December 22, 2016
Meanwhile, in Space
One of The Brickmuppet's Crack Team of Science Babes sends you all seasons greetings and shows off a reliable and well understood way to generate thrust applied to one's shoulder. The Springfield model 1903 uses an explosion to send a 14 gram projectile at 760 meters a second in one direction and that force minus the mass of the rifle is applied to the shooters shoulder.
Actually, she's Springfield, from Girls Frontline.
In stark contrast, China is claiming, that they have successfully tested (IN SPACE) a system that generates thrust without expelling any propellant. They claim to have been running tests of the EM-Drive on their space station.
The EM-Drive made news some weeks ago when a peer reviewed study indicated that it was (somehow) generating measurable (if minute) amount of thrust.
Note that "minute" doesn't do justice to the infinitessimality of the thrust levels involved.
The Springfield, does not violate any natural laws (asinine state laws are another matter) The same cannot be said for the EM Drive or any of the other RF Resonant cavity thrusters, like the Cannae Drive.
There seems to be SOMETHING going on with these devices, but the thrust is so low (at least in the NASA sponsored tests) that prctical application of them seems dubious even if they do work.
However, the place to test these is in free fall and the Chinese claim that
"This technology is currently in the latter stages of the proof-of-principle phase, with the goal of making the technology available in satellite engineering as quickly as possible," Li Feng explained at the press conference.
So maybe...
In any event, Cannae, a private company that is developing a similar drive (similar in that it looks like magic) is putting their money where their mouth is and will be testing their version in orbit as well. This indicates at the very least that even if they are incorrect, their pursuit of this technology is not a scam.
In any event, after this Chinese announcement, we here at Brickmuppet Blog remain deeply skeptical, but ever so slight more hopeful.
As it stands now, the thrust levels have little practical application, being orders of magnitude lower than even arc jets, However, IF, it actually works, and IF they can increase the thrust by a few orders of magnitude, then this could be a real thing. Those are a couple of pretty big and unlikely "Ifs"but they would portend a truly awesome development.
It would also be a disturbing one since it would mean that our understanding of even the most very basic rules of our universe is completely wrong.
But hey....the way 2016 has gone thus far, would that really be such a shock?
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
08:04 PM
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