Science (Fiction) Geeks! I summon thee! RE: Reactionless Drives

[Nuclear Unicorn]

Nasa validates 'impossible' space drive

British scientist Roger Shawyer has been trying to interest people in his EmDrive for some years through his company SPR Ltd. Shawyer claims the EmDrive converts electric power into thrust, without the need for any propellant by bouncing microwaves around in a closed container. He has built a number of demonstration systems, but critics reject his relativity-based theory and insist that, according to the law of conservation of momentum, it cannot work.

...

"Test results indicate that the RF resonant cavity thruster design, which is unique as an electric propulsion device, is producing a force that is not attributable to any classical electromagnetic phenomenon and therefore is potentially demonstrating an interaction with the quantum vacuum virtual plasma."

This last line implies that the drive may work by pushing against the ghostly cloud of particles and anti-particles that are constantly popping into being and disappearing again in empty space. But the Nasa team has avoided trying to explain its results in favour of simply reporting what it found: "This paper will not address the physics of the quantum vacuum plasma thruster, but instead will describe the test integration, test operations, and the results obtained from the test campaign."

http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-07/31/nasa-validates-impossible-space-drive

Does this mean an EmDrive could effectively continually accelerate until the object's mass reached a certain point*?

* It's my (limited) understanding that as an object approaches the speed of light its mass increases thus requiring ever-increasing amounts of thrust but as attaining the speed of light would give the object an infinite mass such a thruster could not exist.

What are some of the implications for such a device?

[janlyn]

1. That's awesome!!

But where's the improbability drive??

[ChairmanAgnostic]

2. Looking for a very hot cup of tea

Or any other browns an motion generator.

[FSogol]

3. it could be used to used to break the ice at parties by making all the molecules in the hostess's

undergarments leap simultaneously one foot to the left.

PS, if you disagree, that's just because you don't get invited to those sort of parties.



Wonder where my towel went?

[Nuclear Unicorn]

4. "if you disagree, that's just because you don't get invited to those sort of parties."

I've been to parties where that sort of thing has happened though it wasn't with a reactionless drive.

Usually tequila was the fuel.

Seriously though, I would love to read what some of our resident geniuses can suss-out about this.

[FSogol]

5. Required reading: Douglas Adams.

[longship]

6. Apparently it just requires a source of power.

Like electricity.

But note that the amount of thrust is tiny, given in micro-Newtons. This is uselessly small. Plus, it might not scale. This small thrust may be anomalous, just errors in the measurement.

Waiting for replication, or not. Micro Newton star drives aren't very useful.