The EmDrive just won't die

Re:The EmDrive just won't die by elcritch on Sunday September 13, 2020 @12:35PM (#24461990)

Yah that'll only require a few gigawatts. Or terrawatts? But if there is an unknown effect hopefully we can figure it out and refine it. Like with blackbody radiation it might be only incidentally overlapping a new effect.

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Re:The EmDrive just won't die by jsjohnst on Sunday September 13, 2020 @05:07PM (#24463951)

Falcon 9’s engines combined produce ~7,500,000,000 millinewtons of force (at sea level) per SpaceX’s website (converted from their figure of 1.7M lb/foot of force).

So doing some napkin math with the article’s 12mN/kW, that’s close to a terawatt. For reference, I think worldwide electrical power generation capacity is around 10x that.

edit: made the math more explicit due to child comments and fixed spelling error

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Re:The EmDrive just won't die by robocat on Sunday September 13, 2020 @06:25PM (#24464444)

I think your calculations must be out.

The work achieved (lifting some tons of rocket) is orders of magnitude less work than the power extracted from falling water (hydro, thousands of tons per second).

And the heat output of burning hydrocarbons and nuclear reactions worldwide were concentrated into a few rocket nozzles, that would be rather mind boggling!

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Re:The EmDrive just won't die by ouid on Sunday September 13, 2020 @07:40PM (#24464886)

For the record, the saturn V rockets operated at 120GW. Which is also close to a terawatt.

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Re:The EmDrive just won't die by jsjohnst on Sunday September 13, 2020 @06:39PM (#24464528)

Read the two comments (one I replied to and the one it relied to) for context. My comment wasn’t intended to be free standing on its own.

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Re:The EmDrive just won't die by Aeolun on Sunday September 13, 2020 @08:10PM (#24465122)

If you don’t need all the falcon’s fuel, you don’t need nearly as much thrust either.

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Re:The EmDrive just won't die by anamexis on Sunday September 13, 2020 @08:21PM (#24465223)

Sure, just something that can generate a terawatt of power.

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Re:The EmDrive just won't die by jsjohnst on Sunday September 13, 2020 @09:43PM (#24465858)

Cold fusion maybe?

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Re:The EmDrive just won't die by SteveNuts on Sunday September 13, 2020 @10:18PM (#24466100)

Does Adobe even still support that?

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Re:The EmDrive just won't die by jsjohnst on Sunday September 13, 2020 @11:02PM (#24466330)

25th anniversary edition in fact...

https://www.adobe.com/products/coldfusion-family.html

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Re:The EmDrive just won't die by DaiPlusPlus on Sunday September 13, 2020 @06:17PM (#24464391)

7,500,000,000 millinewtons = 7.500 Meganewtons

1 Watt = 1 Newton-meter/second

You're missing some values.

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Re:The EmDrive just won't die by tremon on Sunday September 13, 2020 @06:36PM (#24464514)

The missing value would be the 12mN/kW that the top post opened with. Getting 7.5 MN output thrust with that conversion ratio requires 625GW of input power.

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Re:The EmDrive just won't die by jsjohnst on Sunday September 13, 2020 @06:54PM (#24464619)

Exactly! To belabor the point further, the Falcon Heavy would be around 2 terawatts and the Saturn V would be around 3 terawatts by comparison.

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Re:The EmDrive just won't die by moron4hire on Sunday September 13, 2020 @06:42PM (#24464540)

Maybe it will require 1.21 gigawatts and travel through time.

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