themselves.

2. Test 2 does the course change or performance increase depending on its orientation toward any celestial body (For example if its discontinuous thrust axis intercepts earths surface).

3. Test 3 does a performance test assuming that #1 it produces thrust along its axis and 2nd avoiding any celestial interactions, does a continuous high thrust result in a rapid decline of performance, does the axis of thrust shift either with power or time, does energy ultilization migrate from thrust production to device heating over time.

end two-cents.

[vger]

Only legal issue might be patented technology, however not sure that even applies as the satellite would be an prototype.

However the main reason why em-drive goes on an low budget is that it probably don't work.

Yes using more money would probably answer the work / don't work question faster.

Well just because the public helps float the bill doesn't mean they're part owner of it. It's not the same thing as say, being a shareholder.

Maybe the only problem though is the rest of the science community would laugh at such a "by the seat of our pants" move. Still, I don't think they'd have much trouble crowd-sourcing for better experiments. IF it works, who wouldn't want to be able to say they helped fund a quantum leap in space travel?

[rtxoff]

Also patented tech only is a problem when you are selling stuff that is patented by someone else. You are perfectly fine to use patented tech in experiments, nobody can forbid that.

[K^2]

PB666, fair. But I'd be very skeptical about any long-range interactions as well. It's not the hell-freezing-over scenario like non-conservation of momentum would be, but I would still consider massive exhaust from the device to be far, far more likely. And hey, if this turns out to be just an ion drive using some leak/evaporation from the device, it'd still be pretty exciting. I just think detecting exhaust from that in a good vacuum chamber is going to be much easier than most other tests being suggested, and since it's still the most plausible scenario, I'd focus on looking for that.

Now, if they can't find exhaust, then we need to run it through a whole bunch of tests to gather more data on how it behaves with all sorts of variables.

I'm guessing there's some kind of legal issue that would prevent any chance of Kickstarting such a project?

Not to my knowledge. But there are Kickstarter TOS that would make it pretty much impossible. They require a working prototype of the final product. They've recently closed out a KS for a laser razor merely because their prototype had external laser source and a crappy fiber preventing it from operating at advertised efficiency. And that's for something that's absolutely rock-solid on paper.

EMDrive will hit all these problems and more. There are some crowd-funding sites with laxer rules, but even they'd be skeptical about EMDrive, and rightly so.

Personally, I have no problems with some research team trying to crowd-fund EMDrive research, but it needs to be super-transparent. Otherwise, we likely get the same problems you get with perpetual mobile type "research". And face it, whether EMDrive actually works or not, this is perfect ground for scam artists.

[PB666]

PB666, fair. But I'd be very skeptical about any long-range interactions as well. It's not the hell-freezing-over scenario like non-conservation of momentum would be, but I would still consider massive exhaust from the device to be far, far more likely. And hey, if this turns out to be just an ion drive using some leak/evaporation from the device, it'd still be pretty exciting. I just think detecting exhaust from that in a good vacuum chamber is going to be much easier than most other tests being suggested, and since it's still the most plausible scenario, I'd focus on looking for that.

Now, if they can't find exhaust, then we need to run it through a whole bunch of tests to gather more data on how it behaves with all sorts of variables.

Not to my knowledge. But there are Kickstarter TOS that would make it pretty much impossible. They require a working prototype of the final product. They've recently closed out a KS for a laser razor merely because their prototype had external laser source and a crappy fiber preventing it from operating at advertised efficiency. And that's for something that's absolutely rock-solid on paper.

EMDrive will hit all these problems and more. There are some crowd-funding sites with laxer rules, but even they'd be skeptical about EMDrive, and rightly so.

Personally, I have no problems with some research team trying to crowd-fund EMDrive research, but it needs to be super-transparent. Otherwise, we likely get the same problems you get with perpetual mobile type "research". And face it, whether EMDrive actually works or not, this is perfect ground for scam artists.

I seriously doubt they are long range interactions as well, my basic philosophy would be to disspell the impossibles first and work the plausible.

The electrostatic degassing i have seen when i used to prep carbon coated grids fror the EM nice green glowing gas. The problem is that degassing is polydirectional. That copper plate that lies perpindicular along the devices long axis does not look like it going to allow plasma to pass through it. It could be degassing on the external surface, easily detected with 100 uN of thrust in a darkened chamber.

The other possibilty is that it is drawing gas in and trapping at the other end and then slowly releasing it when power is shut off. Dubious. We have lots of dubious explanations.

[magnemoe]

Also patented tech only is a problem when you are selling stuff that is patented by someone else. You are perfectly fine to use patented tech in experiments, nobody can forbid that.

Thank, that was like I imagined, you are allowed to replicate patented tech for experiments.

One teacher of mine was involved in an student project replicating an integrated circuit amplifier with discreet parts.

They found that the patented amplifier would not work at all

Either they had messed up applying for patent or they had changed the patent design on purpose to avoid copying. Its hard to know someone steals your patent if its an chip in an larger system.

However they would not do this at school if it was illegal. I think it started then they used the amplifier in an calculation exercise and found the design issue.

[PB666]

This video seems to suggest that virtual particles can transfer energy over distances. I presume that he is talking about distances within plank's length, but what he is suggesting is exactly what the Cannae drive is observing but over a much smaller length scale, or maybe not. (Note I drafted this video into this topic, he does not mention Cannae).  Again transfers could be happening on the surface of the chamber or with air molecules in non-vacuum apparatus (but it should not work in a complete vacuum of space where distances are many magnitudes greater). An alternative is that the transfer of hv is happening on loose molecules on the surface that are accelerated to high velocities (such as copper ablation). He also suggests that there should be an upper limit, that as you increase power the direction of output would become more chaotic.

I think what is key here is that the excitation and wobble frequencies of molecules are discrete, including copper, so it should be possible to know if rf used matches that of copper or some other molecules.Therefore if we replace the surface metal on the cone of the chamber with one type that had a particular wobble frequency and then use copper on the plate, by shifting wavelength between two frequencies one should be able to kill or even reverse acceleration, if the metals are oblating at their surface. 

 

This does not get rid of the other problems that I mentioned, that this device would take tremendous amount of power relative to Newton produced and we still do not have an onboard power supply that is weight efficient enough to produce enough thrust to overcome the weight of that powersupply and its cooling elements (or 2-D layout as in the case of solar panels) that would render the acceleration cost effective.

 

 

[K^2]

I can totally buy momentum transfer at short, but not microscopic range, resulting in thrust from whatever ions are still floating in the chamber, something evaporated from the chamber, or perhaps even from the equipment used to measure the thrust.

What I don't buy is virtual particle transfer of momentum over long scale. And by that I mean anything beyond a few centimeters at the most.

If this is the principle of operation, it's still exciting, because it's really new. But useless in most operations that the EMDrive is being advertised for. If it happens to be a way to get thrust from surrounding ions, this could be a good system to keep small satellites, perhaps even cubes, in LEO orbit almost indefinitely. Which is something. But it wouldn't make it a practical deep-space drive, unless there is a way to convert it into a conventional, albeit potentially more efficient ion drive.

[Wjolcz]

So EmDrive may just be another type of ionocraft?

[insert_name]

2 hours ago, K^2 said:

I can totally buy momentum transfer at short, but not microscopic range, resulting in thrust from whatever ions are still floating in the chamber, something evaporated from the chamber, or perhaps even from the equipment used to measure the thrust.

What I don't buy is virtual particle transfer of momentum over long scale. And by that I mean anything beyond a few centimeters at the most.

If this is the principle of operation, it's still exciting, because it's really new. But useless in most operations that the EMDrive is being advertised for. If it happens to be a way to get thrust from surrounding ions, this could be a good system to keep small satellites, perhaps even cubes, in LEO orbit almost indefinitely. Which is something. But it wouldn't make it a practical deep-space drive, unless there is a way to convert it into a conventional, albeit potentially more efficient ion drive.

you realize most of the ions in the van allen belt come from deep space right? that kinda reminds me of a buzzard ramjet style propulsion system, using particles in space to provide thrust 

[PB666]

2 hours ago, K^2 said:

I can totally buy momentum transfer at short, but not microscopic range, resulting in thrust from whatever ions are still floating in the chamber, something evaporated from the chamber, or perhaps even from the equipment used to measure the thrust.

What I don't buy is virtual particle transfer of momentum over long scale. And by that I mean anything beyond a few centimeters at the most.

If this is the principle of operation, it's still exciting, because it's really new. But useless in most operations that the EMDrive is being advertised for. If it happens to be a way to get thrust from surrounding ions, this could be a good system to keep small satellites, perhaps even cubes, in LEO orbit almost indefinitely. Which is something. But it wouldn't make it a practical deep-space drive, unless there is a way to convert it into a conventional, albeit potentially more efficient ion drive.

Well if you can do this in the garage and your relays and rf generator can face any direction only the resonance chamber matters then we can effectively rule out 2 of these things. Their last report ruled out a bunch of possibilities. I would actually have to see what the clearances are in the vacuum chamber. I wish we would stop calling this an EMDrive, its not, in terms of its principle the rf is tossed into a resonance chambers in which electrons oscillate in confined areas, the output thrust is a magnitude higher than the EM and therefore there has to be a push off mass. A thrust in the micronewton range they literally could be pushing of a thread or some sensor.

Planks length is a factor that is rooted in space-time (rising the split between quantum gravity and relativistic gravity), as I understand it quantum distance can be less rooted, although I cannot imagine a circumstance at STP or ST vacuum in which that might be the case. Even a centimeter jump is well outside plank's length, which I suspect is just an average of distribution. Maybe these folks need to do a fall-off study to see how far the transfer has signal to noise.

I could imagine circumstances in which this quantum transfer distance is a skewed distribution of lengths with the lowest probability of transfer several times longer than planck's length (i believe is ~10^-8 meters). You could have a selection process within the drive which basically builds 'fairy' energy up until such a quantum transfer path becomes available, it then jumps and transfers momentum. That's all fine but the machine would have to be doing something very powerful or very clever, because twisting the distribution should take very high energy densities, and if those energy densities don't exist then the resonance has to be creating the brief (say planck's time) appearance of very high energy density.

The gedanken question here is when they talk about a singularity universe and infinite energy density, dissolution of space-time, that quantum space allows unlimited density, but of course was unstable and spread possibly as a consequence of acute distortion of quantum properties that spread into space-time. When the universe is the size of say a greatfruit is it still a singularity or is it transiting, and when does that singularity cease. Is it necessarily an assumption that energy itself created inflation or are energy and inflation a manifestation of some other process. If spatial distortions are the sole manifestation of energy, meaning nothing else can operate QFD to alter the fate of virtual particles, then nope its not going to be effective even at 0.01 mm, but if something else is there that can spatially distort the length, then.

In intelligent processing they deal with sort of phenomena all the time, the video was about information and information transfer. What if we think about the rf resonance thruster is an information processing unit instead of a thruster, something like a microprocessor. Decisions are made to transfer momentum we have a tetrahedrod and the transfers on oneside off each face can occur. The decission on three faces is to allow transfer lengths of say 1nM and a skewed distribution from 0 to 10 nM, on the back facing side opposed from the electron resonance tube the transfer lengths are from 0 nM to a meter but the distribution mean has only stretched to say 10000nm. In this skewed distribution a specific sort of energy builds up along one direction, sort of like electrons traveling across a chain of 4n+2 orbitals, that then perturbs a field, lets call it the quantum length determinant, which is most of the time randomly pointed in all directions and oscilates around its average value at any point in space. Theoretically a transfer could occur across that meter, just like the probability that a set of diodes and transisters when placed into a circuit could form a processor that could add two numbers. The electron resonance then begins a process of selection suppressing fields that appear that whose lengths are too short and favoring the longer ones, it could even undergo concatenations were virtual particles are handed to new pairs as they arrive carrying the energy to some target molecule. Once the energy arrives at the target the field determinants vanish. 

 

 

 

[K^2]

9 hours ago, insert_name said:

you realize most of the ions in the van allen belt come from deep space right? that kinda reminds me of a buzzard ramjet style propulsion system, using particles in space to provide thrust 

Take typical interplanetary ion densities. Take "engine" cross-section of 1m² orbiting the Sun. You can use solar wind speeds as reference for how much matter passes through your engine. Now boost all of that matter to 0.1c, which is well above the upper limit for EMDrive given Power/Thrust ratio. Look at the trust you get.

I'll save you a Google search. Solar Wind is 3amu/cm³ at 500m/s. Now you just have to do the math.

Edited March 10, 2016 by K^2