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RL Reactionless Drive
#4
I've made this comment on a couple of other forums: Since, if the EM drive does work, we have no clue how it does work, there is no reason to think the current design is optimum. And various bits of machinery (steam engines being a very good example) have been improved before by tinkering and guesstimation, well before the underlying theory of their operation was developed. Which might mean that the EM drive could be improved in a similar way.

The main objection seems to be that the EM drive violates the currently accepted laws of physics. Well, that wouldn't be the first time; for example, the RTG that powers the Cassini mission violates the laws of physics as known in 1895. As does a watch with a radium dial.

But it ain't necessarily so. One get-out is that the drive is actually emitting something with momentum; something impossible, or close to it, to detect. A possibility I've seen mooted is that the EM drive is an axion rocket.

Interestingly enough, one detector for axions (one of the many dark matter candidates) I've seen suggested looks a lot like the EM drive acting in reverse; a microwave cavity emitting a signal caused by interacting with the universal axion background.

Incidentally, I agree. Even the current EM drive would be revolutionary. One with a couple of orders of magnitude efficiency improvement (as measured by power versus thrust) would be even more so.
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Messages In This Thread
RL Reactionless Drive - by Cepinari - 04-07-2017, 02:57 PM
RE: RL Reactionless Drive - by Drashner1 - 04-08-2017, 10:41 AM
RE: RL Reactionless Drive - by Drashner1 - 04-08-2017, 10:18 PM
RE: RL Reactionless Drive - by iancampbell - 04-09-2017, 09:33 AM

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