WEBVTT - What is the EmDrive? 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:07.080 Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to 0:00:07.280 --> 0:00:14.040 Forward Thinking. Hey there, everyone, and welcome to Forward Thinking, 0:00:14.040 --> 0:00:16.720 the podcast that looks at the future and says it's astounding. 0:00:16.960 --> 0:00:21.360 Time is fleeting. I'm Jonathan Strickland, I'm Joe McCormick, and 0:00:21.400 --> 0:00:23.560 that's not the first time we've used that lyric on 0:00:23.640 --> 0:00:30.640 this show. Well anyway, but we warp around sometimes, warp around, 0:00:31.080 --> 0:00:35.199 warp warp yes, okay, sorry, Well, today we're gonna be 0:00:35.240 --> 0:00:39.159 talking about not just one listener request, but a topic 0:00:39.240 --> 0:00:41.800 we have gotten lots of requests about in the past 0:00:41.840 --> 0:00:47.120 few weeks, right, right, But generally we've been getting requests. 0:00:47.159 --> 0:00:49.120 I think this is sort of like some people are 0:00:49.159 --> 0:00:52.559 confusing a couple of topics and sort of putting them 0:00:52.560 --> 0:00:56.880 into the same category, but understandably. So let's let's back 0:00:56.960 --> 0:01:00.440 up and tell the story of the so called NASA 0:01:00.680 --> 0:01:03.120 M Drive. First of all, I'm just gonna have to 0:01:03.160 --> 0:01:05.479 say I don't think it is quite correct or appropriate 0:01:05.520 --> 0:01:08.200 to call it the NASA M Drive. From what I 0:01:08.240 --> 0:01:11.240 can tell, it is not in essence a NASA project. 0:01:11.360 --> 0:01:14.600 The M Drive is sort of a concept. Uh, there's 0:01:14.720 --> 0:01:17.959 there's one main model, but then others that are very similar. 0:01:18.640 --> 0:01:23.200 And then recently we've had some experiments by a subdivision 0:01:23.280 --> 0:01:26.720 of the Johnson Space Center at NASA who have tested 0:01:27.040 --> 0:01:29.560 versions of the M drive, and we'll talk more about 0:01:29.640 --> 0:01:32.800 that that division a little bit later in the episode. Right, 0:01:32.840 --> 0:01:34.479 But I don't think there, I don't think it's really 0:01:34.520 --> 0:01:36.600 correct to call it the NASA M Drive, so we'll 0:01:36.640 --> 0:01:39.440 just call it the M drive. So, simply put, the 0:01:39.680 --> 0:01:44.400 M drive is a proposed method for generating thrust in 0:01:44.520 --> 0:01:49.919 space without propellant. It's a propellantless drive, which is um 0:01:50.080 --> 0:01:53.960 or at least propellant in the way that we we 0:01:54.240 --> 0:01:59.960 generally understand propellant, because there are some weird, wacky, uh 0:02:00.480 --> 0:02:03.640 quasi explanations of what might be going on in which 0:02:03.680 --> 0:02:06.120 we could be talking about a quantum propellant. But we'll 0:02:06.120 --> 0:02:08.560 get to that too, sure, Okay, So let's look at 0:02:08.600 --> 0:02:13.680 how today's space vehicles work. So today's space propulsion is 0:02:14.120 --> 0:02:17.440 pretty much all based on Newton's third law, which is 0:02:17.440 --> 0:02:19.519 pretty good as a good law. Yeah, it's also known 0:02:19.560 --> 0:02:22.960 as the conservation of momentum. And that's where Newton said 0:02:23.120 --> 0:02:27.640 that you can't keep a witch in your basement unless 0:02:27.720 --> 0:02:30.880 you pay attacks to the local region. No, that was 0:02:30.919 --> 0:02:37.000 the fourth thought. Sorry, just holy grail. The conservation of momentum. 0:02:37.280 --> 0:02:39.960 So it's for every action there is an equal and 0:02:40.080 --> 0:02:44.120 opposite reaction. You've heard this one before. You could paraphrase. 0:02:44.240 --> 0:02:47.640 This is the sort of throw the medicine ball method, 0:02:47.680 --> 0:02:50.160 as I've called it. So imagine you're sitting in a 0:02:50.280 --> 0:02:53.320 rolling office chair on a very smooth surface, and you've 0:02:53.320 --> 0:02:55.360 got one of those big heavy medicine balls in your 0:02:55.400 --> 0:02:57.760 and your feet are not on the ground, you're not adding, 0:02:57.919 --> 0:03:01.519 you're not embracing against anything. And now you just take 0:03:01.560 --> 0:03:03.560 that ball in your hands and you throw it as 0:03:03.560 --> 0:03:06.600 hard as you can. What happens, well, the ball goes 0:03:06.639 --> 0:03:09.520 off in one direction and then you roll away in 0:03:09.560 --> 0:03:13.400 the opposite direction. And this is the basic principle behind 0:03:13.440 --> 0:03:17.160 a chemical rocket engine. So in a chemical rocket engine, 0:03:17.280 --> 0:03:21.640 you burn fuel to eject lots of mass or propellant. 0:03:21.680 --> 0:03:24.600 The goal of the burning in a rocket engine is 0:03:24.720 --> 0:03:28.320 the exhaust um. So you're going to be throwing all 0:03:28.400 --> 0:03:31.320 this hot gas out the back of the rocket. And then, 0:03:31.320 --> 0:03:34.440 of course, because of conservation and momentum, the rocket gets 0:03:34.520 --> 0:03:37.680 pushed forward with a proportional force, and there's actually a 0:03:37.720 --> 0:03:41.240 mathematical way to determine what that force is going to be. Yeah, 0:03:41.240 --> 0:03:45.200 it's incredibly simple. Actually it's too. To figure out momentum. 0:03:45.560 --> 0:03:48.160 You take the mass of the body that's going to 0:03:48.200 --> 0:03:51.560 be that's that's in motion, and you multiply that with 0:03:51.640 --> 0:03:54.800 its velocity. No Velocity is speed in a set direction, 0:03:54.840 --> 0:03:57.560 and that's really important with momentum when you're talking about 0:03:57.560 --> 0:04:02.640 conserving momentum. So, uh, the mass of the propellant in 0:04:02.640 --> 0:04:06.440 this case is very low, We're not it's especially compared 0:04:06.480 --> 0:04:10.160 to the rocket itself, right, it's much smaller, but velocity 0:04:10.240 --> 0:04:13.360 is incredible. So you multiply those two things together. Well, meanwhile, 0:04:13.360 --> 0:04:15.520 you've got the rocket which has got a certain mass. 0:04:15.960 --> 0:04:19.279 As long as the the the momentum is going to 0:04:19.320 --> 0:04:21.839 be greater than the rocket, then obviously you're going to 0:04:21.880 --> 0:04:24.279 have to uh, if you if both sides of that 0:04:24.320 --> 0:04:26.120 equation have to be equal, you have to have some 0:04:26.200 --> 0:04:29.640 velocity with the rocket going in the opposite direction. That's 0:04:29.680 --> 0:04:33.159 what's conserving the momentum. Uh, So the rocket will end 0:04:33.240 --> 0:04:36.560 up moving through space in the opposite way from the 0:04:36.600 --> 0:04:39.520 direction of the propellant um. And if you want to 0:04:39.520 --> 0:04:43.120 picture this relationship with just a concrete example. Imagine instead 0:04:43.160 --> 0:04:46.559 of the big medicine ball, you sit in the rolling 0:04:46.560 --> 0:04:49.599 office chair and you shoot a gun. Right, the weight 0:04:49.640 --> 0:04:52.000 of the bullet that's not much mass. It's a very 0:04:52.040 --> 0:04:55.160 low mass object, but it escapes with very high velocity, 0:04:55.240 --> 0:04:57.599 and it's probably gonna make you roll, maybe as much 0:04:57.720 --> 0:05:02.000 or more than the medicine ball. So that's your basic thing. 0:05:02.240 --> 0:05:04.960 That's just your basic rocket. Right, That's just the way 0:05:05.000 --> 0:05:08.240 that uh well, that's the way the universe works that 0:05:08.600 --> 0:05:11.719 our understanding of physics has. This is one of the 0:05:11.720 --> 0:05:14.920 fundamental laws, this conservation of momentum. You cannot create it, 0:05:14.960 --> 0:05:18.640 you cannot destroy it. You can only conserve it, right, right, 0:05:18.680 --> 0:05:22.120 you can move momentum around. Yeah, So it's not just 0:05:22.200 --> 0:05:27.200 chemical rockets though. This is all methods of space propulsion 0:05:27.279 --> 0:05:30.160 that we have that follow Newton's third law. So, for example, 0:05:30.440 --> 0:05:33.280 you have something like ion thrusters. Now this is this 0:05:33.320 --> 0:05:37.159 can be classified as a type of electric propulsion, but 0:05:37.480 --> 0:05:40.400 it's still accelerates by ejecting propellant. In this case, the 0:05:40.400 --> 0:05:44.640 propellant is ions or charged particles that are being sort 0:05:44.640 --> 0:05:48.040 of electrically gathered and flung out the back of the vehicle, 0:05:48.920 --> 0:05:52.000 and it's a relatively low amount of mass, but it 0:05:52.040 --> 0:05:54.520 can accelerate it at very high speed and you can 0:05:54.560 --> 0:05:57.800 have you know, you can have a constant acceleration where 0:05:57.800 --> 0:06:00.880 the acceleration itself might not be very drum attic, but 0:06:01.080 --> 0:06:04.880 over time, because you're accelerating, you're building onto that velocity, 0:06:05.240 --> 0:06:08.600 you get faster and faster and faster. It's just that 0:06:08.600 --> 0:06:12.520 that you know, uh, acceleration is very smooth and slow, 0:06:13.240 --> 0:06:15.320 but that doesn't mean the speed is slow. The speed 0:06:15.360 --> 0:06:20.440 will just get additively. It starts out not fast. Right now, 0:06:20.520 --> 0:06:22.640 you might be thinking, wait a minute, now, I can 0:06:22.720 --> 0:06:26.000 think of some methods of travel in space that aren't 0:06:26.080 --> 0:06:28.640 based on throwing mass out of the back, Like what 0:06:28.760 --> 0:06:31.960 about a solar sale or what about beamed propulsion. Well, 0:06:32.000 --> 0:06:36.719 in both of those cases, you're still conserving momentum. It's 0:06:36.760 --> 0:06:39.240 just that instead of throwing something out the back, you're 0:06:39.360 --> 0:06:43.480 letting something push you from the outside. Right because radiation, 0:06:44.000 --> 0:06:48.479 electromagnetic radiation has forced So a solar sale would like 0:06:48.560 --> 0:06:51.240 stretch out a big reflective sale and let the sunlight 0:06:51.360 --> 0:06:53.840 push it out away from the sun. Or you might 0:06:53.880 --> 0:06:56.680 have some kind of system where you could beam energy 0:06:56.839 --> 0:07:01.279 or something or beam ions at an object in space 0:07:01.320 --> 0:07:03.960 to push it forward, and that's I'll find that also 0:07:04.080 --> 0:07:07.560 is still obeying Newton's third law. Yeah, the interesting thing 0:07:07.600 --> 0:07:10.160 here is that we often think of electromagnetic radiation is 0:07:10.200 --> 0:07:13.680 not possessing any mass, right, like the idea that um 0:07:14.240 --> 0:07:17.200 a photon is. We often think of it as a 0:07:17.240 --> 0:07:23.760 massless particle that carries light. However, it's kind of massless. Yeah, 0:07:24.000 --> 0:07:27.240 it has a relativistic mass, so there's that. But but 0:07:27.360 --> 0:07:30.840 also the interesting thing about momentum with electromagnetic radiation is 0:07:30.840 --> 0:07:32.720 that we're really looking at the energy of the particle. 0:07:33.400 --> 0:07:36.320 And the way you determine the momentum of a of 0:07:36.560 --> 0:07:39.760 electro magnetic waves is that you take the energy and 0:07:39.800 --> 0:07:42.160 you divide it by the speed of light. Now, the 0:07:42.200 --> 0:07:45.200 speed allow is a huge number, so unless that energy 0:07:45.400 --> 0:07:49.520 is truly astronomical, it's also going to be a very 0:07:49.720 --> 0:07:52.520 very very small number when you're done with that division. 0:07:52.960 --> 0:07:56.240 But that's the momentum of that electromagnetic wave. So in 0:07:56.280 --> 0:07:58.760 other words, as you might imagine, it takes a lot 0:07:58.800 --> 0:08:04.040 of energy to create a little momentum using electromagnetic radiation. Right. 0:08:04.120 --> 0:08:06.840 But of course, even in these scenarios where we're talking 0:08:06.840 --> 0:08:10.760 about electromagnetic radiation or something having some kind of momentum 0:08:10.800 --> 0:08:14.320 like a force that can impart. The laws of physics 0:08:14.360 --> 0:08:18.160 tell us that you can't accelerate a closed system because 0:08:18.320 --> 0:08:21.000 what we're talking about there is an open system. So 0:08:21.040 --> 0:08:23.120 you might have a solar sale that even if you 0:08:23.400 --> 0:08:27.920 um discount say like like charged particles and and stuff 0:08:27.960 --> 0:08:30.280 like that, flying into things that do have mass. If 0:08:30.320 --> 0:08:33.920 you're just talking about radiation pressure pushing on a solar sale, 0:08:33.960 --> 0:08:36.960 that's an open system. It's being fed energy from the 0:08:37.000 --> 0:08:41.240 outside right now. According to the everything we understand about 0:08:41.280 --> 0:08:45.600 the laws of physics, you cannot accelerate a closed system, 0:08:45.640 --> 0:08:49.079 a system that doesn't have mass or energy coming in 0:08:49.320 --> 0:08:53.040 or going out. Right. So, Uh, one example I have 0:08:53.160 --> 0:08:56.640 seen that I read in an article somewhere was that 0:08:57.160 --> 0:08:59.640 imagine that you are sitting in the driver's seat of 0:08:59.640 --> 0:09:02.640 a car and the engine isn't on. Uh. This is 0:09:03.040 --> 0:09:06.040 John Byas is analogy. There we go, thank you, thank you, 0:09:06.080 --> 0:09:08.640 and that you push on the steering wheel in order 0:09:08.720 --> 0:09:13.160 to try and make the car go. That doesn't work. Uh. 0:09:13.200 --> 0:09:15.480 You know that as a closed system, and there's nothing 0:09:15.559 --> 0:09:17.960 going in there to make that. Plus as you're pushing 0:09:18.000 --> 0:09:21.160 here obviously pushing yourself backward. It's all being equalled out. 0:09:21.200 --> 0:09:24.480 Nothing's happening. Momentum is preserved within the system, but you 0:09:24.480 --> 0:09:27.600 don't get an external motion there. The car won't move 0:09:28.160 --> 0:09:32.160 right right, even the Flintstone's car. If you know, if 0:09:32.160 --> 0:09:34.600 you're moving your feet, that's a that's a fricative surface 0:09:35.080 --> 0:09:38.280 pushing against that that is an open system exactly. So 0:09:38.280 --> 0:09:40.280 so yeah, according to the laws of physics, we know 0:09:40.360 --> 0:09:43.120 of three ways to move something. You can eject mass 0:09:43.120 --> 0:09:46.000 like chemical rocket. You can push against something like we 0:09:46.080 --> 0:09:48.600 do with the Flintstone car, feet in the Flintstone car, 0:09:48.760 --> 0:09:50.800 the wheels of a car with an engine. Or you 0:09:50.840 --> 0:09:53.240 can be pushed by something like a sail in the 0:09:53.240 --> 0:09:57.440 ocean or a solar sail. That's conservation and momentum. We've, 0:09:57.600 --> 0:10:00.839 as far as we know, with one passe double exception 0:10:00.920 --> 0:10:05.240 now never ever seen this violated. So that brings us 0:10:05.280 --> 0:10:07.760 to the thing that may or may not be an exception. 0:10:07.880 --> 0:10:11.800 And before we get too much into m drive, which 0:10:11.840 --> 0:10:13.560 I mean, obviously we haven't gotten into it really at 0:10:13.559 --> 0:10:15.640 all yet. But before we really leap into this, we 0:10:15.640 --> 0:10:20.240 should also say you're gonna hear a lot of hypothesizing 0:10:20.559 --> 0:10:22.960 going on among the three of us. And that's because 0:10:23.720 --> 0:10:28.800 this is actually something where every single research organization that 0:10:28.840 --> 0:10:31.240 has taken a look at it has come up with 0:10:31.280 --> 0:10:35.400 a different means of explaining what the heck is going on. So, 0:10:36.240 --> 0:10:38.240 if you are listening to this hoping that we're going 0:10:38.280 --> 0:10:41.560 to give you the definitive answer as to does the 0:10:41.679 --> 0:10:44.080 M drive work, does it not work? If it does work, 0:10:44.120 --> 0:10:46.760 why does it work, I just want to go ahead 0:10:46.800 --> 0:10:49.000 and yeah, I got to warn you that's not happening, 0:10:50.120 --> 0:10:54.240 not yet anyway, certainly not definitely not us Right, Well, 0:10:54.280 --> 0:10:57.000 we'll offer plenty more cafaats as we go down the road, 0:10:57.120 --> 0:11:00.280 because this is getting into territory. I think that even 0:11:00.440 --> 0:11:03.000 weird for lots of physicists, as we are by no 0:11:03.160 --> 0:11:06.400 means physicists. So we're doing We're doing our best here, folks. 0:11:06.440 --> 0:11:09.079 But so let's talk about the M drive. The M 0:11:09.160 --> 0:11:11.640 drive is sort of you could also call it the 0:11:11.880 --> 0:11:14.960 RF resonant cavity thruster. That's what has been referred to 0:11:15.000 --> 0:11:19.040 in some of the literature RF, meaning radio frequency UM. 0:11:19.080 --> 0:11:21.160 It is one system, and not the only one ever 0:11:21.240 --> 0:11:26.160 proposed that attempts to challenge the absolute necessity of propellant 0:11:26.360 --> 0:11:29.480 for for space travel, like we're talking about. It wants 0:11:29.520 --> 0:11:35.200 to generate thrust like a traveling force without propellant. Okay, 0:11:35.280 --> 0:11:38.360 So the m drive was invented by the UK aerospace 0:11:38.440 --> 0:11:42.480 engineer Roger Shawyer. Uh sometime around the year two thousand 0:11:42.600 --> 0:11:46.599 and shaw You're created the company's Satellite Propulsion Research or 0:11:46.840 --> 0:11:50.240 spr Ltd in the early two thousands around the device 0:11:50.320 --> 0:11:54.320 and to sort of uh promote his research. But the 0:11:54.360 --> 0:11:57.319 basic idea is actually pretty simple. Like once you get 0:11:57.320 --> 0:12:00.800 into the physics, the math is incredibly complic hated, but 0:12:01.000 --> 0:12:05.520 the device itself is pretty simple. Yeah. The idea is 0:12:05.640 --> 0:12:11.400 you're bouncing microwaves around inside a very specifically designed cavity, 0:12:11.760 --> 0:12:16.959 right that will turn pure DC electricity just creating that yeah, 0:12:17.000 --> 0:12:22.600 electric energy into microwaves that generate thrust without ejecting any mass. 0:12:22.720 --> 0:12:25.000 So in other words, you've got a chamber. There's no 0:12:25.160 --> 0:12:27.600 opening in that chamber, so there's no way for the 0:12:27.640 --> 0:12:30.839 microwaves to escape because otherwise the microwaves will be acting 0:12:30.880 --> 0:12:33.560 like the propellant that we had talked about the previous ones. 0:12:34.040 --> 0:12:35.680 So and and as I said, that would be a 0:12:35.800 --> 0:12:40.280 very inefficient means of generating thrust because electromagnet magnetic radiation 0:12:40.360 --> 0:12:44.800 is very low momentum. But uh, imagine that you've got this. 0:12:44.800 --> 0:12:47.280 This is yeah, this is not even pushing from the outside. Right, 0:12:47.320 --> 0:12:49.880 You've got a closed off chamber. All the microwaves are in. 0:12:50.080 --> 0:12:52.680 Microwave radiation is inside that chamber. There's nowhere for it 0:12:52.720 --> 0:12:56.720 to go. But one end of the chamber is wider 0:12:56.840 --> 0:13:00.640 than the other end of the chamber. And that, according 0:13:00.760 --> 0:13:05.560 to the various tests and the various design documentation that 0:13:05.640 --> 0:13:10.760 we've come across, is the secret. Right, that's the that's 0:13:10.800 --> 0:13:15.160 the thing that that design is. Yes, and it's integrally 0:13:15.240 --> 0:13:17.800 important to creating that thrust. Yeah, let me try to 0:13:17.800 --> 0:13:20.160 explain it a little better. So I found a two 0:13:20.160 --> 0:13:23.760 thousand six paper where show your attempts to explain his 0:13:23.880 --> 0:13:26.640 theory and sort of diagram how the thing works. Again, 0:13:26.679 --> 0:13:30.480 it's lots of advanced math. I am not qualified to 0:13:30.559 --> 0:13:33.440 evaluate it or tell you whether whether his math is 0:13:33.440 --> 0:13:36.600 correct or incorrect, but I can at least look at 0:13:36.640 --> 0:13:39.840 what he's proposing. So the paper is called a Theory 0:13:39.880 --> 0:13:44.360 of Microwave Propulsion for Spacecraft. And here is how you 0:13:44.520 --> 0:13:48.160 claimed it would work. You have a magnetron it's like 0:13:48.320 --> 0:13:50.880 in a microwave oven. Your your microwave has one of these, 0:13:50.920 --> 0:13:53.800 and it's just it's like a vacuum tube that turns 0:13:53.840 --> 0:13:59.000 electricity into microwave radiation. And then you have a quote 0:13:59.080 --> 0:14:02.720 closed papered wave guide. A wave guide is usually just 0:14:02.760 --> 0:14:04.880 going to be it's some kind of like pipe or something. 0:14:04.960 --> 0:14:08.400 It's a it's a device that guides electromagnetic radiation or 0:14:08.400 --> 0:14:12.640 waves in some way for a machine to make use of. 0:14:13.760 --> 0:14:15.960 And in this case it has to be specifically like 0:14:16.000 --> 0:14:19.280 he says, closed and tapered, so it's not open, and 0:14:19.520 --> 0:14:21.840 it uh, it is like you said, it's bigger on 0:14:21.840 --> 0:14:24.480 one end than it is on the other. And the 0:14:24.520 --> 0:14:27.880 magnetron generates microwaves. The microwaves are fed through a tube 0:14:27.880 --> 0:14:31.240 into this specially designed wave guide. And then this is 0:14:31.280 --> 0:14:34.440 a quote from his paper. He says, the group velocity 0:14:34.480 --> 0:14:37.800 of the electromagnetic wave at the endplate of the larger 0:14:37.880 --> 0:14:41.640 section is higher than the group velocity at the endplate 0:14:41.760 --> 0:14:45.320 of the smaller section. Thus, the radiation pressure at the 0:14:45.400 --> 0:14:49.760 larger endplate is higher than at the smaller endplate. So 0:14:49.800 --> 0:14:51.920 he's saying there's going to be despite the fact that 0:14:51.960 --> 0:14:54.880 it's a closed system. There's going to be greater radiation 0:14:55.000 --> 0:14:58.360 pressure on one part of this system than on the other, 0:14:58.840 --> 0:15:01.480 which if you have a pressure your differential, this should 0:15:01.520 --> 0:15:06.520 result in the thrust in. Yeah, and that's an important thing, 0:15:06.720 --> 0:15:12.000 unidirectional thrust. Right, Like you can without bracing against anything, 0:15:12.120 --> 0:15:14.520 sit in a rolling chair and rock back and forth. 0:15:16.040 --> 0:15:18.360 You know what? What But what would you need to 0:15:18.400 --> 0:15:23.960 do to generate unidirectional thrust? That's the question. And even 0:15:24.000 --> 0:15:26.000 with this description it's still I mean, if you start 0:15:26.040 --> 0:15:28.120 thinking about the laws of momentum, it still sounds pretty 0:15:28.160 --> 0:15:31.280 confusing because you're talking about a closed system. Uh, think 0:15:31.320 --> 0:15:34.440 of it as if you were in um to to 0:15:35.040 --> 0:15:39.000 macro size this to get out of the electromagnetic world. 0:15:39.280 --> 0:15:43.480 Imagine that you've got a spacecraft and it has one 0:15:43.520 --> 0:15:46.640 wall that's larger. You know, it's shaped in almost a 0:15:46.640 --> 0:15:49.960 triangular way. Where you have one and that's very wide, 0:15:49.960 --> 0:15:52.320 and one and that's that's much more narrow. They both 0:15:52.320 --> 0:15:55.400 have flat walls. And you get three quarters of your 0:15:55.440 --> 0:15:58.720 crew to line up against the wide portion and the 0:15:58.800 --> 0:16:00.880 last quarter to wine to line up on the on 0:16:00.920 --> 0:16:04.240 the the smaller portion, And tell everyone put your hands 0:16:04.240 --> 0:16:06.480 on the on the wall and push as hard as 0:16:06.480 --> 0:16:09.960 you can, you would not expect the spacecraft to move 0:16:10.120 --> 0:16:14.320 through space. Because so though Sawyer has an answer for this, Okay, 0:16:14.440 --> 0:16:16.480 So he's got a theory about why this works. And 0:16:16.520 --> 0:16:19.840 what he claims is that his device um because of 0:16:19.960 --> 0:16:24.040 relativistic considerations. That again, we're not qualified to evaluate the 0:16:24.040 --> 0:16:27.040 physics of those. Some other people who are kind of 0:16:27.080 --> 0:16:32.080 qualified do seem rather dubious. Uh, because of relativistic considerations, 0:16:32.120 --> 0:16:36.000 it's not a closed system. It's actually an open system 0:16:36.280 --> 0:16:40.040 once you've take into account these quantum physics that he's 0:16:40.080 --> 0:16:42.320 talking about. Yeah, so if you just go and look 0:16:42.320 --> 0:16:44.640 at like the fact on his website, he tries to 0:16:44.720 --> 0:16:48.720 explain it. So he says, for example, the thrust is 0:16:48.880 --> 0:16:51.880 the result of the reaction between the end plates of 0:16:51.920 --> 0:16:56.720 the wave guide and the electromagnetic wave of propagated within it. Okay. Again, 0:16:56.760 --> 0:16:59.240 while that sounds like a closed system to me, but 0:16:59.360 --> 0:17:03.440 he says it not because at the propagation velocities and 0:17:03.440 --> 0:17:07.040 this is a quote, at the propagation velocities uh, parentheses 0:17:07.160 --> 0:17:10.160 greater than one tenth the speed of light closed parentheses, 0:17:11.119 --> 0:17:15.919 the effects of special relativity must be considered. Different reference 0:17:16.040 --> 0:17:18.400 planes have to be used for the E M wave 0:17:18.840 --> 0:17:22.160 and the wave guide itself. The thruster is therefore an 0:17:22.200 --> 0:17:26.160 open system and a net force can be produced. So 0:17:26.240 --> 0:17:29.239 he's invoking relativistic physics like a like a sort of 0:17:29.240 --> 0:17:33.480 like Lorenz transformation, essentially saying that that to your your 0:17:33.560 --> 0:17:36.399 point of reference is what determines whether the system is 0:17:36.440 --> 0:17:39.680 open or closed, and that from one point of reference, 0:17:39.720 --> 0:17:41.520 it appears to be a closed system, but if you 0:17:41.640 --> 0:17:43.840 change your point of reference, it's an open system. It's 0:17:43.920 --> 0:17:47.520 very similar whenever we get into discussions about about speed 0:17:47.560 --> 0:17:51.080 and time, about how your experience of time is going 0:17:51.119 --> 0:17:53.600 to remain the same no matter how fast you're traveling, 0:17:53.680 --> 0:17:56.560 but your speed of time compared to someone else's speed 0:17:56.560 --> 0:18:00.439 of time will change, well, will appear to be different 0:18:00.520 --> 0:18:04.800 based upon your both relative speeds relative to one another. 0:18:05.520 --> 0:18:08.680 Um So, so it's one of those things where like 0:18:09.160 --> 0:18:12.920 without a further deeper understanding on my part, my first, 0:18:13.040 --> 0:18:16.960 my my knee jerk reaction, I completely admit this is 0:18:17.000 --> 0:18:20.120 based off ignorance. But my knee jerk reaction is you're 0:18:20.200 --> 0:18:22.879 using special relativity like a get on a jail free card, 0:18:23.280 --> 0:18:26.160 like like well it's only or or obi wan Kenobi 0:18:26.240 --> 0:18:28.720 would be like, well, it's only a closed system from 0:18:28.760 --> 0:18:32.160 a certain point of view. I'm like, you're gonna make 0:18:32.200 --> 0:18:34.240 me watch a prequel trilogy where I learned that you're 0:18:34.280 --> 0:18:39.479 just a big liar, Mr Obi one. Okay, So well, 0:18:39.560 --> 0:18:42.520 let's get back to where all of this sort of 0:18:42.600 --> 0:18:44.919 hype in the media has come from. Yeah, because in 0:18:44.920 --> 0:18:47.880 the past month or so, there have been so many 0:18:47.920 --> 0:18:50.560 stories in the popular media that have been talking about 0:18:50.600 --> 0:18:52.720 and that's where all of our requests came from, too, 0:18:52.800 --> 0:18:55.359 is like in the last month. Yeah, but this is 0:18:55.400 --> 0:18:58.000 not the only time this has come up. In fact, 0:18:58.119 --> 0:19:00.640 you if you go back over the year, you will 0:19:00.680 --> 0:19:03.960 see sort of a cycle of like resurgence and then 0:19:04.040 --> 0:19:10.840 dying off of M drive related hype a theory you do, Yeah, 0:19:11.119 --> 0:19:14.119 at least of the dying off part. Well, yeah, okay, 0:19:14.160 --> 0:19:17.800 So there have been times when there's some supposed new 0:19:17.800 --> 0:19:20.359 somebody comes out and says something about M drive and 0:19:20.560 --> 0:19:23.119 this may be shaw Your's M drive or any other 0:19:23.520 --> 0:19:27.199 similar form of sort of like closed microwave propulsion, right, 0:19:27.240 --> 0:19:29.360 because he's not the only person who's been working on this. 0:19:30.160 --> 0:19:34.200 They're they're very similar technologies. You might even call them parallel. 0:19:34.280 --> 0:19:37.239 That are, they're being considered and tested. But like so, 0:19:37.320 --> 0:19:39.480 let's say within the past year or so, you've seen 0:19:39.480 --> 0:19:43.160 a headline that says something like NASA confirms impossible space 0:19:43.240 --> 0:19:48.560 drive or something like that, right, Uh, that sounds exciting. Yeah, 0:19:48.760 --> 0:19:52.040 NASA confirmed it. Yeah, we like NASA. NASA does good work, 0:19:52.240 --> 0:19:55.640 I'm sure, and that is in reaction to, uh this 0:19:55.920 --> 0:20:00.119 presentation that came in July from a team out of 0:20:00.320 --> 0:20:03.280 the Johnson Space Center, which we mentioned before. Yeah, and 0:20:03.320 --> 0:20:07.680 their presentation was called, quote anomalous thrust production from an 0:20:07.800 --> 0:20:13.240 RF test device measured on a low thrust torsion pendulum 0:20:13.520 --> 0:20:19.439 rolls off the tongue and uh so the division we 0:20:19.520 --> 0:20:23.159 keep talking about this, this group within NASA has a 0:20:23.280 --> 0:20:26.800 name Eagle Works. Well that's that's a that's an unofficial name. 0:20:26.840 --> 0:20:29.520 They don't have. It's you know, based on skunk worksite, 0:20:29.560 --> 0:20:34.080 actually legal works. It's done by the folks from scrubs. 0:20:36.240 --> 0:20:40.600 I don't get that reference at all. Is NASA's Advanced 0:20:40.640 --> 0:20:44.240 Propulsion Research Group. Yeah, you could also say they're the 0:20:44.280 --> 0:20:50.800 ones who are given the amazing responsibility to investigate the 0:20:50.960 --> 0:20:58.320 least likely, most fringe, most far reaching possible hypotheses because 0:20:58.359 --> 0:21:01.640 the idea being that. Sure, a lot of these ideas 0:21:01.680 --> 0:21:03.399 that were coming up with and I'm not speaking just 0:21:03.440 --> 0:21:05.720 about the M drive. I'm talking about lots of stuff here, 0:21:05.880 --> 0:21:09.119 warp drive exactly, at warp drive and that kind of 0:21:09.440 --> 0:21:12.160 I'll mention warp drive with the M drive as well 0:21:12.200 --> 0:21:15.000 a little bit later too. But at any rate, Uh, 0:21:15.119 --> 0:21:16.960 they're they're in charge of looking at all these things 0:21:17.000 --> 0:21:22.439 because even though many of them may be extremely unlikely 0:21:22.520 --> 0:21:26.320 to ever work out, if one of them does, we 0:21:26.560 --> 0:21:30.400 definitely want to get in on that. So right, well, 0:21:30.440 --> 0:21:34.040 I mean, you can understand why people might be excited 0:21:34.080 --> 0:21:37.879 about this if there is a test that seems to indicate, oh, 0:21:38.119 --> 0:21:42.640 maybe you could generate thrust without ejecting mass. I mean, 0:21:42.720 --> 0:21:47.160 propellantless drive would revolutionize space dravel would be It would 0:21:47.200 --> 0:21:51.359 wreck physics departments across the world too. I mean you 0:21:51.400 --> 0:21:53.960 would you would have to rewrite the books on physics. 0:21:54.040 --> 0:21:55.960 You would have to at least sit there and say, 0:21:56.119 --> 0:21:59.680 all right, for your basic classical system this holds true. 0:21:59.800 --> 0:22:03.720 But in these cases addendum to classical physics and we'll 0:22:03.720 --> 0:22:05.720 actually talk about that at the end of this episode, 0:22:05.720 --> 0:22:08.800 Like what this means, Yeah, yeah, sure, okay, but but 0:22:08.880 --> 0:22:15.119 so in this July uh paper, I believe it was 0:22:15.119 --> 0:22:18.880 a conference presentation, conference presentation. Yes, yes, now that's totally correct. Um. 0:22:18.920 --> 0:22:22.959 The group leader of Eagle Works one Dr Harold Sonny White, 0:22:23.320 --> 0:22:27.320 proposed that the M drive should in fact be able 0:22:27.359 --> 0:22:33.520 to provide thrust because the quantum vacuum. They're giant quotation 0:22:33.560 --> 0:22:36.639 marks around that, y'all. The quantum vacuum should function the 0:22:36.680 --> 0:22:39.960 same way that propellant ions do in a magneto hydro 0:22:40.080 --> 0:22:44.119 dynamics drive. So let's unpack all of this just a 0:22:44.119 --> 0:22:48.359 little bit. No idea what hydro dynamics drive is, Well, 0:22:48.400 --> 0:22:50.400 it has something to do with the leader of the 0:22:50.520 --> 0:22:53.840 League of Evil Mutants, right, Welcome to Die, right, And 0:22:53.880 --> 0:22:56.679 then apparently one of the Spider Man villains is in 0:22:56.720 --> 0:23:01.240 there too, with Hydroman there, and so obviously the comic 0:23:01.280 --> 0:23:04.280 book villains are are are deep and NASA is what 0:23:04.320 --> 0:23:06.840 we're getting into. Lauren, can you explain this? Did you 0:23:06.880 --> 0:23:08.760 look this up? I can? I can explain this a 0:23:08.800 --> 0:23:11.840 little bit. Okay, So, so quantum vacuum. Quantum vacuum is 0:23:11.880 --> 0:23:14.200 the term for the concept that the vacuum of space 0:23:14.280 --> 0:23:18.400 is not empty, but rather is is filled with like 0:23:18.600 --> 0:23:23.840 Heisenberg uncertainty related virtual particles and photons that simultaneously exist 0:23:23.880 --> 0:23:27.440