NASA building a Near Light Speed Starship!! (No kidding!)

For years, I felt that the Mach Effect Thruster was voodoo science. I've changed my mind. NASA agrees, and is funding the concept and building a prototype.
Find out why!!
Is relativistic speed a possibility?

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An excellent article on this topic

A second article on this technology

[Faybaugh]

I've seen tons of YouTube click bait talking about "NASA working on speed of light drives". I never watch them, but when I saw that you had a video about it I knew you wouldn't B.S. us. In other words, you are the real deal! Thank you for your content!

[TheWheelTurns]

at 1/3 G acceleration if this tech worked even in-solar system travel would become practical. great video

[mecha-sheep]

This is Emdrive 2.0. I hate to say it, but there are 99.9999% chance that the effect measured is due to some silly stuff, like a câble heating or whatnot, as it was with Emdrive.

Of course, we should still investigate it, because 0.00001% chance of giving the finger to known physic is a bargain. But we should not really hope it will work.

[tetalonstarfyre]

E=MC2 is not about light speed. It is just about conversion between Mass and energy. having said that the energy needed to reach light speed is actually infinite.

[sylviaelse]

Until a device produces thrust at a level that cannot be attributed to anisotropic radiation, or thermal shifts in the centre of gravity, there is no reason to think this thing can work. The fact that NASA is spending time on this just means that someone in NASA thinks it's worth looking at. It doesn't mean it functions.

[pabcu]

I see this as an absolute win, all we need now is more funding (just tell congress there’s oil in space, I’m looking at you titan)

[Zebred]

First things first. Lets just get a proof-of-concept unmanned probe mission sent to Proxima Centauri with this drive.

[madpanda]

If it can accelerate at close to 1G, then a "flying saucer" design would kind of make lots of sense. Think about it - traveling at 1G, assuming the entire ship is flat as a saucer, the crew could walk around the ship and retain it's bone and muscle structure...

[richardzeitz]

There must be a mistake in your calculations. The energy cost to accelerate a mass to a significant fraction of the speed of light is the same regardless of the manner used to accelerate it, so accelerating to within of the speed of light will take energy the equivalent of almost the entire mass of the ship. A nuclear reactor simply wouldn't have enough power. E=MC2 still applies.

[YouCanHasAccount]

Changing the mass of an object but putting in and removing energy is not controversial. the energy-mass equivalence makes this possible and reasonable. The problem as I understand it is the same equivalence predicts pure energy to have inertia. They're probably just leaking energy away somewhere in the test-bed and it won't work in space. It would still need to be explained how this device obeys or defies other laws of the nature like conservation of angular momentum.

[millamulisha]

Doesn’t work, internal energy must come from somewhere. In a closed system (carrying stored energy on-board to use in oscillation) there can’t be an internal energy differential, the ‘center of mass-energy’ will be stationary. Would need to be powered externally or throw off a reaction mass to function. 🤷‍♂️

[dantreadwell]

Reminds me of the EM drive a few years back, also a reactionless drive. Unfortunately proved not to work when in space. That's the biggest issue with reactionless drives. They violate thermodynamics. Now, this does not mean we shouldn't bother, but don't expect them to work, because if they do, hey, sweet, drives that require no fuel for themselves. Buuuut, we need to rethink thermodynamics. As it has been resoundingly proven to be incomplete at best.

[mm]

In the intermediate term, Mach Effect Thrusters are not as interesting as The Zubrin DiPole Drive... Let's have an episode on that!

[vidyaishaya]

We just need to get above 10% of light speed to make interstellar travel practical. Get to 20% and we can get to the nearest stars in a few decades.

[danielreborn]

Another thing. Isn't possible to reach c by physical object (object having mass), as a mass of the object increases to infinity, thus energy required increases to infinity.

[dakrontu]

Looking at the Heath-Robinson contraption being used to measure the microscopic thrust of the Mach Effect thruster, one can easily see how side-effects such as the tiniest amount of friction, air currents, etc, could give an erroneous result. This was the fate of the EmDrive: Its 'thrust' turned out to be a side-effect not taken into account. In space, the acid test, the darn thing did nothing.

There was a brilliant man called Professor Eric Laithwaite of Loughborough University Of Technology in the UK. He is the world-renowned inventor of the Linear Electric motor.

He gave the annual Royal Institution lectures to children many years ago. He was demonstrating gyroscopes, and wowed the audience with how magical they seemed (because they defy intuitions based on the behaviour of the non-rotating masses that are our much more common experience).

He claimed a forced-precession gyroscope could deliver a net thrust, demonstrated this claimed effect with a Heath-Robinson contraption, and was ultimately proved wrong.

He had mistakenly assumed that the parallel between the math of electromagnetism and the math of gyroscopic devices went further than people thought. But the math (Maxwell's Laws) for electromagnetism involves something called a 'displacement current.'The analogous math for rotating masses does NOT. He had assumed that it did (and that no one had previously noticed, which would be pretty unlikely!!!)

There are many genuine unwitting mistakes made by people who ought to know better. This is obvious when you look at the endless trickle of attempts at perpetual motion machines. The idea of getting something for nothing is very compelling. Perhaps like the gambler's addiction that ruins people who can't resist placing bets. It attracts conspiracy theorists, for example those who think Nikola Tesla knew some secrets which were suppressed. Flat Earthers probably fit in the same category. No one wants to pay for what they get.

Every now and then, someone finds something genuine. But so far, we have found no 'free energy' or 'free thrust'. They have to be 'paid for' fair & square.

[webbyweb]

This brings up the Fermi Paradox. Whether moving at relativistic speeds, or by using some kind of warp drive, huge amounts of matter - anti-matter are needed. In a relativistic ship, this can equal 90 percent of the mass of an interstellar spacecraft. But consider the following: THE ENTIRE SUN converts about 4 tons of mass into energy every single second. So a spacecraft with only 4 tons of anti-matter, IF IT EXPLODED IN EARTH ORBIT, would release as much energy as the entire sun in a single second. For that reason, interstellar spacecraft are PLANET KILLERS.

While it might actually be desirable to blow the entire atmosphere off of a planet like Venus, terraforming it in a split second, such a thing would be devastating to the Earth.

Interstellar travel, and mastering the ability to use large amounts of anti-matter, could actually be the great filter - that determines whether or not a species continues to exist - or whether or not it becomes extinct.

The universe could be filled with the ruins of civilizations that became extinct, while trying to achieve interstellar travel, because they were not mature enough to handle large amounts of anti-matter.

[jackcoats]

This is a wonderful thought. I hope this device is being worked on in NASA. Even to prove it true or false is why it should be tried!

A fusion reactor could helpfully take the 'space dust' and convert it into thrust too!

[chloedance]

This breaks both conservation of momentum, and conversation of energy. I do love your enthusiasm Jordan, but this is concept is ridiculous, just as the EM drive before it. NASA will grant a few $100K to these ideas, simply to make them go away. NASA isn't 'developing' this drive at all, because they know it cannot work.

[tetalonstarfyre]

You forgot what happens at 99.999.. or just 99% of the speed of light. Space time will elongate mass behind the direction of forward motion. This would most likely kill organic life, and possibly destroy the ship. But say traveling at 50% of the speed of light is doable.