NASA tests 'Impossible' engine

apparently my comment failed to post this morning.

the way the article is worded, it seems like it operates by putting tiny basketball players in a box and having them throw basketballs at the side of the box to make it move. however, I think it is likely to be more along the lines of moving a sheet of plywood on the floor by doing a "jump-kick" move. (you jump in the direction you want the plywood to move and then kick against your momentum when you land. the jump is not vigorous enough to overcome the friction between the plywood and the floor, but the kick is)

the next question is whether this is scalable or not

but they do have that child's toy/lab toy that features a free spinning wheel inside a vacuum bulb - white on one side and black on the other, which is spun by light. (I've totally forgotten the name of the toy) - but of course, that gets its power from outside the system of the toy.

yes.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crookes_radiometer

edit: this radiometer seems to more accurately indicate the force from light, itself: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nichols_radiometer

High altitude satellite, still just in the area where they may be some particles of atmosphere, I can see whats going on.
If you take an area of low density, but still present atmosphere and give it energy it will expand.
Providing thrust.

Is space that empty?...
If you consider that there may be particles of "Something" out there, very low density, but still something in gaseous form, or even frozen solid but capable of producing gaseous form, and give them energy, say for instance frozen Hydrogen particles, they will expand, and provide thrust.

Am I on the right track here?..
This isnt the act of making microwave particles and getting thrust off them, its the act of the microwave particles being microwave and heating whatever the get in a "Combustion" chamber...
Think the fabled "Ram drive" where it collects hydrogen particles from space and combusts them...
This is the idea that a frozen space cloud will be a hell of a lot bigger once it expands under heat, and the Microwave is used to provide the heat.

Of course, the above is a very simplified possible explanation, mainly because thats the only way I can possibly explain it, because my mind is having problems with the more complex bits...

Especially when it gets to the bits of Quantum physics of the following...

Which sort of alludes to the possibility of using "Dark matter", as in stuff we know may be there but we cant detect....

Judging by the comments below the article, I may be on to something, and may be on the right thought train....



I just about understand that lot, they know a certain dark matter exists and they can get it to react to microwaves... as a gas cloud, "Expand" even...and get thrust from that?...

After that, the comments became a flame war about NASA or Nasa...
I mean, who cares?.. we all know who it is, however its spelt, or capitalised.
Nasa "is" a word, its now a name, its the place in 'Merica that does big booms and rockets innit?...

Well, looks like we are moving a step closer to an EM drive.

The biggest criticism of the original experiments of the tech was that they were done in atmosphere. The air could have been provided the thrust mass. Well, NASA has dis-proven that by running the test again in a vacuum chamber. There was also question s about if heat involved could be responsible. This latest test also was outfited with lots of thermocouples and they are able to say that thrust produced was about 40 times what heat would have produced, even in a vacuum. So it looks like it will work in space.

NASA: Testing the EM Drive

So the next question is how will this perform when you start to scale it up.

It is interesting that their next big step is to install one of these on the ISS as a way to control it's altitude without having to do control burns on all the cargo runs.

I understand the ISS can get shaking pretty good on those altitude boost burns. Maybe a good way to keep from spilling the coffee.

Oh, wait. I forgot. Zero-G

Even deep space is not a 'pure' vacuum as there are hydrogen atoms floating around. This is the basis for the Bussard ramjet/scoop, best known from Star Trek but actually a theoretical type of drive system. This would collect these lonely hydrogen atoms as a space craft moves through deep space to use as fuel. While the density is very low to put it mildly, at a high enough speed you'd collect enough to keep the engines running.

Which would mean that a Star Trek type 'warp' drive with a ram-scoop at the front of a nacelle might actually be something we could make...or at least as soon as we develop practical fusion reactors which would be able to use the hydrogen as fuel. (With the added bonus that the by-product, helium, could be used for conventional thrusters or maybe even as a coolant.)

I don't think you could use helium for fission reactions, as it is usually a by-product of them.

In theory you could continue fusing helium to create other elements until you got to Hassium, which is radioactive. However I suspect that several of the intermediate elements would not lend themselves well for creation in a fusion reactor. Or at least cause major problems in regards the operation of a reactor to the point that it would be impractical as a way to have a hybrid reactor.