NASA Designs Near Light Speed Engine That Breaks Laws Of Physics

 

one of the most basic laws of physics

 states that every action has an equal and opposite reaction the principle on which all of our space rockets have been operating they blast off into space with the propellant on one end thrusting the rocket into another direction a nasa engineer at the marshall flight center in alabama has now designed a helical engine that is claiming to need absolutely no propeller to travel at the speed of light and it's causing quite the stir as it

 goes against the very laws of physics

 what does nasa have up its sleeve will the new engine defy the laws of physics or will it fail before ever taking off welcome to fact nominal and today we will take a look at nasa's new near light spin engine that could change the

 future of space travel as we know it

 the idea that one could travel at the speed of light seems to be something possible only in sci-fi movies to be precise the speed of light is measured at two hundred ninety nine million seven hundred ninety two thousand four hundred fifty eight meters per second coming close to achieving that speed seems impossible and oftentimes far-fetched but that hasn't stopped mankind from pushing new boundaries and daring to try for things that seem way beyond our reach and the new nasa engine embodies just that take for example the fact that before 1947 traveling at the speed of sound was even unheard of but then came the famous commercial supersonic concord jet double the speed of sound which could take you from new york to london in approximately 2 hours and 52 minutes compared to the six hours and 50 minutes it would take us today pretty neat huh though we don't see them anymore the mere fact that these engines did become a reality is enough to inspire future inventions with that said traveling at the speed of light is not as simple as it seems mostly used as the most preferred unit to measure the distance in space especially considering how most points of our interest in space lie many years away reaching them is even harder with astronomers and scientists constantly studying observing and looking for new earth-like planets and satellites that could possibly hold human life in the future we sure would need a good way to even possibly get there given the current state of propulsion technology traveling to other celestial bodies deep in space would take tens of thousands if not millions of years space is simply too big and it would take years and years for us to even reach our closest neighboring stars and planets to put it into perspective if the new horizon spacecraft which reached pluto by traveling at a whopping 58 000 kilometers per hour were to be used for space travel to say alpha centauri it would need no less than 78 000 years to do so other things to worry about would be fuel and how much of it we would need to actually navigate through the cosmos there is therefore a need for something that could solve all of these problems and is still able to move at an astonishing speed nasa has been at the top of its game recently and they are constantly trying to find solutions to the bigger problems david burns a nasa engineer has been doing just that in his spare time he claims to have designed an engine concept that could theoretically at least accelerate to 99 of the speed of light if that sounds amazing just wait it gets better this engine wouldn't even be relying on a propellant to achieve this the engine was proposed to nasa and made public on october 11 2019. in his paper published called helical engine he goes into detail explaining how this futuristic spacecraft is able to be propelled into space by using in-space engines that will not be needing any fuel now this in itself is not an entirely new concept as attempts at such engines without the use of a propellant have been made in the past in the late 1970s u.s inventor robert cook patented an engine that converted centrifugal force into linear emotion and in the early 2000s british inventor roger shoyer posed the em drive which he claimed could convert trapped microwaves into thrust so how exactly would this new helical engine work the helical engine takes advantage of the loophole in einstein indian physics by accelerating a loop of ions too near light speed and then manipulating their velocity and by the laws of relativity their mass as a result of which the engine would be thrust forward without having to even shoot anything out behind it burns himself explains that the engine can basically be understood with the following illustration imagine putting a ring in a box that bounces in one direction while the box recoils in the opposite direction in turn when the ring inside the box hits the end springing backwards the box's recoil direction is changed as well now under any normal circumstance the box would wiggle back and forth but since both the box and the ring would be moving at the speed of light by the time the ring reaches the end of the box the mass would increase as it would travel faster while bouncing back thus resulting in forward momentum though the helical engine would not require a propellant a particle accelerator and ion particles would do the job instead the spacecraft is said to be able to

 blast off into space with any propellant just by leveraging the mass altering

 phenomena that occurs at near light speed and since the engine is said to be traveling at the speed of light this may just work out the moment david byrne's paper was published it caused a massive stir among the entire space community levels of which had only previously been seen when it came to the famous em drive some have even claimed that the very basis of this new engine could possibly be violating the laws of physics some argue that while the engine concept is great it's just that great on paper but practically not possible so let's break it down the em drive and robert cook's engine were both never successfully demonstrated and heavily violated the conservation of momentum a core physical law the principle of

 the conservation of momentum which

 states that the momentum of a system remains constant in the absence of any actual forces this helical engine should not even be possible then of course there is the special relativity loophole you gotta love a loophole unlike the other machines the helical engine makes use of special relativity according to which an object gains mass as it approaches light speed burns has envisioned swapping out the box in the ring that he used in his illustration for more helix-shaped accelerator from which it derives its name generating a net thrust in a preferred direction the engine would then accelerate ions confined in a loop to moderate relativistic speed and then vary their velocities to make alterations and changes to their mass the ions are moved back and forth by the engine along the direction of travel to produce thrust but the engine has no moving parts except for the ions traveling in a vacuum line all while being trapped inside electric and magnetic fields sounds great so far right the engine concept is yet to be reviewed and tested and many are already debating whether or not this will be a success if somehow it does show potential and prove a success it would mean that many core physical laws would be put into question others argue that it wouldn't necessarily defy the laws but rather can be seen as expanding our

 understanding of the laws of physics

 and suggests that perhaps we have a lot more to learn either way until it has any precise physics experiments and proof to support it the laws of physics will still stand strong with anything new and especially something that's not been done before there will always be certain hurdles the new engine is no exception and many argue the drawbacks are just too many in this case when it comes to the nasa helical engine there are a lot of things to consider

 one being the size of the engine and in order to even make it a possibility the engine itself would have to be 200 meters long and 12 meters wide which would render it not suitable for space travel it would also have to be immensely powerful requiring almost 165 megawatts of power to generate a single neutron of thrust that means it would require a massive amount of input for a very teeny tiny amount of output which is extremely inefficient the engine would also require the frictionless environment of space to be able to reach meaningful speeds burns himself has stated that the engine would be able to get to 99 of the speed of light if there is enough time and power this machine makes use of einstein's special relativity only and that's where the problem lies because there is always an action and reaction which complicates matters for the helical engine as of now the helical engine is still just on paper but it definitely opens up new avenues and ideas that could see us traveling into space at the speed of light a machine of this speed would be able to take astronauts to mars in less than 13 minutes or even to the moon in just over a second dr burns mentions the advantages in his paper stating that an engine of this sort could be used for more long-term satellite station keeping as they would never have to be refueled though the engine hasn't become a reality yet his idea is definitely unique completely doing away with the need for rocket fuel altogether like the em drive and if his engine does work as he predicts it would completely revolutionize the idea of space travel so while we may not be quite there yet lightspeed travels is still a dream but with constant innovations like this and changes in technology maybe it won't be a dream for too long so what do you think will nasa's new engine succeed in bringing us one step closer to lightspeed travel

 let us know in the comments and don't forget to mash the like button and subscribe to our channel for more articles like this thanks for reading fact nominal we'll see you next time you