News EM drive featured in sci-fi series "Salvation"

Urwumpe

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Science fiction is where it belongs.

Next year, you can buy one on Amazon for dispelling bad spirits in your house and restore Feng Shui....
 

Urwumpe

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What if it causes Autism?

You just need to buy this HQT-Drive thingie from Ali Express, which is said to cure Autism. Or use this special diet that our ancestors in the stone age used before they discovered the fire....
 

RGClark

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This article gives a skeptical review of the experiments testing the EM-drive:

SCIENCE —
NASA’s EM-drive still a WTF-thruster.
New paper generates more noise than experimental thrust.
CHRIS LEE - 11/22/2016, 5:17 PM
https://arstechnica.com/science/2016/11/nasas-em-drive-still-a-wtf-thruster/

The researchers measured 128 micronewtons at 60 watts in vacuum. The problem is this thrust is very small so its difficult to rule out experimental errors. It's about the weight of a grain of sand.

They would be better off to redo the experiment at much higher powers. This actually isn't that hard to do. For instance common household microwave ovens put out 1,000 watts. So using six of these to get 6,000 watts you should get, if it is a real effect, in the range of 12.8 milliNewtons, or 12.8/9.81 = 1.3 milliKilograms-force = 1.3 grams-force. Forces at this weight range, about the weight of a cubic centimeter of water, are commonly measured in university labs.

In fact, this could probably tested by amateurs or university students. You can find amateur experimenters who have posted on the net various (dangerous!) experiments with microwave generators, magnetrons, taken from out-of-use microwave ovens:

Crazy Ukrainians Experiment with Microwaves.
Lindsay Handmer at 10:01 AM Jul 30 2014
http://www.popsci.com.au/science/crazy-ukrainians-experiment-with-microwaves,390449

The hardest part would be doing the EM-drive experiment in a vacuum though. Experiments showing positive results that have been done in air can be discounted because air currents can be the cause of the results observed.

For instance, here's an amateur doing a test of the EM-drive in air showing positive results. Numerous commenters to the video observed the results are unreliable because of the effect of heated air generating rising air currents:


For an amateur though doing the experiment at high power in a vacuum chamber would be expensive because of the large size of the required vacuum chamber able to hold six 1,000 watt magnetrons. What might work is to use a waveguide to direct all the microwave energy to a small area that can be enclosed in a small vacuum chamber.


Bob Clark
 
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