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When this Emdrive stuff first hit the news, I was positive it was just another crackpot idea or scam that wasn't being properly tested, in the vein of E-Cat or
by AnkhMorporkian 11y ago
When this Emdrive stuff first hit the news, I was positive it was just another crackpot idea or scam that wasn't being properly tested, in the vein of E-Cat or the 100s of other examples of 'physics breaking' inventions you could find with a cursory Google search.
However, the fact that so many labs, including Eagleworks, are building these and detecting thrust from them is making it start to grab my interest. I'm still extremely skeptical, but some of that skepticism is starting to give way to genuine excitement for the 'what if?' factor.
- raimondious 11y agoCompletely off topic but are you the same AnkhMorporkian from a certain web game?
- AnkhMorporkian 11y agoI sure am!
- peterashford 11y agowhich web game?
- AnkhMorporkian 11y agoI am one of the developers of a game called TagPro. It's a team based capture the flag game with an incredibly simple premise, but surprisingly deep strategy. We have 184,772 registered players, and probably 10x that count of unregistered players. Real simple to drop in, play a 5-10 minute game using only 4 keys, and get back to whatever you were doing.
- keville 11y agoNice pitch, and I'm impressed with what I've skimmed so far (the reddit community for your game is obviously quite active). I think I may have found a replacement for my long-unquenched Subspace cravings!
- AnkhMorporkian 11y agoThanks! I was a big Subspace/Continuum player up until about 5 years ago. Mostly played on Trench Wars in the continuum days. The skills are surprisingly transferrable to TagPro.
- flashman 11y agoVisually it looks like Minesweeper crossed with Marble Madness!
- jcchin41 11y ago"EagleWorks" is not a recognized lab of NASA. Despite the title, this announcement comes from a (somewhat rogue) group of individuals, not the agency.
- snowwrestler 11y agoIt's a real lab that is recognized and funded by NASA. > NASA/JSC is implementing an advanced propulsion physics laboratory, informally known as "Eagleworks", to pursue propulsion technologies necessary to enable human exploration of the solar system over the next 50 years, and enabling interstellar spaceflight by the end of the century. This work directly supports the "Breakthrough Propulsion" objectives detailed in the NASA OCT TA02 In-space Propulsion Roadmap, and aligns with the #10 Top Technical Challenge identified in the report. http://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?R=20110023492 http://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?R=20110023492 That is because "Breakthrough Propulsion" is included in the NASA Technology Roadmaps: http://www.nasa.gov/offices/oct/home/roadmaps/index.html http://www.nasa.gov/offices/oct/home/roadmaps/index.html > TA 2.3.7 Breakthrough Propulsion > Breakthrough propulsion is an area of technology development that seeks to explore and develop a deeper understanding of the nature of space-time, gravitation, inertial frames, quantum vacuum, and other fundamental physical phenomena with the overall objective of developing advanced propulsion applications and systems that will revolutionize space exploration. It's good to be skeptical of weird or unexpected results, but this is a real area of study for NASA. It's not an investor scam or something like that. And really, it makes sense. If NASA is not going to look far into the future of space travel, who is? It's prudent to spend a bit of money chasing down crazy ideas, just in case one pans out. That said, this particular "announcement" is apparently just a forum post, and I agree shouldn't be treated as an official NASA announcement.