Week 11 [09.01-15.01] EmDrive – new “impossible” spaceship engine

EmDrive – new “impossible” spaceship engine

Recently some scientific magazines have published information about a new spaceship engine called “EmDrive”. This is an electric engine which could reach Mars in less than 70 days. It is almost unbelievable having in mind that today every ship needs over 300 days to reach it. But, as always with new technologies and inventions there is one fundamental problem. According to the rules of physics such an engine should not work at all. There were a lot of examples in the history when something only worked theoretically.  Right now, we have a completely different situation, there is a solution which can’t be proved by scientists.

What is exactly EmDrive and how does it work? This machine was created by Roger Shawyer but just after it was announced many scientists accused him of fraud. It was mainly due to the fact that such a machine needs to break the first basic rule of physics - it would have to break the momentum conservation principle. Many modern inventions and theories are based on this principle and breaking it means one needs to review all existing theories.

What does it mean - it means that the total linear momentum of an isolated system remains constant regardless of changes within the system. For example, when seating on a boat and blowing into sails, your boat will stay in the same place without any movement. If you want to make your boat  move,  you have to jump out of the boat and then blow into the sails.

EmDrive works bouncing microwaves off walls in the conical structure and creates the momentum in a spaceship,  without any fuel and without throwing anything out of the ship. Like I said at the beginning, they made that “impossible engine” work.

Source: http://www.sciencealert.com/new-paper-claims-that-the-em-drive-doesn-t-defy-newton-s-3rd-law-after-all

Chinese and NASA scientists (“Eagle works”) wanted to check how it is possible that this engine works.  They took this engine to their laboratory and conducted a broad set of comprehensive tests and verifications to understand the reasons why this engine works. Finally, at the end of 2015 they published a 30-page document, which confirms that the engine really works and they proved it can produce 1 KW with 1.6 milinewton of energy.

It is really a little amount but even a small portion of energy could create the momentum in the cosmos and move a spaceship forward. The scientists are convinced that if we power up some parameters of this engine, we could get more power out of it. They are going to test it in vacuum  and verify how we can use it.

Based on these tests and findings they are going to modify the engine and try it on Earth. In the case of success,  it could help us to create better sources of energy which could be used for instance to create more efficient electric cars. Now we have to wait what scientists discover. Let’s keep our fingers crossed and wish them good luck. This engine is a breakthrough and could open a completely new ways of travelling. When they succeed we can imagine that in a few years people will travel to Mars on holidays. It sounds really amazing, I am looking forward to such a possibility.

Source:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RF_resonant_cavity_thruster

http://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/emdrive-news-rumors/

https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/235566-can-the-impossible-space-drive-survive-falsification-in-orbit