The bells ofjoyful news have begun ringing– after quite the hiatus, the EM drive hasreturned!
Researchers from China’s space agency have released a video throughstate media in which they show what appears to be a fully functioning EM drive.
For thosewho are unfamiliar to the EM drive, here’s the crash course. An EM drive, alsoknown as a radio frequency resonant cavity thruster, is theorized to be able togenerate thrust without the need of a propellant. The thrust is of theelectromagnetic world that is produced from bouncing microwaves back and forthinside a cavity.
Think of itlike this — a person is sitting inside of a box and they are faced with a taskto make the box move. They do so by pushing out the walls and moving aroundinside of the box. Also, to top it all off, the total momentum generated by thedrive increases as it moves.
If an EMdrive is to enter our current world of reality, it would be revolutionary, tosay the least. Faster space travel and cheaper spaceflight costs would beguaranteed.
Chinaannouncing such a great feat has raised some eyebrows. Before the release ofthe video, there were two breakthroughs in the world of the EM drive. The firstwas a peer-reviewed NASA paper claiming the very real possibility of the successful operatives of such a machine… at the very least hypothetically.The second was China claiming that the operatives of the EM drive one hundred percent possible.
However,after the release of the NASA peer-reviewed paper, it was deemed skeptical.However awesome the possibility of an EM drive in our current world, there is adownside… the EM drive goes against Newton’s third law of motion which is whymany are skeptical towards the NASA peer-reviewed paper and of China releasingthe video.
Newton’sthird law of motion that states that to everything there is an equal andopposite reaction which, in our Universe, based off of that law, is impossibleto generate without a propellant.
BriceCᴀssenti, advanced expert of propulsions of the University of Connecticutexplained why an EM drive is to raise eyebrows: “Action and reaction is adirect result of the conservation of momentum, the violation of such a basiclaw as the conservation of momentum would invalidate much of the basis for allof physics as we know it.”
As lovely asit sounds, the likelihood of this EM drive being the one to revolutionizephysics as a whole and create a whole new era of space travel is highlyimprobable. Also, some such as Yahoo news (as though they’re entirelycredible…) wrongly describe the EM drive as a warp drive.
A warp driveis a faster-than-light spacecraft propulsion system that is oftenly used inSci-Fi works such as Star Trek. Common sense deems the likelihood of a warpdrive basically impossible. The reason being is that the speed of light is the“speed limit” of our Universe, as Neil Degrᴀsse Tyson put it. Also, referencethe theory of relativity to further confirm how improbable it is to travelfaster than the speed of light. Sorry, folks.
Technologysuch as an EM drive, currently seems worlds away. As a result, unfortunately,our space traveling adventures are currently situated in the current, classicrocket propulsion technology. But, shed no tears– new tech is being developedas your eyes scan the lines of this article.
For example,depending on how Earth and Mars align, one trip of SpaceX’s Interplanetary Transport System could be shortened to a mere 80 days. Elon Musk, CEO andfounder of SpaceX, believes in and strives to shorten the trip down to 30 days.
Sources and References: Yahoo, RT and Futurism.
