83 points
*

Any time I hear claims that involve hitherto unknown laws of Physics I’m 99.99% sure I’m dealing with BS - but then again, some day someone will probably genuinely pull off such a discovery.

permalink
report
reply
47 points

I’m gonna go out on a limb here and guess that NASA has physicists that understand how and why this thing works, and the article title is just bullshit.

permalink
report
parent
reply
1 point

Ion propulsion.

permalink
report
parent
reply
26 points

This can’t be ion propulsion because ion propulsion involves a propellant – the ions.

permalink
report
parent
reply
67 points

they do, and tested it extensively… and determined it doesn’t provide any thrust and the earlier tests that showed a tiny bit were just sensors malfunctioning from the microwaves…
i’m going go ahead and call this article:
probably bullshit

permalink
report
parent
reply
27 points

Are you sure? What you say is true of the EM drive, but this looks like it’s a completely different technology. As far as the article is written, it doesn’t sound like microwaves are used at all.

What has me skeptical is that they say the device produces enough thrust to counteract its own mass, which would be revolutionary. Why are we not reading about this all over the news?

permalink
report
parent
reply
10 points

it would be so cool though… a new force…

permalink
report
parent
reply
1 point

are you telling me this sucker runs on midichlorians?

permalink
report
parent
reply
3 points

i’m pretty sure it runs on flux capacitance

permalink
report
parent
reply
2 points

I mean, if there was any I would trust on physics NASA is pretty high up there

permalink
report
parent
reply
3 points
*

This wasn’t NASA, though. This was a sci-fi writer, writing about a putative claim by someone who got paid by NASA at some point in the past.

Ditto for the couple ex-CIA guys that claim there’s alien dissections or whatever. Big organizations inevitably employ all sorts.

permalink
report
parent
reply
4 points

It’s very likely, but it’s almost certainly going to involve an extreme thing we can barely measure. The whole reason physics is stuck where it is is that all the things we have access to are described perfectly by the system we have, even if it’s not fully self-consistent.

permalink
report
parent
reply
38 points
*

a NASA veteran claims their Propellantless Propulsion Drive, that physics says shouldn’t work, just produced enough thrust to overcome Earth’s gravity

What’s that? No replication? Not even peer reviewed? Fuck are we reporting on it for, then? It’s giving “alien spheroids from deep space” that will later turn out to match terran iron to a 99.9999% level of accuracy energy; and that’s not a good look

Dr. Charles Buhler, a NASA engineer and the co-founder of Exodus Propulsion Technologies

That smells even worse. Company’s a year old and all I can reliably find on it is a company profile on “Corporation Wiki”; no website, no real information on them, but this company just apparently cracked physics. Lmao okay. This is a grift for a coming IPO, I’d bet my left leg on it.

IF anyone else can replicate these findings, he might be onto something-- but with how many outright scams PhD’s have tried pushing in the last four years regarding exotic sciences, I don’t… Believe shit out of this sector without the actual rigors of the Method being applied to what people are flapping their jaws about.

permalink
report
reply
7 points
*

steve from accounting said it worked though

permalink
report
parent
reply
2 points
*

Steve from Accounting is a prick who thinks it’s okay to microwave his fish in the break room come lunchtime, I’d need a double-check and a second opinion if Steve from Accounting told me the sky was blue.

permalink
report
parent
reply
4 points

You know, if the break room was actually ventilated for heating food, the microwaved fish smell wouldn’t be an issue.

But corporate couldn’t be arsed actually providing a suitable environment, tale as old as corporations…

permalink
report
parent
reply
2 points

He even has 5 YT video links that can explain it!

permalink
report
parent
reply
2 points
*

Best Lemmy World post: “I put this article through an AI generator and it made this image, here’s a description I made with ChatGPT” 🤓☝

Worst Lemmy Grad post:

permalink
report
parent
reply
2 points
*

The hilarious irony about this is that I actually made a theoretical framework for how such a drive could be possible and then was shocked as shit when I found out their solution was magical time travelling particles. Like even they knew it was complete and utter bullshit.

permalink
report
parent
reply
3 points

They did this on Mythbusters in small scale years ago and the science of it is fascinating.

I don’t think it would do much to break orbit, but once IN space it could be interesting.

https://youtu.be/UCiU96rJJoo

This is what they were testing:

https://youtu.be/006d36WWyaQ

You take a lightweight balsawood frame, wrap it in tinfoil and lightweight wire, then pump high voltages through it.

https://hackaday.com/2016/07/13/expanding-horizons-with-the-ion-propelled-lifter/

permalink
report
reply
32 points

Note that what the mythbusters looked at was a form of ion propulsion. The high voltage on the sharp boundary of the aluminum foil repels air molecules. If you put one of those in a vacuum (or space) it wouldn’t have any thrust.

permalink
report
parent
reply
3 points

If you put one of those in a vacuum (or space) it wouldn’t have any thrust.

IIRC, the MythBusters did exactly that later in the episode. Unsurprisdngly, the devices produced no thrust in a vacuum chamber.

permalink
report
parent
reply
16 points

That isn’t propellant-less. The propellant is air, and in space where there is no atmosphere they typically use xeon gas

permalink
report
parent
reply
7 points

Me reading this article and hearing the opening them to Star Trek in the background the whole time…

permalink
report
reply
14 points

It’s been a long road …

permalink
report
parent
reply
2 points

Which theme?

permalink
report
parent
reply

Community stats

  • 2.8K

    Monthly active users

  • 1.1K

    Posts

  • 7.3K

    Comments