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What would it take to get one of these into space?

• deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
• lawlessone 11y ago
  from the looks of how testing is going, a good old fashioned rocket.
  • Natsu 11y ago
    Well yes, I don't expect a tiny fraction of a Newton of force to get them into orbit, but I meant more as a way to test whether the anomalous force is usable for spaceflight. After all, it will either sit there and do nothing or it will move.
  • PhasmaFelis 11y ago
    No one's ever claimed that the EmDrive could launch payloads to orbit, to my knowledge. That's not what it's for. Once you're already in space, a drive that can produce 0.001G indefinitely will get you going way faster than a rocket that can produce 10G for a few minutes before its fuel runs out. Solar sails and (to an extent) ion thrusters work on the same principle.
• PhasmaFelis 11y ago
  At least $4000 per kilogram, based a quick google. I'm sure someone will put the cash together eventually if the dirtside experiments look promising, but there's no sense in risking the money until we're pretty sure.