If this EM Drive actually does work, it would be a real game changer for space exploration.

I must admit to being a bit skeptical. I still remember when the "reality" of cold fusion production and its cheap, practically limitless energy made the front pages.

Joy,
Lynn

Wow, exciting! Although, how many Gs would that be and would the body be able to withstand that fast a speed? Lots more research to do before it becomes reality. I like the idea of space travel without need for fuel. Although, if it requires solar power, how far can you go without getting too far away from the sun?

You have some excellent questions, Virginia. I had just assumed that (because of the G's) this would only be able to be used for unmanned exploration. But if we could have something like this, combined with Mars Rover-type land vehicles (for solid planets) or ruggedized exploratory drones (for gaseous ones), imagine the level of details we could get about the planets.

Regarding going too far from the sun -- my understanding is that the vast majority of fuel now is spent getting out of earth's gravity well. Once a vehicle leaves there, Newton's laws, possibly combined with a small engine and a minor amount of fuel, should take the vehicle far.

Again, assuming that this isn't too good to be true.

Joy,
Lynn

The Mechanical Engineer in me just needs to point out that G's are only an issue during the acceleration part of the journey. Once speed has been reached you are just going fast not accelerating. Now the article did not go into any specifics, I mean it could be accelerating all the way to the Moon. Since we have never gone that fast before, what effects on the human body will the speed have? Of course the same was said when we went into orbit the first time, when we went to the Moon the first time because we humans had never traveled that fast before. All interesting questions. The most interesting would be the re-usability of the system. Today we dump a lot of equipment into the ocean just to get something into orbit. Wouldn't it be nice to put something like this on the end of a shuttle type ship and launch and retrieve the same package all intact? The cost of a shuttle type launch would drop dramatically.

Mike

From what I've read there are no worries about G forces from this engine. The key is there is (usable?) acceleration where theory says there shouldn't be any. The Dawn space probe could go from 0-60 MPH in four days, which is ridiculously slow acceleration. Because of that small acceleration though, it's the only probe to ever orbit two extra-terrestrial bodies.

The real health/safety issue with low grade propulsion isn't speed, it's lack of speed. For example, I read an analysis of the space elevator concept that said the radiation in the Van Allen belts is so high that unshielded passengers wouldn't survive the trip. The moon astronauts were only exposed for a short time because they were riding a much quicker Saturn V.

Mike, I agree. Even if it couldn't be used for launch, I could see orbiting space tugs to ferry payloads to various destinations. Even better, since it's a closed system physically they could run indefinitely on solar power. It would enable some really cool missions, too. Anything not too deep in a gravity well is fair game. How about a sample return from Saturn's rings?


(found the radiation article- https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn10520-space-elevators-first-floor-deadly-radiation/)

If it actually works we have a basic misunderstanding about some basic laws of physics. So what it means for spaceflight is minor compared to other things.

In terms of costs, low earth orbit is halfway to anywhere. So it might cut costs in half since it does not provide anywhere near enough thrust to get things to orbit. Maybe more as less needs to be launched later since we can move things around without bring fuel to orbit for later use.

Even low continuous acceleration such as 0.01g would get you to Mars ridiculously fast, e.g. a couple of weeks, and I suspect that they're basing their claims of having a space drive on some very tiny measured acceleration of that sort of magnitude. But to test these things properly you need to eliminate all sources of error, and that's VERY difficult when you're dealing with forces that small. In the case of the Dean Drive of the 1950s, for example, the upwards acceleration they thought they measured was caused by the accelerometer not being able to work properly with something vibrating up and down on top of it.

I'll be honest, I really don't believe in this drive. Every few years someone comes along with something that's supposed to rewrite the laws of physics, usually it turns out to be experimental error or fairly basic misunderstanding of what's going on. And the Telegraph should not be considered a reliable source for anything whatever; you'll notice that there is no direct quote from NASA, for example.