New Russian reactionless spacecraft engine

On Feb 18, 9:12*am, Pat Flannery wrote:


"The movement takes place as a liquid or solid body moves on a
tornado-shaped trajectory."

EmDrive of some sort?:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EmDrive


Well, they describe it as a magnetism-based perpetual motion machine:
http://english.pravda.ru/science/tec...n_scientists-0
.. Not encouraging, to say the least.

I guess it's vaguely possible that they've come up with a way to react
against the earth's magnetic field for other than attitude control,
but I wouldn't put any money on it. Anyway, historical orbital
elements are available for the satellite (NORAD 32953) on Space Track,
so it should be possible to check to see if it's done any unusual
maneuvering.

http://english.pravda.ru/science/tec...o_satellites-0
I don't have a clue what they are talking about.

"Specialists of the Russian Research Center for Space Systems are
completing the tests of a unique engine based on new physical principles
to obtain propulsive power, Itar-Tass reports.
The engine, which does not emit reaction mass, was installed at
Yubileiny satellite, which was launched into orbit in May of 2008. The
engine, which operates both autonomously and remotely, allows the
satellite to move from one orbit to another."

"The movement takes place as a liquid or solid body moves on a
tornado-shaped trajectory."

EmDrive of some sort?: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EmDrive

Pat

On Feb 18, 9:52*am, " wrote:
On Feb 18, 9:12*am, Pat Flannery wrote:

"The movement takes place as a liquid or solid body moves on a
tornado-shaped trajectory."

EmDrive of some sort?:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EmDrive

Well, they describe it as a magnetism-based perpetual motion machine:http://english.pravda.ru/science/tec...-Russian_scien...
. Not encouraging, to say the least.

I guess it's vaguely possible that they've come up with a way to react
against the earth's magnetic field for other than attitude control,
but I wouldn't put any money on it. *Anyway, historical orbital
elements are available for the satellite (NORAD 32953) on Space Track,
so it should be possible to check to see if it's done any unusual
maneuvering.

I'd say it is a current loop that wants to align with the earths field
somehow.

wrote:

I guess it's vaguely possible that they've come up with a way to react
against the earth's magnetic field for other than attitude control,
but I wouldn't put any money on it.

IIRC, that technique has been used for decades for satellite
stabilization, if not propulsion.

Anyway, historical orbital
elements are available for the satellite (NORAD 32953) on Space Track,
so it should be possible to check to see if it's done any unusual
maneuvering.

I saw those this morning when I did a Google search under the
satellite's name, it doesn't appear to have done much.
Their description of tornado-like motion reminds me of this nutty thing:
http://jnaudin.free.fr/html/vtxtech.htm
....and trying to play around with crazy German flying saucer technology
sounds exactly like something Russians would try.

Pat

On Feb 18, 1:04*pm, Pat Flannery wrote:
wrote:

I guess it's vaguely possible that they've come up with a way to react
against the earth's magnetic field for other than attitude control,
but I wouldn't put any money on it.

IIRC, that technique has been used for decades for satellite
stabilization, if not propulsion.

Anyway, historical orbital
elements are available for the satellite (NORAD 32953) on Space Track,
so it should be possible to check to see if it's done any unusual
maneuvering.

I saw those this morning when I did a Google search under the
satellite's name, it doesn't appear to have done much.
Their description of tornado-like motion reminds me of this nutty thing:http://jnaudin.free.fr/html/vtxtech.htm
...and trying to play around with crazy German flying saucer technology
sounds exactly like something Russians would try.

Pat

I do not see much too strange about this. Consider the force on a
current loop to be F=qVXB (note X is the cross product of vector
quantites V and B) and you see via the right hand rule that there is a
force on a current loop if the loop is angled wrt the field direction.
Yes, the force is small which would explain why they discuss small
satellites and the right hand rule might explain the weird reference
to "tornado motion" and would explain why they use a battery (to
provide current).

Frogwatch wrote:

I do not see much too strange about this. Consider the force on a
current loop to be F=qVXB (note X is the cross product of vector
quantites V and B) and you see via the right hand rule that there is a
force on a current loop if the loop is angled wrt the field direction.
Yes, the force is small which would explain why they discuss small
satellites and the right hand rule might explain the weird reference
to "tornado motion" and would explain why they use a battery (to
provide current).

Yeah, but they say that this somehow involves gas or liquid, not just
electricity.
Anyway, it's from Pravda ("Where The Truth Hurts") which has many
"interesting" science articles, like Martian life coming from Earth soil
that was tossed into space during the Biblical Flood:
http://english.pravda.ru/science/tec...34-life_mars-0

Pat

Pat Flannery wrote:

http://english.pravda.ru/science/tec...o_satellites-0
I don't have a clue what they are talking about.

Pravda means "truth", apparently, and the name of the other major Soviet
news organ, Izvestia, means "news". Hence the Soviet joke that "there's
no news in the truth, and no truth in the news".

Fevric J. Glandules wrote:
Pat Flannery wrote:

http://english.pravda.ru/science/tec...o_satellites-0
I don't have a clue what they are talking about.

Pravda means "truth", apparently, and the name of the other major Soviet
news organ, Izvestia, means "news". Hence the Soviet joke that "there's
no news in the truth, and no truth in the news".

Pravda has actually gotten a bit more respectable over the past few
years. Right after the Soviet Union fell and it went under new
management, it could put The Weekly World News to shame as far as its
hilarious stories went.
One of my favorite parts are the great "sex education" stories that
explain things about women to Russian men; generally to beware of them
as they might do horrible things at any moment due to their insatiable
libidos...and low intelligence during most of the month.
http://english.pravda.ru/society/sto...emale_spider-0
http://english.pravda.ru/society/sto.../75022-women-0
http://english.pravda.ru/society/sex...101843-women-0

Pat

"Frogwatch" wrote in message
...


I do not see much too strange about this. Consider the force on a
current loop to be F=qVXB (note X is the cross product of vector
quantites V and B) and you see via the right hand rule

I'm probably one of the few people who missed the question on
the right hand thumb rule on my physics final because I'm
.....left-handed. Not kidding!


that there is a
force on a current loop if the loop is angled wrt the field direction.
Yes, the force is small which would explain why they discuss small
satellites and the right hand rule might explain the weird reference
to "tornado motion" and would explain why they use a battery (to
provide current).


Electromagnetic fields can carry momentum and energy according
to the link below, so that wouldn't be technically considered a
reactionless drive, even if there's no expelling of conventional
reaction mass. Such as tether propulsion.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrodynamic_tether

A reactionless drive that doesn't transfer momentum would violate
the law of conservation and the principle of relativity. It would mean
the concept of momentum is dependent on the observer.

This is probably the result of some Russian snake oil salesman that
managed to fool his way into a contract with something like the old
oscillation thruster. Works fine as a reactionless thruster
right up until the point it gets into a vacuum.
http://jnaudin.free.fr/html/hbimp35.htm

NASA studied this issue, and they said.....NYET!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham...ki_controversy





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What's wrong with rockets?

MEMS based rockets are quite efficient. With a 1,000 to 1 thrust to
weight ratio, and 4.5 km/sec exhaust speed, and an 8% structural
fraction, a three stage liquid oxygen, liquid hydrogen rocket capable
of putting 1,000 metric tons into LEO has the following weight
breakdown.

1000 tons payload

Stage 3:
108 tons - structure
192.86 tons - hydrogen
2,755.10 m3 - hydrogen
1,157.14 tons - oxygen
1,051.95 m3 - oxygen
19.37 m diameter sphere -

Stage 2:
253.80 tons - structure
453.21 tons - hydrogen
6,474.49 m3 - hydrogen
2,719.29 tons - oxygen
2,472.08 m3 - oxygen
25.76 m diameter sphere

Stage 1:
596.43 tons - structure
1,065.05 tons - hydrogen
15,215.05 m3 - hydrogen
6,390.32 tons - oxygen
5,605.55 m3 - oxygen
34.13 m diameter sphere

This same vehicle, carrying 150 tons (6x the capacity of the space
shuttle) can fly it to the moon and return it safely to Earth on a
direct ascent trajectory.

Stage 1: 3.8 km/sec
Stage 2: 4.5 km/sec 8.3 km/sec total
Stage 3: 8.2 km/sec 16.5 km/sec total

Off loading 100 tons of payload on the moon (one way) lets 200 tons to
be launched, and 100 tons to be returned. Alternatively 320 tons can
be sent one way to the moon with only the vehicle returned.

Over 500 tons can be sent to GEO with the empty vehicle returned.

A fleet of five vehicles can be built for $20 billion - and two
flights per month can be sent to the moon. Or two powersats could be
launched. Or 48 comsats per month. and so forth.

Each of the fleet of five are capable of 200 flights - so, the fleet
is capable of 1,000 launches. A two per month this is 500 months - 42
years - of operations.

This is a cost of $20 million per launch - for hardware. Another $5
million per launch recurring costs. This is $1 million per ton on the
moon. At 100 kilos per person this is $100,000 per person - and
another $100,000 per month.

600 tons per month is 7,200 tons per year - and this fleet could
sustain 7,200 people on the moon, since people consume about 1 ton per
year.

So, a program with $1 billion per month would take less than two years
to build the fleet, and operate it for 43 years - building a lunar
base for 7,500 people in another two years - and operating it for 40
years.

A satellite network that made $84 billion per year - would support the
construction and operation of a fleet of 35 vehicles. This system
would fly a vehicle once every eight ours - and support a town of
50,000 people on the moon indefinitely.

A power satellite network that made $2,400 billion per year would
build and operate a fleet of 1,000 launchers of this type which would
support one flight every 50 minutes. This would support a city of
1,500,000 people on the moon.

At this point, we'd reach independent sustainability. Lowering the
demand from Earth from 1 ton per person per year to 100 kilos per
person per year - assuming that water is found on the moon, and that
local agriculture arises - then the fleet without any improvements
whatever supports 15,000,000 people.

Of course, increasing launch rates, increasing number of launches per
vehicle, and lowering launch costs, also provide improved performance
and greater numbers of people.

A laser rocket with a 5,000 sec Isp (50 km/sec) combined with a laser
light sail with infinite Isp - powered by a 90 GW solar pumped laser
orbiting near the sun - provides a substantial improvement over this
situation.

The same 150 tons payload is lofted to the moon and back by a 367.3
metric ton force rocket (3.6 MN) lifting a 273.8 metric ton spacecraft
at lift off consisting of 41.0 metric tons of structure and 82.8
metric tons of inert propellant - a shaped plastic like delrin.

The ship is equipped with a highly reflective laser light sail that
allows it to operate without propellant - and maintain a constant 1
gee acceleration in transit after lift off. This lets it make it to
the moon 3 hr and 20 min.

So a single ship can fly to the moon 3x per day - carrying 150 tons
each time - 450 tons per day per ship. With 1,000 ships 450,000 tons
per day can be flown to the moon. At 1 ton per person per year - this
supports a population of 164 million on the moon. A 100 kilos per
person per year - a population of 1.6 billion can be supported on the
moon.

These same ships can fly to Mars in 2 to 6 days depending on the time
of the year. WIth a 1 day turn around this is two flights per week
per ship on average. This is 2,000 flights per week, 100,000 flights
per year, with 1000 ships. 150 tons per flight is 15 million tons
per year - which supports 15 million people on Mars, and with 100
kilos per person per year - 150 million on Mars with just a fleet of
small ships.

So this shows the importance of flight rate.

Increasing the size of ships - and their payloads - increases
populations as well. A fleet of 1,000 ships capable of carrying 1,000
tons each - at these flight rates, can support the entire population
of Earth off-world.

A fleet of 10,000 ships each capable of carrying 10,000 tons across
the solar system (and these are very small ships by ocean standards)
opens the solar system to human industry.

Rockets, Laser Rockets, and Laser Light Sails, if built rightly and
flown at an appropriate rate - are sufficient to our needs.

Space travel is not a technical problem for we have the technology we
need to open the solar system. Space travel is an emotional problem.