NASA Paper Claims EM Drive Works. Newslink

[Sage_Rat]

@Chimera

But some reporters have been mixing them up and calling this one a “warp drive”.

No such thing as editors anymore

No, that’s the Alcubierre drive, which is an actual NASA project, though I think not one that they expect to really pay off.

[Darren_Garrison]

I had several threads to choose from to bump for this article not supporting the EmDrive.

[buddha_david]

Goddamn Newtonian Physics. :mad:

[Musicat]

@Chronos

…
Personally, my gut instinct is that it’s interacting in some way with the magnetic field of the Earth (in which case, it might even still work in orbit, though not in interplanetary space). But I’m not an experimentalist, and I haven’t studied this in any sort of real detail, so don’t give too much credence to my gut.

(bolding mine)

@Darren_Garrison

I had several threads to choose from to bump for this article not supporting the EmDrive.

Looks like Chronos’ guts were on the right track:

The German team picked something up as well. But follow-up analysis “clearly indicates that the ‘thrust’ is not coming from the EmDrive but from some electromagnetic interaction,” the researchers wrote in their new study, which you can read here. That interaction is likely between EmDrive power cables and Earth’s magnetic field, the team concluded.

[kanicbird]

@Sage_Rat

No, that’s the Alcubierre drive, which is an actual NASA project, though I think not one that they expect to really pay off.

I do recall some earlier reports of the EM drive say it might be creating a warp bubble.

[carnivorousplant]

@buddha_david

Goddamn Newtonian Physics. :mad:

G-d does not play dice. :dubious:

[kaylasdad99]

How about a nice round of cribbage?

[Urbanredneck]

Even if it did work, how would you steer the space ship? Do you have a directed thrust or would some sort of rockets have to push it in the right direction?

Also once it got to where you want to go, how would you stop it?

Finally you would still need a system for getting down to the planets surface and then returning.

[k9bfriender]

@Urbanredneck

Even if it did work, how would you steer the space ship? Do you have a directed thrust or would some sort of rockets have to push it in the right direction?

Also once it got to where you want to go, how would you stop it?

Finally you would still need a system for getting down to the planets surface and then returning.

It doesn’t (almost certainly) work, but your concerns are not hard to address.

If it did work… You would steer by pointing it opposite the direction you want to accelerate, just like any other form of propulsion. Same as stopping, you would just reverse.

As far as planet’s surface, that’s not what it is made for. Just like an ion drive or other high impulse, low thrust device, it would be for getting around in space, not for landing or taking off from a large planet. (Though a dwarf planet like ceres may be barely in the range of thrust it would be able to escape from.)