In science fiction movies, we often see that the protagonist can travel through time and space at will, reach any time line and space line, and change the direction of the past and the future, but now we already know that this is impossible in reality, because to travel through time and space, the speed must first reach the speed of light to break this barrier, but with the current technology of human beings, it is absolutely impossible to achieve. But not to reach does not mean that it is impossible, on the earth on the earth there is this person, research rockets, landing on the moon, and even landing on Mars, all cutting-edge technology almost must be realized in his hands, that is Musk, and the speed of light is also his goal!
Shocking to say, Musk plans to build an engine that can accelerate to 99 percent of the speed of light without the need for propellant. It sounds like a plot from a sci-fi movie, but it's not. That's exactly what one of NASA's engineers is developing and claims is the product of breaking the laws of physics. This evocative proposal has caused many people to argue, and people wonder if these engines work without propellant, then what exactly is the fuel for moving forward? Most importantly, will humans be able to go into space in a vehicle with an engine as a propeller?
As scientists say, distance is a major problem for space travel, space is so big that even if we travel at the maximum speed the universe allows, it will take years to reach the nearest neighboring star. But even at its maximum speed, humans can't reach it. David Burns, an engineer from NASA, came up with the idea of an engine that he claimed could accelerate the speed of light to 99 percent without the use of propellant. He has uploaded it to NASA's technical reporting server, titled "Spiral Engine," and implemented this seemingly impossible theory by taking advantage of the mass changing in a vacuum at relativistic speeds close to the speed of light!
Is it hard to imagine that this kind of engine will break the rules of physics in some way? But before that, NASA had introduced the concept of electromagnetic drive, also known as M drive. Electromagnetic drive is NASA's first attempt to build an engine capable of flying faster than the speed of light, so what is electromagnetic drive all about? First introduced in 2001 by British Chartered Electrical Engineer Roger Xavier, who has 48 years of experience in the aerospace and defence industry, electromagnetic drives are an RF resonant cavity thruster concept that acts primarily as a spacecraft thruster. It allegedly generates thrust through internally reflected microwaves, violating the law of conservation of momentum and other physical principles.
Regarding electromagnetic drives, the media often refers to this device as an "impossible drive" because it exceeds the limits of known physics, and some scientists believe that it is the product of the interaction of vacuum energy in the space quantum age, but the vacuum energy of the space quantum age cannot push anything unless we break the concept of momentum, that is, this is a completely new physical form, as the m-drive test announced, the device has no official design, The people who claim to have developed it also did not commit to explaining how it came to be, merely as a function of a thruster or as an element that makes up a thruster.
Scientists can't determine which particular object is an example of such a device, and NASA's Advanced Propulsion Physics Laboratory reported that a small, apparent form of thrust was observed in one such experiment in 2016. The results have not been seen since. Follow-up studies have shown that the thrust observed was a measurement error caused by a 2021 scientist at the Dresden University of Technology who interacted with the Earth's magnetic field in March, which means that the results at that time were just a coincidence. So how exactly does the spiral engine work?
In the spiral engine, researcher Burns gave the example of a box in which one of the weights is strung together in a line and a spring at the other end is used to bounce the weights back and forth, which makes the entire box look stationary as the weights shake, like a tripod is stabilized around the weight, and the box will continue to swing in the same position. However, if the weight increases in only one direction, it will produce stronger thrust in that direction.
But according to the concept of conservation of momentum, this is not feasible. Einstein's special theory of relativity states that when objects are driven to the speed of light, they acquire enormous masses, an effect that must be taken into account in particle accelerators. A simple implementation of burns' concept is to place a ring in a ring particle accelerator in which ions rapidly accelerate to relativistic speed in one stroke and decelerate in another, but Burns proposes a more reasonable approach, which would be to ditch boxes and rods and use particle accelerators for lateral and circular motion, in which case the accelerator needs to be shaped like a spiral, but with a defect in special relativity.
According to special relativity, objects increase mass as they approach the speed of light. The spiral engine, on the other hand, is not a single closed cycle, it is spiral-shaped, like a stretched spring, which is why it is called a spiral engine. The engine accelerates the ions confined to the cycle to a medium relativistic speed, then changes their velocity so that their mass changes slightly, and then the engine can move the ions back and forth along the direction of motion to generate thrust. But according to the scientists, the spiral chamber must be quite large to be precise, it must be at least 200 meters long and have a diameter of 12 meters long, and it also needs 165 megawatts of energy to produce a Newton's thrust, which is the force required to accelerate a kilogram of mass/s square, equivalent to a power plant, and to propel this engine may require the energy of all mankind, which is obviously impossible on Earth.
However, with the development of aerospace technology, I believe that in the future there may be an engine that is faster than light, and all our science fiction fantasies may become scientific facts in a clear fast orbit, so do you think the screw engine will succeed? Feel free to leave your thoughts!