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Re: Mach Effect progress

Posted: Sat Feb 10, 2018 9:30 pm
by painlord2k
krenshala wrote:My understanding is that Elon Musk wants to invest in refining existing known good hardware that meets his personal goals, such as taking rockets and making them reusable. If someone developed and built a working, usable thruster - as opposed to a research build that only really good on a test stand - he'd probably be interested.
My own perception:
Elon is fully committed to developing better rockets engines to go to Mars.
He is not interested in some exotic solution may or may not work.

The type of intrapreneur we need for developing a Woodward's idea is one that sees the advantages and the profit of developing that solution.
By the time the developing of a commercial driver is done (even just for keeping satellites in lower orbits or moving them around) Elon would be to Mars and Bezos somewhere behind. And both of them would become early buyers of these devices.

SpaceX has a plan for 4K low orbit satellites. and other in lower orbits. Something useful to keep these satellites up longer would be very profitable for them.

Re: Mach Effect progress

Posted: Sun Apr 01, 2018 9:11 pm
by TDPerk
https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2018/04/m ... lsion.html

May be a re-hash, the slides certainly seem to be.

Re: Mach Effect progress

Posted: Mon Apr 02, 2018 12:09 am
by williatw
painlord2k wrote:SpaceX has a plan for 4K low orbit satellites. and other in lower orbits. Something useful to keep these satellites up longer would be very profitable for them.
Yeah, exactly; don't understand the fetish for probes to Proxima Centauri. That kind of thing is the ultimate payoff to be sure but orbit tending of satellites/space stations is the best option for near/midterm profit and proof-of-concept. Leave the interstellar probes/ships for future generations of the technology; the "Jupiter 2" can wait.

Re: Mach Effect progress

Posted: Mon Apr 02, 2018 12:58 pm
by paperburn1
williatw wrote: Leave the interstellar probes/ships for future generations of the technology; the "Jupiter 2" can wait.
Exactly, but we still live under the old rusty mantra
"No Buck Rogers , no bucks at all"
We need to get past this mindset and realise the technology is there we just need to start using it.
Nasa is spending billions on SLS when they could buy all the lift they needed far cheaper and have money left over.
Pollywell is sitting in the corner not because it will not work; but because it's the ugly kid at the dance. its just not sexy enough.
Worried about carbon in the atmosphere? offloading iron sulfates in the gulf stream is proven cheap at a few ten million a year but nobody even looks at that because a tramp steamer dumping stuff is not "Cool"
Local food production? Hydroponics developed by pot growers has all the bugs worked out and is very efficient.
energy, supplementing peak loads , easy with renewables. base line generation see pollywell or any other underdeveloped tech.
distribution? where are the high voltage dc lines at ?
point to point rail? sponsoring a kid from the philippines doing a 2 month work study for her degree. Biggest complaint? why no public transportation that works.
My rant is over

Re: Mach Effect progress

Posted: Tue Apr 03, 2018 12:51 am
by Carl White
paperburn1 wrote: Nasa is spending billions on SLS when they could buy all the lift they needed far cheaper and have money left over.
Pollywell is sitting in the corner not because it will not work; but because it's the ugly kid at the dance. its just not sexy enough.
Worried about carbon in the atmosphere? offloading iron sulfates in the gulf stream is proven cheap at a few ten million a year but nobody even looks at that because a tramp steamer dumping stuff is not "Cool"
Local food production? Hydroponics developed by pot growers has all the bugs worked out and is very efficient.
energy, supplementing peak loads , easy with renewables. base line generation see pollywell or any other underdeveloped tech. distribution? where are the high voltage dc lines at ?
point to point rail? sponsoring a kid from the philippines doing a 2 month work study for her degree. Biggest complaint? why no public transportation that works.
My rant is over
Short version: people are idiots.

Getting increasingly discouraged.

Re: Mach Effect progress

Posted: Tue Apr 03, 2018 2:42 am
by hanelyp
paperburn1 wrote:Worried about carbon in the atmosphere? offloading iron sulfates in the gulf stream is proven cheap at a few ten million a year
Why do you hate plants, and wish to starve them of the CO2 they need to grow?

Re: Mach Effect progress

Posted: Tue Apr 03, 2018 12:24 pm
by paperburn1
hanelyp wrote: Why do you hate plants, and wish to starve them of the CO2 they need to grow?
I had a bad childhood and have become a supervillain.

Re: Mach Effect progress

Posted: Tue Apr 03, 2018 4:19 pm
by williatw
Carl White wrote:Short version: people are idiots.
Getting increasingly discouraged.
Well Musk is succeeding in spite of people's idiocy. Let's hope that the Skunkworks fusion efforts succeeds; don't know if it is the best design what little I have heard I think they are going to use Tritium/Deuterium as their fuel; maybe eventually straight Dee. Unlike say Polywell that can (eventually) use Boron11/Hydrogen. Still a success in one area of fusion will give cred to others like Polywell (hopefully); the first horse out of the gate isn't necessarily the one which ultimately wins the race. Wonder how the EM-drive is doing? Is Sonny White even still working on it? Talk about idiocy; wouldn't it be a hoot if it turns out that both the EmDrive and Mach Effect both work? As for fertilizing the ocean with Iron, if we don't do it sooner rather than later someone else will. Say some country with allot more mouths to feed and much more desperate to figure out ways of greatly increasing protein output (fish) than we do (China/India); if we don't someone else will.

Re: Mach Effect progress

Posted: Thu Apr 05, 2018 12:38 am
by ScottL
The EMDrive front is mostly quiet these days. Still a few DIYers around, but the hype has definitely died off. Last I heard, Paul March retired, but still toys around with EMDrive/Mach Effects ideas. If he's around, he could probably say more. There is dead silence from the EagleWorks lab and Sonny White. The last NASA budget release I glanced at didn't mention them this time around, so I don't know. My problems with the EMDrive are still that Shawyer's explanation is...wrong and the EagleWorks paper was lacking several important sections. The paper was ultimately published in a smaller propulsion journal instead of a well established physics journal which tends to throw up a red flag for me. Perhaps new information will come out in the not-to-distant future.

Re: Mach Effect progress

Posted: Thu Apr 05, 2018 1:06 am
by paperburn1
Sometime I thing we are taking the wrong approach with these things. :) Maybe we should cover it with bright flashing LEDs, shiny bells and have it spat co2 or steam at random intervals from various orifices and keep it in a big blue box then maybe we will get millions in funding

Re: Mach Effect progress

Posted: Thu Apr 05, 2018 7:48 pm
by Skipjack
https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2018/04/w ... lsion.html
With solar panels now allegedly above 1 kW/kg, a solar array should be fine for the inner solar system. That could bring down system weight considerably compared to a nuclear reactor (the solar panels for 1 MWe at 1 AU would just be a ton). Granted, for the outer planets and interstellar travel, you would need a nuclear reactor. But for mars, moon and the other planets, solar should be good. That should allow for a much lower total system weight and a much higher acceleration with the same set of MEGA drives.

Re: Mach Effect progress

Posted: Fri Apr 06, 2018 5:50 pm
by Diogenes
williatw wrote: Still a success in one area of fusion will give cred to others like Polywell (hopefully); the first horse out of the gate isn't necessarily the one which ultimately wins the race. Wonder how the EM-drive is doing? Is Sonny White even still working on it? Talk about idiocy; wouldn't it be a hoot if it turns out that both the EmDrive and Mach Effect both work?


I am very much hopeful that this will turn out to be the case. Then we can have some real spacecraft!

Re: Mach Effect progress

Posted: Fri Apr 06, 2018 6:03 pm
by Diogenes
ScottL wrote: My problems with the EMDrive are still that Shawyer's explanation is...wrong and the EagleWorks paper was lacking several important sections. The paper was ultimately published in a smaller propulsion journal instead of a well established physics journal which tends to throw up a red flag for me. Perhaps new information will come out in the not-to-distant future.

I've noticed a lot of people take umbrage at the idea because they find fault with Shawyer's explanation of how it works.

I began looking at this topic with the understanding that Shawyer doesn't actually know how it works, and has just put forth an explanation that he thinks makes sense to him, but one that was not necessarily correct.

In other words I dismiss the proffered theory, but don't dismiss the underlying evidence that started this whole thing in the first place.

I've been following this subject for a long time, and I believe I was the first to post about it on this website years ago, and my recollection is that Shawyer was in charge of satellite station keeping when he noticed something funny.

As Isaac Asimov said (I think it was Asimov) "Most great discoveries in science do not begin with "Eureka!" Most great discoveries in science begin with "Now that's funny."

Shawyer claims to have noticed that he was always adjusting the satellites position in the same direction, and it was always opposite that of the radiating antennas.


If Shawyer isn't making this up, there is some sort of real effect (larger than radiation pressure) and therefore it is not so important that his theory works as it is that his discovered phenomena actually does/did what he claims.

If the effect is real, we may eventually have a good theory to explain it, but the important point is that the effect is possibly real.



"Capitalism works so well in practice that economists are looking to see if it can be made to work in theory."

Ronald Reagan.

Re: Mach Effect progress

Posted: Fri Apr 06, 2018 10:29 pm
by ScottL
To further explain my position which you quoted, I have not seen (read/heard) of any compelling evidence to date. The primary evidence that sparked the interest 2 years ago came from China. A Professor Yang had published data eluding to high thrust and a possible pseudo-confirmation of Shawyers (agreed, his explanation isn't correct). The problem with that data is that Professor Yang redid the experiment about a year later with a negative result and a new explanation. Per Professor Yang, having moved the power source onto the device instead of feeding it along the pendulum arm, previous measurements of "thrust" disappeared. Outside of Professor Yang's work, I really haven't seen evidence that I would consider compelling for the EMDrive. What I have seen are ample amounts of arm-chair scientists posting pet theories and wailing against the physics establishment. Until I see some reputable replication and publication, I exercise my right to remain skeptical. This is one facet of science i would love to be wrong about though.

Re: Mach Effect progress

Posted: Fri Apr 06, 2018 11:29 pm
by krenshala
Too bad it would be a royal pain to get one of the satellites he was doing station-keeping on to see how they perform on the balance with and without the transceiver running.