
NASA confirms yet again that the 'impossible' EMdrive thruster works - jsnathan
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/nasa-latest-tests-show-physics-230112770.html
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ChrisLomont
This is Harold White's research group, and they have claimed many times to
have validated the EM drive (and other fringe items). When I saw the headline
I suspected it was him again, and sure enough, it was.

Google around to find out all you need to about him and his work. And whenever
you see such a headline, look to see if it is his group again.

I'll let each of you learn about him on your own :)

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littletimmy
Care to point me to some info about him? I can't find anything on Google
that's that damning...

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ChrisLomont
Here's a not too old pop article on his group [1]. If you like (and can read
physics somewhat) look over his papers (which as far as I can tell never get
published in peer reviewed journals). They're borderline nonsense, the kind
that is hard to dispute since there is no content, just a lot of hand wavy
speculation with a few formulas copy pasted out of textbooks. Their
experiments are routinely debunked in physics forums by grad students. It's
crap all the way down.

Over the years seeing a lot of "interesting" stuff attributed to NASA, I
eventually noticed the common denominator was Harold White, and now whenever I
see a story like this, his name is the first one I look for. He's good at this
game, but apparently very sketchy at science.

[1] [http://www.wired.com/2015/05/nasa-warp-drive-yeah-still-
popp...](http://www.wired.com/2015/05/nasa-warp-drive-yeah-still-poppycock/)

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AnkhMorporkian
When this Emdrive stuff first hit the news, I was positive it was just another
crackpot idea or scam that wasn't being properly tested, in the vein of E-Cat
or the 100s of other examples of 'physics breaking' inventions you could find
with a cursory Google search.

However, the fact that so many labs, including Eagleworks, are building these
and detecting thrust from them is making it start to grab my interest. I'm
still extremely skeptical, but some of that skepticism is starting to give way
to genuine excitement for the 'what if?' factor.

~~~
jcchin41
"EagleWorks" is not a recognized lab of NASA. Despite the title, this
announcement comes from a (somewhat rogue) group of individuals, not the
agency.

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snowwrestler
It's a real lab that is recognized and funded by NASA.

> NASA/JSC is implementing an advanced propulsion physics laboratory,
> informally known as "Eagleworks", to pursue propulsion technologies
> necessary to enable human exploration of the solar system over the next 50
> years, and enabling interstellar spaceflight by the end of the century. This
> work directly supports the "Breakthrough Propulsion" objectives detailed in
> the NASA OCT TA02 In-space Propulsion Roadmap, and aligns with the #10 Top
> Technical Challenge identified in the report.

[http://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?R=20110023492](http://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?R=20110023492)

That is because "Breakthrough Propulsion" is included in the NASA Technology
Roadmaps:

[http://www.nasa.gov/offices/oct/home/roadmaps/index.html](http://www.nasa.gov/offices/oct/home/roadmaps/index.html)

> TA 2.3.7 Breakthrough Propulsion

> Breakthrough propulsion is an area of technology development that seeks to
> explore and develop a deeper understanding of the nature of space-time,
> gravitation, inertial frames, quantum vacuum, and other fundamental physical
> phenomena with the overall objective of developing advanced propulsion
> applications and systems that will revolutionize space exploration.

It's good to be skeptical of weird or unexpected results, but this is a real
area of study for NASA. It's not an investor scam or something like that. And
really, it makes sense. If NASA is not going to look far into the future of
space travel, who is? It's prudent to spend a bit of money chasing down crazy
ideas, just in case one pans out.

That said, this particular "announcement" is apparently just a forum post, and
I agree shouldn't be treated as an official NASA announcement.

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jcfrei
Behold the magically shrinking measurement error. They are down to what now?
100μN of inexplicable force?

~~~
yakult
There is also the possibility of a mistake due to some subtle detail in the
test methodology, which is also going down but remains the best explanation.

Nevertheless, at this point even discovering exotic mistakes in the tests are
worth the relatively small investment, in that they will help design future
experiments.

~~~
cjensen
Given that there is no theoretical basis for the device, and that the device's
supposed effect is trending towards zero as measurements are made more
accurate, it's long past time to throw this into the dustbin of history.

This never should have been taken seriously and it's a continuing
embarrassment to NASA. After the Martian Bacteria[1] and Arsenic Bacteria[2]
fiascos, NASA really needs to get its house in order.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allan_Hills_84001](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allan_Hills_84001)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GFAJ-1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GFAJ-1)

~~~
wai1234
I don't see NASA having anything to do with this. Neither Eagle or
"NASASpaceflight" have any affiliation with NASA.

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cjensen
The title of this thread literally has the word "NASA" in it! The article is
clear that the posting that provides the info for the article is a guy working
at Eagle/NASA.

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andygates
The non-NASA lab is under contract to do some experiments; the non-NASA forum
is entirely unafilliated.

This is not an agency endorsement. It's still not even a paper.

~~~
cjensen
You're right that it's not an agency endorsement; as I clearly stated and the
article clearly states, it is from someone "affiliated" with NASA, the denial
of which I was responding to.

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canjobear
The current title is misleading. NASA did not confirm this; a NASA engineer
posted it on some forum.

~~~
crystalmeph
Yup. Wake me up when they publish something peer reviewed. Every time one of
the team members discusses results on random web forums instead of in a peer-
reviewed paper, it moves the needle further toward crackpot.

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Geee
In other words, they haven't yet found out the mistake in their testing
procedures (or the real reason for the force).

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rgacote
About time to settle this issue one way or another by launching one of these
devices and pointing it towards the moon. Either flies or it doesn't.

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PeterWhittaker
I find the coverage of this drive simply bizarre. There is nothing impossible
about it, in principle.

We know E=mc^2 (mass and energy are equivalent).

We know that rockets move by ejecting mass at high speed in a direction
counter to the desired direction of movement. The rocket shifts forward an
equivalent amount (m1v1=m2v2).

We know that it is possible to focus EM radiation emissions.

So far so good.

The "magic" here (used in the sense of sufficiently advanced tech, of course),
is that the EM emission is entirely unidirectional.

So instead of throwing mass out the nozzle, we're throwing energy. And since
E=mc^2, we get the same effect: RmRv=E/c (rocket mass times rocket speed
equals Energy over c (since m2v2 = (E/c^2)c).

Very, very, very cool.

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kragen
But the energy _isn 't_ going out a nozzle. You're describing a lightsail or
photonic laser thruster, not the EM drive. If the EM drive works, it violates
linear conservation of momentum (and therefore, if relativity holds,
conservation of energy). This makes it very unlikely indeed that it works.

I hope the explanation isn't something terribly boring.

------
est
meanwhile in reddit

[https://www.reddit.com/r/EmDrive/comments/3r8jo0/next_big_fu...](https://www.reddit.com/r/EmDrive/comments/3r8jo0/next_big_future_nasa_eagleworks_has_tested_an/)

