Ellen Ochoa's Warp Drive Gizmo
Is NASA one step closer to warp drive?, CNET
“NASA, according to NASASpaceFlight.com, is quietly claiming to have successfully tested a revolutionary new means of space travel that could one day allow for such insane speed, and to have done it in a hard vacuum like that of outer space for the first time.”
Has NASA Accidentally Invented The Warp Drive?, Huffington Post
“NASA has been experimenting with a revolutionary new propulsion system called the EmDrive and after some preliminary analysis there’s some evidence that it is actually creating a warp field.”
Keith’s note: More claims about Ellen Ochoa’s warp drive gizmo at JSC that NASA refuses to talk about because they’re embarrassed and/or clueless.
– JSC’s Warp Drive: Fact or Fluff?, earlier post
– Clarifying NASA’s Warp Drive Program, earlier post
– JSC’s Strange Thruster Violates The Laws of Physics, earlier post
Non physicist, non engineer here (though I have had a few undergrad courses in this stuff)
I’m pretty sure there is some sort of non-obvious experimental design problem here. And if so, we’ll move on. But I’m glad someone is actually playing around with ideas even if very unlikely to work. A little experimentation on the edge of physics is OK, and I’m glad NASA does a little of this.
So, to NASA folks worried about PR. Stop fretting. It’s really not much money, it will give some interesting insights (at the very least about experiment design), and if you get lucky and actually find a space drive than needs no reaction mass….
PS. 500K views and a gazillion interactions + discussions on one really ugly Web forum for very obscure physics, engineering, electro-magnetic discussions is a GOOD THING.
I really appreciate this sentiment, and I completely agree that the best way to see unexpected things is to look where you don’t expect to see anything. One of the things I do for a living is schedule observations on a NASA planetary mission, and I try very hard to find time for things that might give a null result, but would be very exciting if it worked.
But I’m also living and working in a money-starved field. Many planetary scientists, myself included, have “soft money” positions. That means our employer only pays us if we bring in enough grant/contract funding to pay our salary plus institutional overhead. Typically, given NASA’s budget for research and analysis and selection rates below 25%, that means spending about a month each year writing proposals and justifying your funding.
With that in mind, I have real problems with NASA spending even a small amount ($25,000 would be my threshold) on something so poorly justified that it wouldn’t even make it past the first day of a week-long proposal review panel meeting.
I’m also a soft-money researcher always on the edge of unemployment. The under-investment in research is the heart of the problem.
$25,000 is lots of money to you, but is a rounding error of a rounding error of a rounding error for the F35 fighter, a trillion dollar weapons system that does not even work. That’s what I meant by saying that in the grand scheme of things, playing around with far-fetched reactionless drive ideas was harmless and maybe even useful.
It is a stupid cruel joke of a situation that makes something like $25,000 such a make or break number in basic research when routine cronyism and corruption burn many orders of magnitude more money all the time.
It is much more than $25,000. Salaries are also being paid. NASA refuses to respond to inquiries.
Sure, transparency is a good thing. Selective transparency is harmful however. Meaning- it is patently absurd to waste too much budget scrutiny on this little experiment, when for instance, the CIA spent $180 million just on consulting services for their torture program.
Even if this off-the-wall experiment cost $2 million, I know tax dollars get wasted far more harmfully at far larger scales than this little gizmo.
It’s pointless for us to fight over the table scraps. NASA needs more funds for in-house research in a wide spectrum of areas.
So ..it is OK to waste a little money but not a lot of money – right?
Depends on how you compute risk versus reward. A few (marginally few) theoretical physicists play with off-the-wall ideas on inertia (see this guy: http://physicsfromtheedge.b…. They deserve a little exploration.
Even if this experiment has huge design problems, it may inspire some new thinking in good ways just to illustrate all the reasons why it is wrong. So, a modest level of funding for this stuff does not seem like a waste to me.
I think things like this may be worth funding a bit, but no, not because “it may overturn our understanding of the laws of physics!!!” but rather because it might at best uncover a someday marginally useful fluke, but more likely might reveal a new way to not do things.
Finding novel ways to make hard-to-isolate flaws and errors and then learning how to isolate them, then how they occur and how to prevent them seems to me to be useful.
Or would be, if, of course, there was an agency doing it that knew how to preserve engineering lessons learned in long-ended projects.
NASA is eager – or at least willing – to talk to anyone about everything it does – except this project. Requests for comments go ignored.
NASA doesn’t want to comment because it is not their project to comment on and the physics behind the system is still not worked out so there is nothing to comment on. Once it is understood, there will be papers and more research done and NASA geeks will be more than happy to talk about it. (no one wants to end up like Fleischmann and Pons)
This is a NASA-funded project.
Which still doesn’t make it their project.
NASA funds this project – get it?
So what? That does not make it a NASA-run project.
Trust me, if NASA is providing the funding, they normally are very much interested in the results. And of publicizing all the great things NASA money is accomplishing. This is true to the point that non-NASA but NASA-funded researchers frequently complain about how often NASA headquarters for asks for reports, “science nuggets” and other information on what earth-shaking discoveries they’ve made in the last month. Since they are paying the bills, I don’t object. But if NASA’s paying the bills, and not interested in the results, that strikes me as odd.
NASA is paying the bills. People at NASA HQ find this whole project embarrassing.
So what’s your objective here – to learn more about the project, and inform the public? Or to embarrass NASA?
If it’s the former, perhaps you could try asking the folks doing the work, since asking those who are “paying the bills” hasn’t revealed much.
Being involved on both sides of NASA funded research, I can tell you that all the reports go to people that have no idea what they are looking at. All they want to know is that certain steps were taken and some results came out of it, basically that the money they gave the principal researcher is spent purposefully without much waste.
What is new here? Is this just a rehash of the experiment that Harold White’s lab did last year (I think it was last year), or is this allegedly the fruit of another experiment? I’ll believe this is doing what White claims when he publishes his work so that others can reproduce his experimental setup to see if they get the same results. Then I’ll keep waiting until other scientists have had a go or three at explaining whatever phenomenon is going on. There’s a lot of publicity for very little science. This seems to be dripping with woo.
“What is new here?”
They re-did the test in a vacuum. Same results.
Press releases do not science make.
agreed.
Could you provide a link to the actual procedure and results?
The story has been posted/mangled in everything from HuffPost and CNET to Gawker and a dozen other pseudo-news sites. There are three stories being conflated here: 1) the Alcubierre drive, a small and separate university level research, heavily reported last year 2) the Electromagnetic EM drive (this), and 3) a secondary effect involving laser refraction in EM tests leading to speculation on warping space. Its all spooky, interesting, as as I’ve said, heavily mangled by amateur journalism. Google ‘EM Drive’ for results.
There are few statements by the investigators as to the underlying theory. However the patent application clearly states “Mathematical analysis by the designers of the EmDrive indicates that the group velocity of the resonating microwaves may be higher at the wide end than the narrow end and that consequently there may be a net excess force exerted on the wide end.”
http://www.rexresearch.com/…
I could easily be wrong, but it appears to me the designers are confusing group velocity with phase velocity. This is a common error and is well described here: http://www.mathpages.com/ho…
If anyone (including the investigators) would care to show I am incorrect, please be my guest.
That doesn’t answer the question: where are the results for White’s “EM drive” experiments? In what journal were they published? That’s the point of this story.
Do I sound like I live on research grants? You have my observations and D. Woodward’s response links. Look it up.
Smoke and mirrors.
smoke, mirrors and hard vacuum.
Hey Keith, on a side note; did LaRC ever give details on the LENR stuff they were doing at that facility to you?
Only their initial response – otherwise nothing from crickets.
It is a bit telling that while NASA generally does a decent job publicizing many of its projects, this particular project is left to the wilds of the hyperbolic media. I’ve seen numerous web sites with headlines proclaiming a breakthrough in warp drives, yet what is actually being tested is a bit more complicated than that.
To my understanding, what was just recently tested was whether or not the EmDrive could successfully produce electromagnetic propulsion in a vacuum. Previous tests were not in a vacuum, and left open the possibility that the measured propulsion was due to heat convection. The whole warp drive concept is separate, though slightly related in that some researchers claim to have found evidence of a warp field during testing of the EmDrive.
At least, that’s my understanding after trying to parse all the usual hyperbole from media outlets.
NASA refuses to provide updates about this project even though they said that they would.
It’s almost certainly nonsense until someone independently replicates the results. I noticed Harold White (of NASA Warp Drive rumors notoriety) in there.
deleted.
Best I can figure (if real) it is sort of a unidirectional Casimir Effect, resulting in a net thrust.
I don’t think its a Casimir effect, more like an unbalanced electromagnetic radiation pressure caused by the difference in active areas of the resonant cavity.
Do you mean radiation inside or outside the cavity? I agree with William’s assessment above that a thermal effect could be responsible. The anomalous accelerations of the Pioneer spacecraft were ultimately found to be due to thermal recoil from asymmetric radiation of heat produced by the RTGs. The resonators appear to be heated asymmetrically, and they are dissipating a fair amount of power. The same sort of effect spins the vanes of a radiometer. Similarly the waveguide feeding into the resonance chamber appears to be asymmetrically oriented. Since there is a continuous feed into the resonator, there may be microwave leakage or asymmetric absorption which would result in a recoil force.
The dynamic Casimir effect is real, but it is not useful for propulsion as the resulting thrust is no greater than would be produced by simply radiating the same energy with a laser, or even a light bulb.
There is simply no way to dissipate this amount of power without generating spurious forces by normal physical effects. If a solid theoretical basis can be proposed, then adequate tests of the theory can be developed. At the moment I cannot find such a theoretical framework among the documents presented, but if it is there, please let me know.
Actually, it’s a case of the disappearing anomalous thrust. The vacuum test was done to show that the anomalous thrust was not from convective air currents. The thrust seen in air disappeared. Doesn’t that show there is nothing there?
They got the same result in vacuum as they did in air.
No. The “thrust” plots looked very different. They are both due to thermal effects. The “thrust” in a vacuum continued after the RF was turned off. Heat dissipates more slowly in a vacuum because there is no convective cooling. There is overwhelming evidence that an anomalous force has never been observed. And White’s warp field interferometer shows nothing new. There are too many slick powerpoint slides and no data to back any of it up.
Carl Sagan’s famous quote comes to mind: Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. NASA needs to put up or shut up about this thing.
I’m skeptical too, but the criticisms of the previous tests have now been addressed, so they do seem to be “putting up”. They’ve now tested it in a vacuum chamber and it was a successful test.
To me, this isn’t much different than the Wright Brothers building their own wind tunnel and running their own tests when Langley’s results weren’t working out in the “real world”. If other researchers think the results are wrong, they can build their own test apparatus and re-run the test in their own vacuum chambers.
If tests by other teams replicate the result, it would then be time to fly the thing in LEO. Tracking a spacecraft from the ground, while the thruster is firing, would prove if it works “in the real world”. If the hardware holds up, keep the test running. It’s not like it’s going to run out of fuel. 😉
“If tests by other teams replicate the result, it would then be time to fly the thing in LEO.” It would be time to better understand the physics behind the device. I don’t think it would ever be allowed to fly in space until its basic physical principles are well understood.
Thankfully, we are quickly moving past the time where you have to be “allowed” to do something in space.
That’s an interesting view. NASA, ESA and other space agencies frequently flies spacecraft to study basic physics which we do not currently understand. Sometimes even engineering issues are easier to resolve by flight test (e.g. on a CubeSat) than on the ground.
I’m not advocating this particular example, but I’m a firm believer in flight test versus the “don’t fly until you understand everything” school of thought.
I think a ground test could be better controlled. Since the thrust is small and considerable electric currents are involved, tt would be important to minimize magnetic forces.
NASA isn’t doing the experiments. These tests are being done by scientists using NASA equipment, but they are independent of NASA.
Nothing wrong with independent scientists using NASA equipment as long as proper procedures in finance and cost reimbursement. Just as companies use NASA wind tunnels to fly their experimental aero stuff (like following the N.A.C.A. mission).
These warp drive experiments can get “squishy” with pseudo science but many people wonder if the physics can be done. Costs of such experiments are dirt cheap compared to many other things, and if it results show warp drive cannot be done I think other things can be learned. Including if you have some wild idea, package your proposal in such a way you don’t get laughed out at first glance.
NASA funds this research. See my article from 2 years ago: http://spaceref.com/nasa-ha…
How much has NASA already spent on this project? How much does it intend to spend on this project? Where do the funds for Eagleworks and White’s advanced propulsion/warp drive research come from? JSC? HQ?
The scope and scale of this project is small and commensurate with a university effort. Most of the equipment was pulled from storage to minimize capital procurement. Total procurement to implement the warp field interferometer is ~$50k. The funding comes from JSC.
You can bet that there will be a NASA CM or TM written about this project, and you can bet that NASA employees are doing the work, after all it’s happening under White’s eye at Eagleworks. This isn’t an SBIR or summat. This is work being done by NASA scientists or engineers. Therefore, NASA should know what’s going on in that lab, and they should be answering questions about it.
I’d expect a statement from NASA when they’ve got a better idea of what’s going on. A statement of “anomalous thrust has been detected, but we have no idea why” isn’t particularly helpful, and we basically know that already.
It could be a security issue. If this new motor is as much of a potential game-changer as is touted, then The Powers That Be are probably debating what, if anything, to say to the wider world. Even confirming or denying the leaks may be considered a step too far. I expect NASA PAO to either not respond to press questions or say that they have ‘no information’ on the existence or not of the project and, should it exist, its current status.
A big clue will be Congress. If no-one queries this at the next hearing, then we can be fairly sure that they’ve had a closed-doors briefing.
Not very consistent with the main researchers chatting openly about it on a public NSF forum. Up to and including describing the design of the chambers and showing all the results of testing (and computer modelling.)
NASA is paying for this. We (and others) have asked NASA for official comment. Nothing has been provided.
Soooo? If their warp engine works why was it still in the test stand when they were done?
It only generates about 1 newton of thrust per kilowatt energy input. I undestand that this means it’s specific impulse is therefore ~200s.
yes, but that is using ZERO propellant mass
Which has to be a misunderstanding. Specific impulse is, by definition, a function of propellant mass. It’s thrust divided by the weight (yes, weight on the Earth’s surface, not mass) of fuel consumption. If it uses no fuel, the specific impulse ought to be infinite, not a truly underwhelming 200 seconds.
Right.
Also I thought heard it would use a lot energy, which also makes no sense.
It could waste a lot energy compared to thrust it got.
But that would be almost hopeful, as one might make it more efficient.
Anyways there simply not enough info about it and so it reeks of pseudo science and conspiracy theory nuttiness.
But btw, one can use solar sails and not use propellent- and solar sail also are not practical to get to Mars fast.
Though using solar sails might have various uses and it could be fun to sail in space. 🙂
Solar wind
speed: 430.4
km/sec
density: 6.5
protons/cm3
http://www.spaceweather.com/
So per cubic meter that is 6.5 million protons in the vacuum of space,
If traveling 30 km/sec and cross section of 1 square meter, that a path going through
30,000 times 6.5 million protons per second.
That will add up to some amount mass.
And 30 km/sec is a bit more than Earth orbital speed around the sun.
So Nuclear Orion, one of only practical “star ships” one can make would go up to about 1/10th the speed of light.
And Speed of Light is 299 792 458 m / s
Or about 299,792 km.sec. And a 1/10th being
about 29,979 km/sec. So going only 1000 times more protons will add more mass one has to move.
And then there is the time it takes to reach some velocity- 200 ISP is not the thrust or the acceleration one gets the spacecraft.
Or I would say even Ion rockets engines with high ISP [which the mass of rocket fuel is not significant aspect and probably has more thrust and less power needed] does not accelerate fast enough to shorten travel time to Mars- as compared to the thrust available from chemical rockets [which consume lots of rocket propellent mass].
What was the measured thrust? I understand it was measured with a torsion balance so a value much less than one newton appears likely.
Since they claim it works in a vacuum chamber, it’s time to fly the experiment in LEO. That ought to prove if it truly works or not.
The real issue is eliminating possible environmental factors.
In LEO it is still awash in Earth’s magnetic field… and, towards cislunar space, the Sun’s magnetic field.
Science, as a process, exists to test new concepts in the hope of disproving their basis in reality.
We can HOPE that there’s some obscure side-defect in normal (or quantum) physics but only through rigorous testing– and some math that works in a predictive way rather than descriptive way– will we discover truth.
There was a lot of bizarre results when people worked to replicate Pons & Fleischman but, beyond getting a lot of entertaining speculation going (and, IIRC, there are still anomalies that would be nice to explain, but that’s a long time since I last read anything about it) there were no concrete results. Some people coughed up descriptive math but nothing predictive that passed testing.
In some ways these little experiments are worth some investigation merely because there’s always the chance that physics.. or, more likely, quantum physics… has an ace (or, more likely, a joker) up its sleeve we can leverage.
Will this pan out?
Well, only the process of Science will give us a final answer, but, either way, some books will either get extra clarification or another book will be written.
No, the proper path to follow is to publish a paper; let other scientists evaluate the paper; and then have scientists attempt to either confirm or falsify the results by repeating White’s experiments by copying White’s setup.
I have no objection to NASA supporting unusual ideas, but I still don’t see enough information to draw a conclusion as to the credibility of the reports. The nasaspaceflight.com discussion has been ongoing for more than two years and runs hundreds of pages. There are a handful of comments from the investigators, however they relate to the experimental procedure rather than the theory. The vast majority of the comments in the forum discussion from people experienced in physics do not appear to support the statement of the investigators. There is a tendency to believe that any anomalous measurement indicates a new phenomenon. That is a misconception. Every physics experiment produces anomalous data. The anomalous force and velocity measurements the experimenters describe are very small and could easily stem from a variety of sources. There has to be a credible theoretical basis for any claim of a new phenomenon.
The investigators have issued or referenced a few reports discussing the theory. One of those reports, discussing how the tapered cone resonator would produce reactionless thrust, appears to confuse phase velocity with group velocity. This is a common source of reports of apparent superluminal speeds, as explained here: http://www.mathpages.com/ho…
Another statement by the experimenters references the dynamic Casimir effect. The Casimir effect is real and can produce force, however producing this force requires energy, and the force is less than would be produced by the simple emission of the same energy as photons, e.g. with a laser, which would be a simpler method of propulsion.
Its the microwave oven next door in their lunchroom 🙂
Except that cold fusion couldn’t be replicated. That’s was the whole problem. This has been replicated twice under varying conditions and continues to prove interesting.
I think it’s probably good of them to not say much. Something interesting could come out of this even if it’s found not to be what was hoped or expected. But I don’t want them to get everyone excited by a claim like this so they can all be let down later and then discrediting NASA in people’s minds (maybe it’s not technically NASA, but their name is on it whenever it’s talked about, kind of like the supposed arsenic-eating extremophiles from a while back). If something were to be put out, it should be very cautious, and I’d be happy with that.
*sigh* NASA isn’t doing the experiments. These tests are being done by scientists using NASA equipment, but they are independent of NASA.
Not lcs1956’s fault.
Yes, a lot of sources are misrepresenting what is actually going on. Which is part of the reason there’s so much misinformation spreading about this.
ANd NASA public Affairs refuses to clarify these misconceptions – despite being asked to do so.
It’s not really their job to do so – any more than they need to go to every moon landing hoaxer website and try to clear up all those misconceptions.
NASA has been funding this research for several years.
Funds, but isn’t doing them. Funding something and doing something are two different things.
Sure. But, by funding it, NASA is involved. Instead of asking if NASA should be doing fundamentally flawed research, I guess they should be asking if NASA should be funding fundamentally flawed research. (This assumes, of course, that the research in question is fundamentally flawed. That is a separate issue.) I don’t see a profound difference between what NASA should do and what NASA should pay others to do.
So then based on your example SLS/Orion isn’t a NASA project?
SLS / Orion are actually managed by NASA.
what do you think NASA’s job is? It’s research into esoteric technology and theory, going to space is a product of this research.
Allowing scientists access to their (often unique) test facilities is something that NASA has always done. Enabling this sort of R&D is something that is part of what NASA is supposed to do. This does not imply NASA sponsorship, endorsement, or ownership of the tests or their results.
I don’t know anything about the funding, but I’m sure someone does. However, I will note that NASA often trades use of its facilities / resources for a chance to look at the experimental data. You’d need to dig up the agreement for the use of the facilities (which should be a public record somewhere) to know the exact nature of the financial arrangements.
I’m not sure about this latest work, but past work on the subject has involved NASA civil servants working at JSC. Their salary is 100% NASA funded.
Except that it appears to work.
And what’s the best way to sort out whether it’s a trick or it actually works?
Hmm, I guess further study is in order.
I get really disheartened when I see some of the comments (often from those with a scientific background) decrying this as pseudo science and generally putting down those involved with doing any research into things that may seem at first glance to go against our current understanding of physics. This often seems to be a case of “I’m a scientist, if I don’t understand it it’s not proper science” I’m not saying that this research will lead to any game changing technology but if something seems to be occurring that could be potentially highly beneficial to spaceflight even If it’s not well understood how it works it deserves to be fully investigated and I for one would rather see Nasa backing something like this than pouring billions into pork barrel projects trying to rehash old technology into something new that end up cancelled a decade down the line. Nasa should be backing radical projects looking into the unknown, just as long they are open and honest about what these projects are. And in my opinion anything that can get the public talking about and inspired by space is a positive thing.
Look – the laws of physics are not something that you can toss to the side as an annoying impediment. Nor can you ignore the history of experiments seeking novel phenomena of low amplitude. Time and time again people fool themselves by ignoring subtle but conventional consequences of well-understood physics. The demise of FTL neutrinos and the “pioneer anomaly” are recent examples of this. Profound skepticism is entirely in order and called for. It demands rigor and rectitude from anyone who want to push beyond the frontier.
Sadly, the tone of your reply with the exasperated “Look-” at the beginning sums exactly what frustrates me, I am not for one minute saying the laws of physics should be tossed aside or that people should not be skeptical, as you point out there have been many times where extraordinary results have been claimed only for them later to be disproved, however that does not mean that anything that seems too good to be true should simply be dismissed with a smug “Oh that’s impossible, they are obviously practicing bad science” If you want dispute the claim in a logical and respectful manner but at the end of the day remember that in the grand scheme of things do we really truly know any more about the workings of the universe than the next man?
Were the laws of physics “tossed aside” when the Casimir Force was proposed THEN confirmed? This research just may have found a way to create a EM field that produces an asymmetric casimir force. NOT outside the realm of possibility. One of my first thoughts about this phenomenon was “Hmm I wonder if there might be examples of this type of effect in Nature that could be observed”. Have we explained pulsars or quasars, or plasma jets light years in length? That would be – “No”.
Is there a yet to be discovered physical phenomenon involved? Likely – YES. Is it this one? We dont know – YET.
The problem is that there are no papers to support the headlines that are being published about this. Make no mistake, there is someone that works for NASA that is getting the word about the project’s alleged results. That’s not how the science should be conducted. Science says that results need to be confirmed or falsified by other scientists. That can’t be done because nothing is known about White’s project.
I completely agree that results need to be confirmed or proved incorrect by other scientists, however i believe today we live in a very different world to the days when any scientific discoveries were held back while peer reviewed before finally being published in scholarly journals. People want to know here and now what is the latest possible discovery even if it turns out to be false, they don’t want to wait while a bunch of stuffy academics decide if every I has been dotted and every T been crossed, of course this can lead to sensationalist headlines but that is sadly a fact of life these days in all areas and in reality probably doesn’t do the harm that some people seem to think it does.
Actually, I think releasing preliminary results before follow-up study is done can do a great deal of harm – it can lead to a general mistrust of science, or the misconception that everything “scientific” is “just a theory” and that any whackadoodle’s “idea” is just as valid as Gravity or Relativity.
In fact, this is already a pretty bad problem. Pseudoscience and conspiracy theories have proliferated and flourished on the internet.
I believe that yes sometimes harm can be done in the way you say but it is also a double edged sword, if the public perceives science to be “stuffy and elitist” then public interest in and support for science will dwindle. In the google dominated world of today people want to know things now not six months or a year down the line and while sadly there are a lot of less than respectable outlets that undoubtedly just want to sensationalize everything, the science community in general should not ignore the fact we live in a media dominated world, they need to learn to deal with the media in a positive way and to get the facts out as accurately and quickly as possible rather than the very haphazard way that is sometimes the case.
Releasing preliminary and unconfirmed results is the very definition of haphazard.
hap·haz·ard
ˌhapˈhazərd
adjective
lacking any obvious principle of organization.
“the kitchen drawers contained a haphazard collection of silver souvenir spoons”
synonyms: random, unplanned, unsystematic, unmethodical, disorganized, disorderly, irregular, indiscriminate, chaotic, hit-and-miss, arbitrary, aimless, careless, casual, slapdash, slipshod.
And it’s the opposite of what science should be. Proper scientific work needs to get results confirmed and through the peer-review process, which is rarely “elitist” or “stuffy,” peer-review can often be vicious and the experience traumatic for researchers who have spent years on their work, just to have it ripped apart.
Releasing preliminary and unconfirmed results isn’t haphazard if you make it clear that what your are releasing is preliminary or unconfirmed data, the problems occur when this data is leaked out through unofficial channels where this is not made clear and then seized upon by the media which if far more likely to occur where there is no “official” release. As I said the scientific community needs to become far more media savvy and understand how to satisfy the public curiosity, long gone are the days when science was just for the scientists.
As for peer review I am quite sure it is rarely elitist or stuffy and I completely understand it’s importance however it’s not me that needs convincing, it’s the millions out there that look at google news every day, and in the end it is them through their votes that decide just how much of a priority science is.
NASA reviewed, funded and approved this project – a project done using NASA funded facilities. NASA continues to fund it.
This stuff is simply nonsense. Hand-waving at best, barking mad at worst, and a total waste of time and effort. I’d be del;ighted to be proved wrong, but I won’t be.
Could we have a few detailed technical facts about this other than all of this hand wave cheerleading propaganda? Isp, Propulsive thrust, fuel source and type of technology?
You will need to ask NASA and then be prepared for no answers.
ISP = some have calculated around 200 (I can’t confirm or deny that).
Thrust = approximately 50 microNewtons.
Fuel = electricity (100 Watts).
Type of technology = microwaves (possibly creating virtual particles which are pushing against the quantum vacuum somehow, which is unverified and not within the realm of currently accepted physics).
Even if this is real, I don’t understand why it is being referred to as a warp drive. I think the more likely ‘Trek’ comparison would be the Impulse Engines…
Well it is a bit confusing, because the EM drive may have produced a warping effect.
to make it simple – hey NASA, I have an idea, gimme some money, place and some equipment to work on it.
VS
Rockwell, we are NASA, we want you to finish designing this Shuttle gizmo and build some so we can use it.
do you see the difference now?
EmDrive is an outside project funded by NASA, but someone else is working on it and has the intellectual rights to it, NASA has the right to use it for free or refuse it and let the experimenter do what they wish with it..
Shuttle, Orion, and SLS are NASA projects, initiated by NASA, worked on by NASA employees.