Mach Effect progress

[Betruger]

Are METs eligible for NIAC's 2014 phase II? Don't have time to work this out myself, but it's a simple enough question.. I can't recall if we made phase 1. Thanks.

[Skipjack]

Are METs eligible for NIAC's 2014 phase II? Don't have time to work this out myself, but it's a simple enough question.. I can't recall if we made phase 1. Thanks.

I might be wrong, but I don't think it ever made phase 1. It is too controversial for NASA to invest money into it. I wished NIAC would, though. Jim really needs some financial help. I cant remember, but did Sonny White get NIAC (or other NASA ) funding?

[GIThruster]

According to the relevant authority at NASA, they have no one qualified to analyze Jim's theory, so they are waiting to see higher thrust magnitudes before investing themselves. NIAC funding is quite smallish, even at level 2, so there is only a little help there should NASA take a deeper interest. The main trouble of course is that NASA is composed primarily of engineers, not physicists, so they simply do not have the human resources to look into the issue deeply.

IMHO, the way to press forward here is to get a single entrepreneur willing to invest his time and build a company, and then move forward on gathering investors. I am considering acting as project manager for this, but still searching for the right MBA to take care of the funding issues. Really there are a handful of things that need to be researched all at once. IMHO, there needs to be 3 teams doing the support work: one focused on ceramics, one for miniaturizing the power system (which can be shopped out for less than $2M), and one developing the rad hardening necessary to breach the VAB, so we can begin flying spacecraft direct from LEO to deep space. The forth team needs to be focused on the thruster itself, and since none of these four teams can gather a ROI without all the others, they are really one large team that needs to be driven by one goal.

IMHO, that goal should be to build a MET nanosat and fly it from ISS to an equatorial orbit. I don't think this has ever been done before. That would be enough to put all the TRL7 requirements to rest. Of course once you're there you have new options. Given sufficient rad hardening, you can then climb through the VAB with the wee sat, which has also never been done before. Given success here, you can go cislunar, which has never been done with a nanosat before. Given success here, you can go to Mars, especially if you plan to pass by when the planet is opposed to Earth and most of your trip has lots of light. NASA currently operates the first gen Elektra Radio aboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter so you could say hello even with the tiny radio aboard a nanosat as you flash by at a significant fraction of c. This would give you your longer term condition of the spacecraft data.

Such a nanosat can be built for about $30k and NASA currently lofts nanos to ISS for free, so the cash required for such a mission goes almost entirely to development of the thruster. I think this is all doable inside two years given sufficient funding and expected success with the component tasks. The ROI of course is quite large, even given Jim owns the patents for the thruster and power system. Just the rad hardening alone is worth many hundreds of millions if one waits to file until the deep space industry is about to take off. The ability to launch 10,000 nanosat explorers to the asteroid belt with a single Falcon 9 should greatly affect change in the entire industry and lots of new entrants, as well as all of the old school aero folks would jump within a year I should think.

[Skipjack]

According to the relevant authority at NASA, they have no one qualified to analyze Jim's theory, so they are waiting to see higher thrust magnitudes before investing themselves. NIAC funding is quite smallish, even at level 2, so there is only a little help there should NASA take a deeper interest. The main trouble of course is that NASA is composed primarily of engineers, not physicists, so they simply do not have the human resources to look into the issue deeply.

IMHO, the way to press forward here is to get a single entrepreneur willing to invest his time and build a company, and then move forward on gathering investors. I am considering acting as project manager for this, but still searching for the right MBA to take care of the funding issues. Really there are a handful of things that need to be researched all at once. IMHO, there needs to be 3 teams doing the support work: one focused on ceramics, one for miniaturizing the power system (which can be shopped out for less than $2M), and one developing the rad hardening necessary to breach the VAB, so we can begin flying spacecraft direct from LEO to deep space. The forth team needs to be focused on the thruster itself, and since none of these four teams can gather a ROI without all the others, they are really one large team that needs to be driven by one goal.

IMHO, that goal should be to build a MET nanosat and fly it from ISS to an equatorial orbit. I don't think this has ever been done before. That would be enough to put all the TRL7 requirements to rest. Of course once you're there you have new options. Given sufficient rad hardening, you can then climb through the VAB with the wee sat, which has also never been done before. Given success here, you can go cislunar, which has never been done with a nanosat before. Given success here, you can go to Mars, especially if you plan to pass by when the planet is opposed to Earth and most of your trip has lots of light. NASA currently operates the first gen Elektra Radio aboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter so you could say hello even with the tiny radio aboard a nanosat as you flash by at a significant fraction of c. This would give you your longer term condition of the spacecraft data.

Such a nanosat can be built for about $30k and NASA currently lofts nanos to ISS for free, so the cash required for such a mission goes almost entirely to development of the thruster. I think this is all doable inside two years given sufficient funding and expected success with the component tasks. The ROI of course is quite large, even given Jim owns the patents for the thruster and power system. Just the rad hardening alone is worth many hundreds of millions if one waits to file until the deep space industry is about to take off. The ability to launch 10,000 nanosat explorers to the asteroid belt with a single Falcon 9 should greatly affect change in the entire industry and lots of new entrants, as well as all of the old school aero folks would jump within a year I should think.

Personally, I would be more interested in seeing one that is capable of lifting itself off the ground. LEO access is IMHO more important than going BEO. But that is just my personal opinion.

[GIThruster]

Personally, I would be more interested in seeing one that is capable of lifting itself off the ground. LEO access is IMHO more important than going BEO. But that is just my personal opinion.

Well that is the holy grail for inertial thrusters as one could then build flying cars and launch all spacecraft from the Earth's surface, but this requires thrust/mass and thrust/electrical power in that one wouldn't expect short of operating at microwave frequencies; and the ceramic for this as well as the electrical engineering for such a power system are both much more expensive than for VHF.

Ideally, one wants to do just as you say, but in practical terms, I think flying cars need to wait for smaller successes. Baby steps are needed here to generate the best risk management for a startup, but yes, we should want to launch from the Walmart parking lot eventually.

[AcesHigh]

well, thrusts high enough to get to LEO certainly are far beyond what ME is capable right now, which in fact is barely able to compete with ion thrusters.

so how about instead of going a la Rossi and trying to get millions in funding for something yet unproven, ME first proves itself with low thrust that is already helpful for spacecraft or even the ISS, and only then moves to higher thrusts, when it´s proved beyond doubt and money starts pouring in???

I am sorry but I think these huge leaps in talks from what the system currently does to what it can theoretically do, like wormholes, are particularly harmful to the research. They bring attention, yes, but more often than not NEGATIVE attention and skepticism, which I believe would be far smaller if nobody ever gave public talks about wormholes and the like, or even 1g or greater accelerations, but only talked about ME as a better alternative to ion drives, vasimr, etc.

[GIThruster]

I agree, but what we're here talking about is a small, light thruster that can generate ~100mN thrust continuously, without propellant. That is easily within reach of cheap VHF technology and enough to enable the TRL7 mission I've outlined above. Obviously such a thruster would be tested on something like the ARC Lite before anyone ponied up large cash, but some real funds are necessary to build a power system and test it, well in advance of miniaturizing it. The goal however needs to encompass all the activities necessary for a commercial device, hence the TRL7 goal.

Work on things like rad hardening for the VAB is secondary, and not necessary for TRL7. As I said, maneuvering from ISS orbit to equatorial is certainly enough on its own to meet the TRL7 requirements. The facts a nanosat can be built so cheaply with COTS kit parts, and that NASA lofts nanos to ISS for free, greatly impact the choice over how to do TRL7. If you decide to build something on the order of R2D2 and fly it around both inside and outside ISS, you will spend more on lofting it to the station than you would by miniaturizing the power system. So the goal of a nanosat demo makes good sense from a risk analysis perspective--you don't get money back from lofting an astrodroid, but you do get a large ROI from paying to miniaturize the power system.

[Betruger]

It shouldn't be anything but the very most feasible/accessible means of wider scientific acceptance, that's targeted at this point. We need more experimental $$$ and brainpower, above all.

If you decide to build something on the order of R2D2 and fly it around both inside and outside ISS, you will spend more on lofting it to the station than you would by miniaturizing the power system.

Is something like parabolic zero G not worth it?

[GIThruster]

I'm only a little sure what you mean by "parabolic" in this context, but very low thrust to mass and thrust to electrical power in ratio Figures Of Merit (FOM's) will work well in any microgravity. So one can indeed maneuver from ISS orbit to equatorial given just a few micronewtons thrust in a 1 kg craft such as a nanosat. The risk analysis issue involves that NASA lofts nanos to ISS for free, and general nano costs are very low as result of the USAF and NASA nano programs this last decade. One can purchase nano kit parts as COTS items, and their manufacturers provide services for those who want to build them so expertise is cheap here. You don't have to design and build your own spacecraft from scratch but can instead leverage this expertise on a budget. So I'm for avoiding launch costs one would have for an unminiaturized power system. . .just makes good sense to go all in here as the risks are small and the possibilities from success are large. My estimate is a miniaturized power system for a VHF MET can be shopped out and had for about $1.2M.

[ladajo]

I believe he was talking about testing in an aircraft zero-g lab. But, if so, the required thrust times would probably not produce significant measurements in low thrust devices. The big pay off is low thrust over long time periods. The aircraft may not provide a long enough micro gravity window to get strong results. But, it is a good thought, and I am only guessing based on what I know about current thrust to weight thinking for ME.

[GIThruster]

Ah, I see what you're saying, the vomit comet. Another trouble with that is that as the craft descends, air turbulence generates relatively small excursions off parabola, so things tend to move around on their own inside the plane. That would make it very difficult to demonstrate low thrust/mass. Also, TRL7 requires one test in the "operational" environment, and the plane would would only give "relevant" environment which is TRL6. With a miniaturized power system, you could put a thruster on an air hockey table and might get TRL6.

[Betruger]

Well at least long term, with some luck, we have affordable LEO access from at least SpaceX. For now though it breaks everyone's bank - anyone currently invested in MET.

[Skipjack]

Well at least long term, with some luck, we have affordable LEO access from at least SpaceX. For now though it breaks everyone's bank - anyone currently invested in MET.

I think SpaceX is closer to reaching their goal than you might think. But they can only lower it so much with conventional engines and a TSTO launch vehicle. At some point, it will reach the limits of the TSTO concept and of chemical engines. IIRC, Musk thinks that they can lower the price for a F9 launch to 7 million if they can do full and rapid reusability. Of course that also requires a lot of launches every year to work and critics say that the market may not be big enough for that. I hope that the market will grow rapidly as prices go down. History will show who is right. Either way, METs could be a game changer. I am surprised that Musk or others like him have not thought about investing into that. I guess it is too risky, even for Musk (though the cost would small for a proof of concept).

[GIThruster]

Musk isn't even interested in fission rockets so I doubt he'd take a real look at any advanced propulsion. It's hard to make predictions though, especially of the future.

[Betruger]

I mean to put an experiment in micrograv for long enough and cheap enough.

I am surprised that Musk or others like him have not thought about investing into that. I guess it is too risky, even for Musk (though the cost would small for a proof of concept).

Yeah it's just a drop in the bucket. But that drop is worth the bucket when the goal is such a long shot and is so sacred as it is for believers like Musk. He'd have to research it privately if at all, even if he were coordinating his team with e.g. Woodward & co.

I just can't put my brain around no one putting the "few" 3 digits it'd take to move this within sight of conclusive evidence either way. Given the implications. It boggles my mind every time I read one of those discussions on the net with hardcore debating of how it just can't be real because it doesn't pass sanity check one way or another. So much time spent going round and round theoretically, instead of just building/running experiment and getting actual reality check.