

Spacecraft Propulsion Device Invented by 19-year Old Student - DanielBMarkham
http://www.trueactivist.com/spacecraft-propulsion-device-invented-by-19-year-old-student/

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gus_massa
Nice story, but does this work? It was reported almost 2 yeas ago:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3993766](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3993766)
(7 points, 608 days ago, 1 comment). I repeat my comment:

> _The article is not very clear, and has no technical details, and has not a
> reference to a peer review journal article. So it is very difficult to know
> if this theoretical device really works._

> _I 'm not sure, but it even looks like a perpetual motion example. (But it
> could be a problem with the press report.)_

> _And the article says that is a variation of the "Differential sail", but
> the most clear reference in Wikipedia (
> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakthrough_Propulsion_Physics...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakthrough_Propulsion_Physics..).
> ) has many proposed devices that are very controversial and probably
> violates some physics laws._

This new article has no more information, I still can’t find a published
article (or a prototype).

After reading the past article and the article linked from digitaljournal (
[http://digitaljournal.com/article/325785](http://digitaljournal.com/article/325785)
), I think that the idea is that the device create photons using the dynamic
Casimiri effect and then release them as propulsion. So it doesn’t release
anything “material” like the combusted fuel in a normal rocket. The main
question is: Is this more efficient than pointing a laser backwards? As the
light of the laser goes backward the spacecraft is affected by a (small)
forward force. And nothing “material” is released. Obviously you need a power
source for the laser or for the proposed device. The problem is “only” the
efficiency (and size, weight, cost, durability, ...).

