NASA GENIUS Reveals NEW Light-Speed Engine Intro
A genius at NASA has come up with the concept for a new light-speed engine that many believe
could change space travel forever.
The revolutionary new concept could one day power the spaceships of tomorrow and help
make humanity a multi-planetary species.
Let’s take a closer look.
Exploration For centuries, ever since we realized that
every star we can see in the night sky is a Sun just like our own ⁠— with its own
solar system, planets, and possibly even life ⁠— humanity has dreamed of crossing the
astronomical distances separating us from the ultimate alien destinations.
Even the nearest star is more than four light-years away, while the fastest speed a human-created
spacecraft has ever traveled at, reached by NASA's Juno mission, is a mere 46 mi/sec.
Even at that speed, it would take more than 4,000 years to reach the nearest star.
There are two limiting factors: the current limits of our technology and the laws of physics.\
Advances in fields like laser sails, nuclear propulsion, or producing and controlling either
antimatter or dark matter could provide a game-changing technological breakthrough,
but appear to lie far off in the distant future.
But physics-defying technologies, despite being often touted as the future, are fundamentally
flawed.
A new era of space exploration may finally be upon us thanks to a genius at NASA.
But this is not the first time a revolutionary new concept has promised faster space travel.
Former Breakthroughs A talented research team at NASA's Johnson
Space Center sent shockwaves through the scientific community when they reached a milestone that
was initially thought to be impossible by many experts.
Upon formal publication, their report stated that they had experimental evidence for an
electromagnetic propulsion system that could power spacecraft through a void without using
any kind of propellant as fuel.
The findings stated that the electromagnetic drive or EmDrive could convert electricity
into thrust by simply bouncing around microwaves in a closed cavity.
Theoretically speaking, such a lightweight engine could one day be used to send a spacecraft
to the surface of Mars in just 70 days.
The one thing that stands in the way of this new engine and the reason why the idea is
called so controversial is that the EmDrive seems to defy the laws of classical physics.
As a result, even if the engine does what the team claims, scientists are still in the
dark about how it actually works.
This has caused the subject to be steeped in skepticism with many physicists referring
to the idea of an EmDrive as the realm of pseudoscience.
What makes this development particularly exciting though is the latest study has passed a level
of scrutiny by independent scientists and their findings state that the EmDrive does
work.
However, nothing concrete has come forward yet as there is still a long way to go before
the theory can be properly tested and scientists can definitively conclude how the entire system
functions.
Breaking the Laws of Physics Back in 1687, the foundation of classical
mechanics was formed by Sir Isaac Newton when he published his three laws of motion.
Over the next few centuries, those laws have been constantly tested and verified time and
time again.
The trouble with the EmDrive originates from the fact that it violates Newton's third law
of motion.
The law states that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.
This is the principle that explains why an object like a canoe glides forward when someone
paddles.
The force which is applied as the paddle moves through the water causes the canoe to propel
in the opposite direction, it is also how jet engines generate thrust as when hot gasses
are expelled through the rear, a plane can move forward.
Strangely, the EmDrive doesn’t seem to expel anything at all, this is something that doesn’t
make any sense in light of Newton’s third law or the conversation of momentum.
If an EmDrive moves forward without expelling anything from the rear, there is a clear lack
of an opposing force that would explain the thrust.
This proposition is similar to arguing that a person inside a car could cause it to propel
forward by repeatedly hitting the steering wheel.
Another example would be that of a crew of a spaceship being able to fly the craft simply
by pushing on the walls.
The theory was first tested in 2014 when a team from Eagleworks announced their early
test results which suggested that the EM engine worked.
Since that initial discovery, the group has regularly tested the EmDrive at more stringent
conditions in an attempt to further confirm the theory.
Other groups have also followed with the development and testing of various incarnations of the
engine.
In addition to the experiments performed by U.S., European and Chinese academics, there
is also a community of independent individuals who regularly make and test their impossible
physics engines.
However, no one so far has been able to conclude that a drive has worked as intended.
Light Speed Engine While the EM drive remains a theory yet to
be proven, a new concept for a light-speed engine may be the one that could finally help
humanity achieve faster space travel.
For every action, there is a reaction: that is the principle on which all space rockets
operate, blasting propellant in one direction to travel in the other.
But one NASA genius believes he could take us to the stars without any propellant at
all.
Designed by David Burns at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama, the “helical
engine” exploits mass-altering effects known to occur at near-light speed.
It has been met with skepticism from some quarters, but Burns believes his concept is
worth pursuing.
To get to grips with the principle of Burns’s engine, picture a box on a frictionless surface.
Inside that box is a rod, along which a ring can slide.
If a spring inside the box gives the ring a push, the ring will slide along the rod
one way while the box will recoil in the other.
When the ring reaches the end of the box, it will bounce backward, and the box's recoil
direction will switch too.
This is action-reaction – also known as Newton's third law of motion – and in normal
circumstances, it restricts the box from wiggling back and forth.
But, Burns asks, what if the ring's mass is much greater when it slides in one direction
than the other?
Then it would give the box a greater kick at one end than the other.
Action would exceed reaction and the box would accelerate forwards.
This mass change isn't prohibited by physics.
Einstein's theory of special relativity says that objects gain mass as they are driven
towards the speed of light, an effect that must be accounted for in particle accelerators.
A simplistic implementation of Burns's concept would be to replace the ring with a circular
particle accelerator, in which ions are swiftly accelerated to relativistic speed during one
stroke, and decelerated during the other.
But Burns thinks it would make more sense to ditch the box and rod and employ the particle
accelerator for the lateral as well as the circular movement – in which case, the accelerator
would need to be shaped like a helix.
It would also need to be big – some 200 meters long and 12 meters in diameter – and
powerful, requiring 165 megawatts of power to generate just 1 newton of thrust, which
is about the same force you use to type on a keyboard.
For that reason, the engine would only be able to reach meaningful speeds in the frictionless
environment of space.
According to Burns, the engine itself would be able to get to 99 percent of the speed
of light if you had enough time and power.
Propellantless proposals aren't new.
In the late 1970s, Robert Cook, a US inventor, patented an engine that supposedly converted
centrifugal force into linear motion.
Then, in the early 2000s, British inventor Roger Shawyer proposed the EM drive, which
he claimed could convert trapped microwaves into thrust.
Neither concept has been successfully demonstrated and both are widely assumed to be impossible,
due to violation of the conservation of momentum, a core physical law.
Martin Tajmar at the Dresden University of Technology in Germany, who has performed tests
on the EM Drive, believes the helical engine will probably suffer the same problem.
He states that all inertial propulsion systems that he has ever studied never worked in a
friction-free environment.
Burns has worked on his design in private, without any sponsorship from NASA, and he
admits his concept is massively inefficient.
However, he says there is potential to harvest much of the energy that the accelerator loses
in heat and radiation.
He also suggests ways that momentum could be conserved, such as in the spin of the accelerated
ions.
This has not held him back though, he states that he is prepared to be embarrassed if he
is wrong, but if he is not, humanity will have discovered something truly revolutionary.
How Far Away Are We from Light Speed?
The current way that we measure speed is the distance over time.
To travel at light speed or 186,000 miles per second, you would need to accelerate past
that velocity until your speed was 186,000 MPs, then hold it there for an infinite amount
of time.
This velocity is referred to as c and was defined by Albert Einstein in his theory of
special relativity.
We haven't yet reached what most consider to be light speed although many experiments
and theories suggest that we may one day be able to approach it or even surpass it within
our lifetimes.
Until very recently, it has been generally accepted that nothing in our current state
of technology could even begin to move at a velocity close to what we consider light
speed.
Some estimates place us thousands or even tens of thousands of years away from ever
reaching it.
That being said, we are often surprised by what science and technology can accomplish
and scientists have now managed to make an engine capable of reaching a mere 10% of light
speed, defying these previously held assumptions about what is possible for our technological
capabilities in today's day and age.
The invention of an engine that could reach such high speeds would allow us to travel
through space much more efficiently than before.
Outro If you liked this video, you may also enjoy
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Do you think humanity will eventually achieve light-speed?
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