EmDrive is a new type of rocket engine that requires no propellant, a far-fetched dream to many people, but one that has been in the works since 1999 when it was first proposed by British scientist and electrical engineer Roger Shawyer, according to the IB Times.
It was a totally new and very unusual concept to wrap one’s mind around. A rocket engine that doesn’t require a propellant, also called a reaction mass, to create propulsion was something out of a Star Wars or Star Trek movie. And the technology defied Newton’s third law of physics.
That law, otherwise known as the conservation of momentum, is a fundamental law of the universe that says, “For every action, there’s an equal and opposite reaction.” And it has never been challenged, that is, until Shawyer came up with the EmDrive.
Conventional rocket engines cause thrust in one direction by propelling exhaust outwards in the opposite direction. But Shawyer proposed a technology that used an external source of power and converted it into a positive thrust with no corresponding reaction, reports Forbes.
According to Shawyer, electricity is converted into microwaves, and the microwave photons are fired into a truncated (or shortened) cone-shaped closed metal cavity. When the microwave photons are fired into the cavity, the photons will push against the larger end of the cone. In the smaller end of the cone, this causes acceleration in the opposite direction.
In the U.K., Shawyer’s papers have now been declassified after 10 years, and he says that while thrust may seem like “black magic” to many people, it really isn’t anything new. As a matter of fact, he is already working on an EmDrive 2.0 next-generation rocket engine.
Some time ago, a prototype of the EmDrive was submitted to NASA’s Eagleworks laboratory for testing. Apparently, the results are good, very good, in fact. There was thrust, despite there being no reaction. The tests and apparently a paper describing the results was leaked by an independent scientist, Dr José Rodal, and posted on the Nasa Spaceflight forum. It was subsequently delete).
Rodal wrote that the paper is entitled “Measurement of Impulsive Thrust from a Closed Radio Frequency Cavity in Vacuum” and is authored by “Harold White, Paul March, Lawrence, Vera, Sylvester, Brady and Bailey.” Rodal added a line of text from the alleged paper’s abstract that reads:
“Thrust data in mode shape TM212 at less than 8106 Torr environment, from forward, reverse and null tests suggests that the system is consistently performing with a thrust to power ratio of 1.2 +/- 0.1 mN/Kw ().”
If the paper in question has indeed passed peer review, then it is supposed to be published in the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Journal of Propulsion and Power, one of the best journals devoted to the advancement of the science and technology of aerospace propulsion and power.
There was only one paper dealing with EmDrives in the AIAA journal published in 2015 and entitled “Direct Thrust Measurements of an EMDrive and Evaluation of Possible Side-Effects.” That paper talked about the negative interaction they found in the power-feeding lines going to and from the liquid metal contacts.
So, is this all a hoax? We will have to wait and see, won’t we?
