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Wouldn't any craft using this engine be ripped to shreds by microscopic debris?
by 15155 4y ago
Wouldn't any craft using this engine be ripped to shreds by microscopic debris?
- jakedata 4y agoAny craft using this engine would remain stationary. This is just another regurgitation of the emdrive concept except with ions instead of microwaves. They even re-used a rendering of the emdrive.
- mikewarot 4y agoI don't know who decided to use the EMdrive illustration on this, the paper uses a different concept altogether. Whereas the EMdrive bounces RF around to "achieve thrust", this uses charged particles in a helical beamline... the tricky bit is to efficiently transfer 165 Megawatts into a beam to accelerate it, then couple that power back out to recover it. Needless to say, there are some stiff engineering challenges involved. ;-)
- jakedata 4y agoDumping 165 MW into that device would certainly yield some thrust - at least for a few seconds.
- tomatotomato37 4y agoRelativistic craft are expected to have some type of whipple shield substantial enough for the debris undergoing nuclear fission on collision That being said there are problems before that need to be addressed, frankly that it violates the laws of thermodynamics; "Burns notes the efficiency problem in his presentation, and also adds that his work hasn't been reviewed by experts"
- mayormcmatt 4y agoTo shreds, you say...