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EmDrive: NASA Eagleworks' Peer-Reviwed Paper Is On Its Way (ibtimes.co.uk)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from International Business Times UK: An independent scientist has confirmed that the paper by scientists at the NASA Eagleworks Laboratories on achieving thrust using highly controversial space propulsion technology EmDrive has passed peer review, and will soon be published by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA). Dr Jose Rodal posted on the NASA Spaceflight forum -- in a now-deleted comment -- that the new paper will be 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 also revealed that the paper will be published in the AIAA Journal of Propulsion and Power, a prominent journal published by the AIAA, which is one of the world's largest technical societies dedicated to aerospace innovations. Although Eagleworks engineer Paul March has posted several updates on the ongoing research to the NASA Spaceflight forum showing that repeated tests conducted on the EmDrive in a vacuum successfully yielded thrust results that could not be explained by external interference, those in the international scientific community who doubt the feasibility of the technology have long believed real results of thrust by Eagleworks would never see the light of day.
That's all? I'm fully prepared for the Armored Space Nutter division to come out in full force waving their Star Trek box sets and preparing their trip to Andromeda.
In the meantime, you're filling in nicely for them.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
The trouble is that the thrust is so low that measuring it reliably is so hard that nobody knows if there is thrust at all or just measurement problems. It's said to be about 1mN/kW, much lower than even an ion drive.
I think there is just noise and no signal and people are seeing a rabbit in the clouds because they're looking for it very hard.
Why not? If this technology works, it changes the game in space travel. It seems there is a large requirement (today) for thrust vs energy, but with experimentation, theory, and improvements in understanding this may become viable for flying car type energy/thrust requirements. It really surprises me whenever I read a story about the EmDrive. It makes hypocrites of all the "scientists" and our general application of science, in general.
Skeptics claim:
"It violates Newton's law"
It is a bunch of tomfoolery
Its a measuring error
Horseshit. Any real scientist knows: Nullis in verba, or question everything. We thought the world was flat, we thought the world was at the center, then the sun, now... there is no center. We experiment, we learn, we work out what we think is right is right, or what we thought was right is wrong. The universe is mysterious, and full of wonder. Offer no ridicule until you have proven someone wrong, conclusively! Otherwise, your no better than a religious zealot. Science itself deserve better.
I think it's a prevailing attitude on Slashdot -- look at the comments of any article that has a positive outlook on future technology. But it's not just slashdot, it's true in most educated circles too -- general skepticism and cynicism. Most people's BS filters are turned to 100% -- which keeps them safe against the crazies, but saps the imagination. Even at work, doing natural language processing research, I find it a little depressing that the common view among my colleagues is essentially "human level intelligence will never happen".