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Ragnoros
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Reply #175 on: August 01, 2014, 02:09:11 PM

First ion-thrusters and now this. Man, the future is turning out to be boring. Bring on the space orcs! (And hot space elves!)

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Simond
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Reply #176 on: August 08, 2014, 04:12:17 PM

More information: http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-08/07/10-qs-about-nasa-impossible-drive

If this is real (massive, planet-sized 'if'), this is quite possibly the biggest breakthrough in space travel since Robert Goddard went "Hmm, that H. G. Wells had some interesting ideas. I wonder...."

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Reply #177 on: August 08, 2014, 06:47:13 PM

Not just space flight but physics and terrestrial production and consumer goods.

Quote
7. What's this about hoverboards and flying cars?

A superconducting version of the EmDrive, would, in principle, generate thousands of times more thrust. And because it does not require energy just to hold things up (just as a chair does not require power to keep you off the ground), in theory you could have a hoverboard which does not require energy to float in the air.

It's so awesome I expect it to be a hiccup and we discover, nope, sorry didn't work after all. It's mindbending if accurate.

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Reply #178 on: August 08, 2014, 09:28:09 PM

If that less conservative estimate of the drive taking only 28 days to reach Mars turns out to be true... fuck me. That's just astounding. Even the 8 month trip is something special.

jakonovski
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Reply #179 on: August 09, 2014, 01:17:44 AM

I'm fully expecting this to be a breakthrough that falls through on funding, because flinging shit on this mudball is preferrable to those in power.
Teleku
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Reply #180 on: August 09, 2014, 04:07:11 AM

Pitch the idea of robotic hover tanks to the pentagon.  Plenty of funding will then be forthcoming!

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MahrinSkel
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Reply #181 on: August 09, 2014, 07:11:10 AM

Not just space flight but physics and terrestrial production and consumer goods.

Quote
7. What's this about hoverboards and flying cars?

A superconducting version of the EmDrive, would, in principle, generate thousands of times more thrust. And because it does not require energy just to hold things up (just as a chair does not require power to keep you off the ground), in theory you could have a hoverboard which does not require energy to float in the air.

It's so awesome I expect it to be a hiccup and we discover, nope, sorry didn't work after all. It's mindbending if accurate.
Superconducting magnets already do some weird levitation shit, so that's actually less of a violation of the laws of physics than reactionless thrusters.  You'd have to put in energy to raise or lower the hoverboard, and gravitational anomalies too small to mean much otherwise could cause some odd behavior.  Tides might get involved too, it might be a way to tap "tidal" energy without all that annoying saltwater.

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MahrinSkel
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Reply #182 on: August 09, 2014, 07:17:38 AM

If that less conservative estimate of the drive taking only 28 days to reach Mars turns out to be true... fuck me. That's just astounding. Even the 8 month trip is something special.
Constant thrust with no reaction mass is a game changer, even if it's only trivial amounts of thrust.  As little as 1/1000th of a G opens up the whole solar system for those pesky Belters.  Moving asteroids safely (barring nefarious intent) becomes a straightforward engineering problem.

Niven did an article about this back in the 70's, essentially even ion drives can't do it beyond very special cases, but a reactionless thruster can do it on solar power alone, given enough time.

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Morat20
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Reply #183 on: August 10, 2014, 09:17:22 AM

I think they were predicting a full sized one would be ion-drive power or better.

I can understand why NASA held off even testing it (and their tests were just 'we saw X'--- no analysis or hype. They're not getting burned until they're 100% sure, and seen other labs try it out).

There is a bit of incorrect information flowing around -- people are claiming the null case worked (basically the one with NO drive attached) which would indicate some sort of instrumentation problem or fraud, however that's not correct. Apparently the drive was not fully removed when that was seen. The true null test -- with the entire drive portion removed -- did exactly what you'd expect. nothing.

But yeah, fuel-less propulsion? The universe opens up. You're dropping somewhere between half and 99% of the mass you need to go anywhere. (Of course, getting off Earth is still a bitch).
Torinak
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Reply #184 on: August 10, 2014, 02:31:46 PM

I think they were predicting a full sized one would be ion-drive power or better.

I can understand why NASA held off even testing it (and their tests were just 'we saw X'--- no analysis or hype. They're not getting burned until they're 100% sure, and seen other labs try it out).

There is a bit of incorrect information flowing around -- people are claiming the null case worked (basically the one with NO drive attached) which would indicate some sort of instrumentation problem or fraud, however that's not correct. Apparently the drive was not fully removed when that was seen. The true null test -- with the entire drive portion removed -- did exactly what you'd expect. nothing.

But yeah, fuel-less propulsion? The universe opens up. You're dropping somewhere between half and 99% of the mass you need to go anywhere. (Of course, getting off Earth is still a bitch).

I'm sure they can power it with their cold fusion power plants.

The more I read, the more this sounds like a classic combination of crackpot and wishful thinking. Invocations of overturning relativity (usually the #1 crackpot claim), quantum mumble-mumble with superconductors making it powerful enough for hoverboards (even though there's no indication that the actual unknown mechanism would be altered by superconductivity), asserting that the invention was "proven by NASA" and omitting that it was actually done by a tiny group who happens to work with NASA and which has a bit of a reputation for being overly excitable, some pretty major flaws in the experimental methodology (testing a device in a vacuum chamber without actually evacuating the air?), an invention that would essentially overthrow most of Newtonian (and modern) physics created by a salesman with no scientific background, and a device that just happens to be able to generate more thrust than is theoretically possible without getting "free energy".

This is one of those "inventions" that, if it's real, is pretty much the biggest breakthrough in physics in a hundred years. Like, "Remember your college physics textbook? Everything after chapter 3 is wrong".

Or, it's bogus.
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Reply #185 on: August 10, 2014, 03:31:26 PM

If there was air in the vacuum temperature then there's an easy explanation: heat. Heat up the air inside the bulb by running electricity through it and, when it expands, it creates a little bit of thrust out the back of the bulb.

All this hype will almost certainly generate a test under proper, controlled conditions and it will show that the laws of physics are, in fact, just as accurate and complete as they were before the experiment.

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Reply #186 on: August 10, 2014, 03:52:06 PM

Torinak:

Actually, they're not claiming anything new. It's based on the same principles as the Casimir effect (virtual pair particle production) which has been proven for, well, decades.

It's not rewriting physics at all, although I'm a bit dubious that it actually works. (Power-wise, solar cells or RTG's would be plenty). I mean, heck, NASA has a guy with a  model for a warp drive that doesn't violate modern physics (seriously. FTL travel that Einstein is fine with. Just need a ton of anti-matter for starters...Also, you can't steer. I'm not sure you can stop either. I don't even want to know what happens to what you hit...)


Anyways, the whole "probably something unaccounted for" is everyone's basic belief (sorta like the Voyager thing), but NASA finally got involved to generate some independent data, which is nice. It'll either put the nail in it or verify it, because once NASA's willing to test it (even if they refuse to do more than provide measurements) other people will test it.

And there's lots of people happy to figure out how it's wrong and I suspect they will. (Fuelless propulsion is a serious, serious claim. It's too important for people NOT to swing the big sticks at it. What's unique about this is it's gone this far and hasn't yet been shot down).

But again -- no new physics. Century old stuff, for the most part. No standard model violations, no Newton violations, no thermodynamics violations in the proposed mechanism of action. Energy converted to work, just like basic physics. Just via a rather curious mechanism involving some weird, but well understood, QM effects.
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Reply #187 on: August 10, 2014, 05:45:37 PM

Torinak:

Actually, they're not claiming anything new. It's based on the same principles as the Casimir effect (virtual pair particle production) which has been proven for, well, decades.

It's not rewriting physics at all, although I'm a bit dubious that it actually works. (Power-wise, solar cells or RTG's would be plenty). I mean, heck, NASA has a guy with a  model for a warp drive that doesn't violate modern physics (seriously. FTL travel that Einstein is fine with. Just need a ton of anti-matter for starters...Also, you can't steer. I'm not sure you can stop either. I don't even want to know what happens to what you hit...)


Anyways, the whole "probably something unaccounted for" is everyone's basic belief (sorta like the Voyager thing), but NASA finally got involved to generate some independent data, which is nice. It'll either put the nail in it or verify it, because once NASA's willing to test it (even if they refuse to do more than provide measurements) other people will test it.

And there's lots of people happy to figure out how it's wrong and I suspect they will. (Fuelless propulsion is a serious, serious claim. It's too important for people NOT to swing the big sticks at it. What's unique about this is it's gone this far and hasn't yet been shot down).

But again -- no new physics. Century old stuff, for the most part. No standard model violations, no Newton violations, no thermodynamics violations in the proposed mechanism of action. Energy converted to work, just like basic physics. Just via a rather curious mechanism involving some weird, but well understood, QM effects.


The Casimir effect doesn't invoke a non-existent "quantum vacuum virtual plasma" (oddly enough, the only people who seem to know about the aether quantum vacuum virtual plasma are the same ones doing this test). The device being tested is a microwave resonating chamber, with no understood mechanism that could trigger the Casimir effect. And you can't use virtual particles to generate thrust without violating conservation of momentum (and that'd overturn at least a century of physics).

People who are experts in the fields related to the actual experiment as well as the purported explanations all agree that the paper is bad (at best). Beyond the technobabble, there are apparently major holes in the experimental methodology, a conspicuous absence of descriptions of what else might be going on and how they compensated for it, and a bunch of speculation about how this experiment's results are going to scale up and change everything. (the paper is behind a paywall, so I rely on those in the field with both access and credentials to evaluate it) The experimenters apparently even used an instrument that's notorious for producing results that only they could reproduce, and there's no discussion of how past evaluations of the alleged engine(s) at Boeing yielded no thrust.

The "NASA scientists" are a tiny group (Eagleworks Laboratories) who work on hypothetical propulsion systems, like anti-gravity and Star Trek-style warp drives. The main researcher even did a press conference about NASA "starting development" of said warp drive before they even started designing the testing apparatus (and later discovered that it doesn't work). That doesn't fill me with confidence. That's not to say that they can't produce solid science, but they need to really do so and not go off before all of their ducks are in a row.

Yes, I understand how a reactionless thruster would completely revolutionize space travel. I'd love for it to be true--it'd be great to be able to send humans to Mars in a month or two, or to cheaply and easily send probes (or even humans) all over the solar system, and to reach nearby stars within a human lifetime. But that doesn't mean it is true.
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Reply #188 on: August 10, 2014, 08:11:30 PM

The Casimir effect doesn't invoke a non-existent "quantum vacuum virtual plasma" (oddly enough, the only people who seem to know about the aether quantum vacuum virtual plasma are the same ones doing this test).
Um, no. I even know what "quantum vacuum virtual plasma" is. It's right in the name. Quantum vacuum -- same thing as virtual particles. Virtual plasma? That's, um, you know -- plasma. Like you can make with ordinary particles. Which you shoot out the back end, like some actual engines do.

The only difference between this and a regular, plasma driven reaction drive is using virtual particles instead of ordinary ones. The whole complicated part is doing that before the particles decay. Or do whatever the hell they do in the very short time they're around. (Seriously, those things are nuts. They can even violate some basic laws of physics in their brief lifespans. Crazy, crazy stuff. It's real though -- Casmir effect is just one example of virtual particles interacting on the non-quantum scale)

THis isn't even the first time this idea has cropped up. A casual check of wikipedia shows several papers going back a decade toying with the idea. All mental modelling and abstract physics -- nobody's tried to build one, because it IS far fetched.

But these guys didn't just invent the concept. It's been around, toyed with my actual physicists and not considered fringe. Just unlikely as hell and difficult to impossible to engineer. The basic concept is just as sound as the Alcubierre drive, in terms of physics. It's not breaking any rules -- none at all. It's not even bending them.

Maybe you can't get quantum vacuum to react this way at all. But nobody's come up with a reason why, and some modelling's been done by people OTHER than the guys pushing it who say "Eh, yeah, could work. Maybe."
ajax34i
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Reply #189 on: August 10, 2014, 08:35:47 PM

So you're saying that the resonating microwaves form standing waves that move the virtual particles a bit before they re-annihilate, thus creating momentum/force?  Because this is an enclosed chamber ("isolated system"), and all reaction drives shoot particles out the business end, but no EM radiation or mass comes out of this device.
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Reply #190 on: August 10, 2014, 08:46:05 PM

Before this thread goes any further, I'm going to need to see some proof of physics degrees. Oh ho ho ho. Reallllly?

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Morat20
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Reply #191 on: August 10, 2014, 09:01:34 PM

So you're saying that the resonating microwaves form standing waves that move the virtual particles a bit before they re-annihilate, thus creating momentum/force?  Because this is an enclosed chamber ("isolated system"), and all reaction drives shoot particles out the business end, but no EM radiation or mass comes out of this device.
Fuck if I know. They -- virtual particles -- don't last that long. I'm not sure you'd even NEED a business end, so to speak. I mean, imagine an ion drive where the ions disappeared a few shakes after they imparted momentum? You wouldn't need an exhaust, just a sufficiently long tube.

*shrug*. As best I understand it (which comes from a 40 minute discussion during a department meeting, as two engineers derailed the meeting to talk about it. Our department's kinda weird. Mostly engineers. Most of them heavily involved in the space program. This was more interesting than the 20 minutes of gossip about SpaceX's welding techniques) it's an ion drive. Pretty much exactly. They just use virtual particles instead of real ones.

It's thermodynamically possible -- the energy required is greater than the work done. From the slap fight, the gist was whether it was technically feasible.

I honestly got the impression they both thought it was,, but they were very skeptical that it could be done this easily. VERY skeptical.

It's kinda like someone popping up with a backyard sized particle accelerator that's powerful enough to find the Higgs. You KNOW collides exist, you KNOW they can get powerful enough to do that, but you find it really damn unlikely they can somehow make one that fits that criteria in that small a space.
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Reply #192 on: August 10, 2014, 09:27:31 PM

The Casimir effect doesn't invoke a non-existent "quantum vacuum virtual plasma" (oddly enough, the only people who seem to know about the aether quantum vacuum virtual plasma are the same ones doing this test).
Um, no. I even know what "quantum vacuum virtual plasma" is. It's right in the name. Quantum vacuum -- same thing as virtual particles. Virtual plasma? That's, um, you know -- plasma. Like you can make with ordinary particles. Which you shoot out the back end, like some actual engines do.

The only difference between this and a regular, plasma driven reaction drive is using virtual particles instead of ordinary ones. The whole complicated part is doing that before the particles decay. Or do whatever the hell they do in the very short time they're around. (Seriously, those things are nuts. They can even violate some basic laws of physics in their brief lifespans. Crazy, crazy stuff. It's real though -- Casmir effect is just one example of virtual particles interacting on the non-quantum scale)

THis isn't even the first time this idea has cropped up. A casual check of wikipedia shows several papers going back a decade toying with the idea. All mental modelling and abstract physics -- nobody's tried to build one, because it IS far fetched.

But these guys didn't just invent the concept. It's been around, toyed with my actual physicists and not considered fringe. Just unlikely as hell and difficult to impossible to engineer. The basic concept is just as sound as the Alcubierre drive, in terms of physics. It's not breaking any rules -- none at all. It's not even bending them.

Maybe you can't get quantum vacuum to react this way at all. But nobody's come up with a reason why, and some modelling's been done by people OTHER than the guys pushing it who say "Eh, yeah, could work. Maybe."

I'm glad you know more about quantum physics than some of the top experts in the field. Perhaps you can explain why some of the other top experts in the field are saying that the paper and the concepts behind it are pretty much full of crap?

Yes, you can string together a bunch of words like "quantum vacuum" and "virtual" and "plasma" but that doesn't mean the result is a real thing--any more than me saying I have a new FPS with "predictive negative ping code". WTF is a "virtual plasma" supposed to be? "Like a plasma but virtual?" doesn't even start to make sense...especially since virtual particles are only particle-antiparticle pairs, not atoms that can become ionized into a plasma. I suppose one could assert that a bunch of virtual particles have a party and spontaneously assemble into full-blown atoms that are then ionized into a plasma so that this microwave resonance chamber can act on them to produce thrust, but that's about at par with invoking invisible flying space elves pushing the engine instead--there are many ways one could (and should have) observe this kind of thing happening, and it doesn't show up. Adding insult to injury, the device is completely unlike an actual plasma engine because it has no exhaust! (the devices are all sealed)

Pretty much all of these theories I've heard of (and I used to be into them, before I decided not to pursue a degree in physics) end up with "...and that's how you get infinite energy" or "...and that's why relativity is wrong" once taken a bit farther than the initial proposal. They can be modeled to one's heart's content, but they run into oopsies sooner or later--needing an infinite mass, or a ring of matter spinning at near light speed with a density higher than is possible, or "negative energy", or some inconvenient law of physics needs to be "relaxed" or "sidestepped" (usually relativity, sometimes conservation of momentum). Any real progress into any of these theories would be a license to print Nobel prizes.

I'd love to be wrong. Tell you what: I'll fly you to the Nobel prize acceptance ceremony for whichever of these scientists gets it for their discovery which upends a century of physics. Then you can say "I told you so". Meanwhile, I'll be booking a flight to Mars. :) If this turns out to be nothing, next time something claims to change everything perhaps you can demand a higher burden of proof?
Khaldun
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Reply #193 on: August 11, 2014, 09:18:32 AM

My colleagues all say the paper is basically bad and that the press basically got it wrong to boot.
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Reply #194 on: August 11, 2014, 11:38:31 AM

It definitely looks like total bullshit to me, but I'm hardly an expert.

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Cyrrex
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Reply #195 on: August 11, 2014, 11:53:19 AM

What I've learned from this thread is that the light bulbs in my microwave oven might, just might help me travel to Mars faster.

None of this matters.  We don't have the will right now to research and develop such things even if they were possible.  It could make long distance trips more economically feasible, but nobody is going to spend the eleventy gajillion dollars it would take to find out.

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Reply #196 on: August 11, 2014, 12:08:26 PM

One of the things I've seen in some of the critiques of the paper is that the effect was also measured even when the device wasn't supposed to be emitting. As per here: http://space.io9.com/a-new-thruster-pushes-against-virtual-particles-or-1615361369

It's also not a finished paper reporting extensively tested results--it's a work-in-progress report that just says, "I dunno, can anyone else see this going on?"
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Reply #197 on: August 11, 2014, 01:04:49 PM

Aliens.

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Reply #198 on: August 11, 2014, 03:53:05 PM

None of this matters.  We don't have the will right now to research and develop such things even if they were possible.  It could make long distance trips more economically feasible, but nobody is going to spend the eleventy gajillion dollars it would take to find out.

Chris Roberts should do a kickstarter for this.
Morat20
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Reply #199 on: August 11, 2014, 04:55:43 PM

Quote
I'm glad you know more about quantum physics than some of the top experts in the field. Perhaps you can explain why some of the other top experts in the field are saying that the paper and the concepts behind it are pretty much full of crap?
And as noted, a casual glance at Wikipedia shows several papers going back a decade toying with the concept showing no roadblocks to the concept beyond the technical. (And yes, technical roadblocks can range from 'trivial' to 'impossible' to solve.)

And again, as I said about a dozen time, I suspect it doesn't actually work. But you're clearly keen to argue about it, despite the fact that I fucking agree with you that it's pretty likely to be bullshit.
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Reply #200 on: August 11, 2014, 05:04:40 PM

Even if it doesn't work as described, something's happening - experimental error or not, it still needs to be investigated to determine the readings one way or another. Simply folding your arms and going "We don't understand this therefore it's not real" is not science.

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Morat20
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Reply #201 on: August 11, 2014, 07:04:10 PM

And seriously, here's the steps:

1) Virtual particles exist. If briefly. (If you dispute this, there's a great deal of physics you dispute)
2) Ion drives work by taking regular particles, turning them to plasma, then expelling them out the back end.
3) If you can do that with regular particles, can you do it with virtual particles?

Virtual particles don't exist long. They come in pairs and mutually annihilate very quickly, keeping energy conserved. (And, amusingly, the mutual destruction also create a particle that possibly travels backwards in time and creates them in the first place. Thus says Fenymen, at least).

There's certainly no roadblock to turning virtual particles into plasma. They'll still annihilate. They're very real, for their brief existence -- so they can provide thrust the same way regular particles can. There's a certain background level of creation/destruction of the darn things that's independent of everything, so you've got an upward cap on how many particles are around at a given time.

The trick -- the insane, difficult to imagine working bit -- is turning them to plasma and using them to produce thrust before they mutually destruct. (There's no 3rd law violations or conservation of momentum violations -- the energy required to generate thrust is identical to regular particles, and same for momentum -- if it works for regular particles, it'll work for virtual particles).

Offhand, I'm like 99% sure these guys did NOT manage to do anything useful with virtual particles. All the papers I saw talked entirely about the physics behind it, handwaving away "how you harness the things" and talking entirely about whether or not virtual particles would work like regular particles for this.

So again -- I doubt these guys succeeded. I find it difficult to imagine anyone succeeding, anytime. Now or in the future. But it's physically possible because virtual particles are, for their brief existence, quite real. And you can certainly use particles to generate thrust. NASA's got a damn probe zooming around based on that right now.

Edited to add: Actually probably a lot less efficient than an ion drive, assuming it works. MORE energy for LESS thrust. 
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Reply #202 on: August 11, 2014, 07:28:12 PM

Any time anyone says something won't get funding, I just assume that means "someone prove it's real, and then call Elon Musk."
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Reply #203 on: August 12, 2014, 04:38:02 PM

Well if I've learned anything its that when Morat is really sure about specific things like physics or law or running a business he's usually wrong.
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Reply #204 on: August 20, 2014, 03:06:20 PM

Morat20
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Reply #205 on: August 20, 2014, 05:05:34 PM

Damn. I wonder how they keep the solar panels clear?
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Reply #206 on: August 20, 2014, 05:30:28 PM

Damn. I wonder how they keep the solar panels clear?

They don't, periodic windstorms apparently do that for them.

http://www.space.com/25577-mars-rover-opportunity-solar-panels-clean.html

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Reply #207 on: August 20, 2014, 05:52:59 PM

Couldn't resist posting the following pic I found in the comments section of the Verge article  Oh ho ho ho. Reallllly?  :


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Reply #208 on: August 21, 2014, 06:15:23 AM

So what are those wheels made of? I can't imagine they'd be made from fragile materials, though it would have to be lighter in weight. But still, either the wheels were not made from the most durable substances we have, or (more likely) Mars has some really hardcore fuckoff rocks.

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Reply #209 on: August 21, 2014, 06:26:10 AM

Aluminum.

Hahahaha!  I'm really good at this!
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