New NASA report: Eagleworks Lab

  • Thread starter Thread starter d3mm
  • Start date Start date
  • Tags Tags
    Lab Nasa Report
AI Thread Summary
NASA's Eagleworks Lab is focused on developing advanced propulsion technologies to facilitate human exploration of the solar system and potentially interstellar travel by the end of the century. The lab will begin with a low-thrust torsion pendulum and utilize a Quantum Vacuum Plasma Thruster, eventually incorporating an interferometer to test theoretical concepts like Alcubierre's warp drive. If successful, these technologies could enable significant advancements in space travel, such as 400kW solar electric propulsion missions to Mars and 2MW power levels for one-year trips to Neptune. The discussion highlights skepticism about the lab's speculative nature and the slow pace of innovation within NASA. Despite the challenges, the pursuit of groundbreaking technologies remains crucial for future space exploration.
d3mm
Messages
140
Reaction score
1
NASA's current report on their EAGLEWORKS lab for spacecraft propulsion

http://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?R=2...matchallpartial%20&Ntk=All&N=0&Ntt=eagleworks
NASA/JSC is implementing an advanced propulsion physics laboratory, informally known as Eagleworks", to pursue propulsion technologies necessary to enable human exploration of the solar system over the next 50 years, and enabling interstellar spaceflight by the end of the century... The lab will first implement a low-thrust torsion pendulum (<1 uN), and commission the facility with an existing Quantum Vacuum Plasma Thruster. The lab will eventually incorporate an interferometer to be used to measure York Time effects of test devices (expansion/contraction of space) [test Alcubierre's warp drive effect] ... . If the physics and engineering models can be explored and understood in the lab to allow scaling to power levels pertinent for human spaceflight, 400kW SEP human missions to Mars may become a possibility, and at power levels of 2MW, 1-year transit to Neptune may also be possible

The actual PDF is here: http://hdl.handle.net/2060/20110023492

EDIT: A mod might want to consider moving this to the BtSM section. It's discussing both Alcubierre's warp drive paper, and a plasma engine using the vacuum energy as both power source and reaction mass.
 
Last edited:
Physics news on Phys.org
140 views and ZERO comments on this forum. This confirms my suspicion: Something inside NASA is broken but everyone loves them too much to call them out!
 
It is highly speculative - so what? Several new things were thought to be impossible before.
Bose-Einstein condensates were pure theory for 70 years, lasers/masers for 30-40 years.
The concept of the alcubierre drive is less than 20 years old.
They don't build a spacecraft there. They look for very small effects which could appear in the experiment.
 

Thread 'Is calling fictitious forces "not real" just about terminology?'

Hi there, im studying nanoscience at the university in Basel. Today I looked at the topic of intertial and non-inertial reference frames and the existence of fictitious forces. I understand that you call forces real in physics if they appear in interplay. Meaning that a force is real when there is the "actio" partner to the "reactio" partner. If this condition is not satisfied the force is not real. I also understand that if you specifically look at non-inertial reference frames you can...
View full post »

Thread 'Derivation of Hamilton's Principle: Questions'

I have recently been really interested in the derivation of Hamiltons Principle. On my research I found that with the term ##m \cdot \frac{d}{dt} (\frac{dr}{dt} \cdot \delta r) = 0## (1) one may derivate ##\delta \int (T - V) dt = 0## (2). The derivation itself I understood quiet good, but what I don't understand is where the equation (1) came from, because in my research it was just given and not derived from anywhere. Does anybody know where (1) comes from or why from it the...
View full post »

Hot Threads

Recent Insights

Back
Top