Filing this under “skeptical, but cautiously optimistic” — a guy named James Woodward may have created a reactionless (well, propellantless) engine based on the Mach effect. We’ve been talking to some of Woodward’s associates over the years at physics site TalkPolywell, and they seem earnest and sincere — Woodward apparently actually refuses donations to support his work for fear it may taint perceptions.
Why does this matter? Well, for Earthly transport, it probably doesn’t, at least in the near term. But for space travel, this could be a big deal, as generally speaking 99% of the mass of stuff we send into space is propellant, and even with that most spacecraft are limited to some brief inital acceleration once they get out of Earth’s gravity well, then pretty much just steering. The difference for a craft that could continuously accelerate using a nuclear battery… well, how does getting to Saturn in eight days sound? In theory a Mars colony could be only a few days away.
Now, this may all be just another facet of the grand unified theory of experimental error, but if Woodward turns out to really be onto something, it could radically alter how we explore space.
Comments
6 responses to “This Could Be Big”
I don’t have the science or the math, but that sorta sounds like sitting on a swingset. You exert energy, and while the swing moves, so does the set. You can make an entire swingset bounce in the direction you want if you have enough energy and mass. You just sorta push harder in the direction you want it to go, and on the rebound you reduce the push. Same with skate boarding.
That a fair laymans interpretation you reckon?
And agree, if we can get rid of expelling mass, that is to quote the VP a big effing deal.
Sort of, though you can’t actually impart net velocity to the swingset that way — the velocity from the swing forward is exactly cancelled out by the backswing, all else being equal. But… if you could slightly alter your mass so you were heavier on the foreswing and lighter on the backswing, you would have the equivalent of the Mach effect drive and the swingset could be propelled forward.
Well, isn’t that what I do with manipulating my inertia through the exertion of energy forward, but not back?
I mean, I uesed that analogy, because I used to do that, cuz I was a fat kid. I used to apply energy at a certain point of my friends swingset, and I would make it revolve around the opposing side. I meant, (I don’t have the right words) like an excentric screw maybe, It sounds like an excentric screw, only with energy rather than resistance. The energy is still contained, but the force is still expressed in one direction.
I hope this works. We could see the commercialization of space within our life times.
Anyone up for a trip to the New Vegas moon?
You might want to read John Ringo and Travis Taylor’s “Vorpal Blade” series before going to Saturn in 8 days, since I suspect that you would be up to a possibly significant percentage of lightspeed, and when you hit a pebble and Einsteinian energy release takes place you’ll be “a smear of photons across the solar system.”
Incidentally, Travis Taylor IS a rocket scientist and physicist; this series has lots of actual science to go with the fiction.