Three months ago, Nextbigfuture covered Exodus Propulsion’s claim of a huge space propulsion breakthrough. They claim they can produce over 1G of thrust for a lightweight device. IF this claim is true then they could make spaceships that could go to Mars in 5 days and reach near light lightspeed in a year. They would need to constantly produce thrust in space with an array of lightweight devices.
Dr. Charles Buhler and Exodus Technologies claims that systems with electrostatic pressure differences or electrostatic divergent fields gives systems with a center of mass with non-zero force component (aka generate movement). Buhler is NASA’s subject matter expert on electrostatics. They want to move to demo the system in orbit. These kinds of claims are controversial but the work seems to be thorough. It will only cost about $500k to $1M to create a rideshare mission into orbit to test the system. The mass of an early orbital system would greatly exceed the active materials of the propulsion, which would reduce performance. High performance space propulsion would need to increase the active materials as a percentage of the mass of the craft. Nextbigfuture covered that they were getting millinewtons of force but they reduced the weight of the device to the point where the ground based test could cancel out the mass. In effect producing an counter to gravity effect.
Dr. Charles Buhler and Exodus Technologies have been interviewed by popular media personality Glenn Beck.
Dr Charles Buhler says that at 11:55 that if the device worked constantly with 1G of thrust then it would enable getting to the Moon in 2.5 hours or get to Mars in 5 days.
Basically, Buhler is quoting constant 1G travel times.
3 days will get about 2.5 AU (halfway to Jupiter). 4.5 days will get you 5 AU (halfway to Saturn). 9 days will get you 20 AU (more than halfway to the Kuiper belt)
My article was cited by another video.
Dr. Charles Buhler discusses an experimental propulsion results based on asymmetrical electrostatic pressure, in a device described in International Patent# WO2020159603A2. The device is described as a system and method for generating a force from a voltage difference applied across at least one electrically conductive surface. The applied voltage difference creates an electric field resulting in an electrostatic pressure force acting on at least one surface of an object. Asymmetries in the resulting electrostatic pressure force vectors result in a net resulting electrostatic pressure force acting on the object. The magnitude of the net resulting electrostatic pressure force is a function of the geometry of the electrically conductive surfaces, the applied voltage, and the dielectric constant of any material present in the gap between electrodes.
Dr. Buhler has experience working with electrostatic discharge & ESD safety for the Space Shuttle Program, the International Space Station Program and the Hubble Space Telescope Program. He was also a Co-Investigator for three NASA Research Announcements funded by the Mars Exploration Program, and is currently working on NASA’s Dust Project focused on utilizing electrostatic methods to remove dust from personnel and equipment that will be sent to the Moon through NASA’s Constellation Program.
Dr. Buhler discussed his independent research into field-effect propulsion systems at Exodus Technologies, leading to a patented new propulsion technology that requires no fuel or ejection-mass to produce thrust.
Buhler told The Debrief that measuring thrust in terms of a percentage of gravity reflects the force generated divided by the test article.
In 2019, the system was 100,000 times weaker than the mass of the test article. They seem to have maintained the thrust whil greatly reducing
the mass of the system. The thrust was about 300-400 micronewtons in 2019 experiments. The claim of over one test mass of force could be 1 millinewton and a 0.1 gram test article. If they increase the thrust to 1 newton then a 100 gram test article would could be self lifting or levitating. The system would have strong performance in orbit.
One newton (N) of force is required to lift a mass of 100 grams vertically upwards.
Another viable combination would be 10 millinewtons for a 1 gram test article. They have said that the strongest force they generated is 10 millinewtons. IF they can setup the experiment correctly they could levitate a 1 gram test article. He described it again to Tim Ventura. He describes the current device as kind of like a crappy battery.
Buhler says they commonly measured the forces in milliNewtons, but they prefer to describe the thrust in terms of gravity since that is the ultimate goal of propulsion physics.
They moved it into a high vacuum experimental system (in 2021), which eliminated noise and other issues.
Any current in the system makes the force go away.
They went away from asymmetrical electrostatic to thin film types and then to liquids applied to surfaces. the liquids applied to surfaces is something like a battery. He applies free and bound charges to get the forces. They are optimizing the chemistry to optimize the charge injection. The system is microscopic but the force stays high.
This seems to imply that the forces were not increased that much but the mass was greatly reduced. This would suggest 1 millinewton and a 0.1 gram test article. They were doing DC tests. The effect is field based and not frequency based. There are ways to increase the force with AC.
There are theoretical versions that are RF based which could have great results.
Their theory of the electrostatics and the physics seems to work. As they change what they are doing, all of the expected forces are created. They will eventually hit dielectric limits.
The original talk was here at the Dec 23, 2023 APEC conference. The APEC talk was heavy on theory and formulas.
Andrew Neil Aurigema and Charles Buhler are named on the patent.
The magnitude of the net resulting electrostatic pressure force is a function of the geometry of the electrically conductive surfaces, the applied voltage, and the dielectric constant of any material present in the gap between electrodes. The invention may be produced on a nanoscale using nanostructures such as carbon nanotubes. The invention may be utilized to provide a motivating force to an object. A non-limiting use case example is the use of electrostatic pressure force apparatus as a thruster to propel a spacecraft through a vacuum.
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
Known for identifying cutting edge technologies, he is currently a Co-Founder of a startup and fundraiser for high potential early-stage companies. He is the Head of Research for Allocations for deep technology investments and an Angel Investor at Space Angels.
A frequent speaker at corporations, he has been a TEDx speaker, a Singularity University speaker and guest at numerous interviews for radio and podcasts. He is open to public speaking and advising engagements.
The whole “center of mass-energy being offset from the center of mass” was my explanation for how the EM drive could work. The center of mass is pulled in towards the center of mass-energy. This device probably doesn’t work but the hope of a sci-fi recluse springs eternal.
Yeah, it is very unconvincing. Every propelentless device that produces thrust can be converted in a perpetual motion machine just by putting it at the end of a sufficiently long rod that is balancing at the pivot point on a generator. At a certain rod length the thrust is enough to rotate the rod at the speed required by the generator to produce the same amount of energy consumed by the thruster. At higher rod length you extract more energy from the generator than the amount you provided. If this is true (which will not be) and you focus on the business of space propulsion you are not very clever because you don’t realizee that you are in the business of infinite energy and you are about to destroy the whole coal, nuclear, wind, solar, hydro sectors (you might still have an oil industry to produce plastics, but you might as well reduce atmosferic CO2 and H2O to hydrocarbons with your infinite energy source). If nobody in the company realized that is easier to arbitrarly scale it up on earth rather than launch a small one into space they are not very smart. You can rent a crane a hangar, a long metal scaffolding truss and a generator for few thousand dollars a day. If the truss hanging from the crane is balanced (which is trivial to verify) and long enough they should see noticeable movement even with a small device and in the atmosphere, just do it in an hangar to remove effects due to the wind.
“Ken Burnside said it best.
Friends Don’t Let Friends Use Reactionless Drives In Their Universes.
Yeah, I know that the blasted Tyranny of the Rocket Equation ruins science fiction writer’s fun by making every gram count. But a Reactionless Drive is a solution that makes even worse problems. Kind of like removing lice by setting your hair on fire.
Sure you’ll be giving Tyranny Of The Rocket Equation concrete overshoes and dumping it into the ocean to sleep with the fishies. But you will also be giving every space fleet, astromilitary, corrupt corporation, James Bond Villain and little Jimmy in his garage lab access to civilization-destroying relativistic weapons. Are you sure you wanna do that?”
https://projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/reactionlessdrive.php
The unknown System I’m referring is basically an imbalanced 🛞, that will spin at a high rate of Rpms if it is counter balanced by a surround-ing housing of Electro🧲ic sections which interacts with 1 part of the 🛞 consisting of Magnetic Induced Properties, & lighter in weight than the opposite part.
The military’s been quietly working on this for years.
https://www.twz.com/30499/the-truth-is-the-military-has-been-researching-anti-gravity-for-nearly-70-years
There’s no telling what’s being secretly tested out in the desert:
https://www.reddit.com/r/UFOs/comments/1b4ifpn/nellis_air_force_base_ufo_1995_my_favourite/
Unfortunately, in the shadow of secrecy that is the US’s defense research, all manner of utter stupidity gets tested with no real oversight from sane people. The pentagon has already wasted millions upon millions on ESP research, with nothing to show for it.
My physics background happens to be electrostatic particle charging, the same as this guy. Like him, I’ve seen anomalous results in electrostatics and most of these were in microscopic systems, like tiny particles. BUT you don’t go around claiming something so contrary to well known physics until somebody else sees it.
Unless his experiment is done in a good vacuum, he’ll have all kinds of charging effects that are tough to predict due to charging by both ions and electrons with the electrons being much hotter.
Why does he need a space experiment? I could provide a 5’x5’x5’ vacuum chamber down to 1e-6 torr.
Because he wants to believe. He wants to see his engine get into space and work, and not be disproven is some vacuum chamber on earth. Of course, if his engine doesn’t work on earth, it’s not going to work in space either, but wanting to believe is usually the cause of all of this pseudoscience that tries to skip the scientific process and head straight into application. Just look at cold fusion and all the free energy devices.
The thruster uses Terrence Howards new physics based on his new math, where 1 x 1 = 2. Everything proved in oral “paper” presented at the respected scientific Journal Joe Rogan.
serioisly, hoping it’s true, but VERY skeptical of it.
LK99 and Woodward drive taught me to be twice as skeptical as I was before.
I have no problems believing it, but physics needs to get the theory working or all of this is going to be a waste of money and resources. Sure, when it works it works, but without understanding the laws behind it will it never be possible to guarantee success, to get investors on board, or to use it safely. When these forces are known for so long but remained unexplained then it is time this gets properly researched.
Perhaps dial down the research on dark matter, black holes and anything else which leaves us with more questions than answers, and put money into this instead. Of all the unknowns one can research would I prefer to see money being spend on this, which may be immediately useful to mankind, and not something that leaves us with more unknowns.
That’s a basic logical error. Similar errors were used to justify the millions of dollars poured into cold fusion, and continue today to justify funding all manner of free energy devices.
Basically, you have to weight the incredible gain of the claim, should it turn out to be true, with the probability that that might be (basically 0 in this case). So although there is very high promise with this engine, the probability of conservation of energy and Maxwell’s equations being false (which has NEVER EVER happened over thousands of years of combined testing experience), more than counteracts the gain. On the other hand, [the problems explained by] dark matter demand immediate answering, and while humanity may not gain as much from that as by a propellantless drive, at least we’ll gain something.
Cold fusion has been 100 percent verified. You don’t know about this because you probably spent all of 5 minutes researching this field.
Might be good to explain how this isn’t a perpetual motion machine. I’m not accusing it of being one just a good presentation point would be a slide on how this is not a perpetual motion machine.
In Brian’s most recent article, Charles Buher ‘explains’ how his device can be used to generate free energy.
🔔ALARM BELLS🔔
Is it a wind turbine a perpetual motion machine?
No, it uses wind power.
No a wind turbine is not a perpetual motion machine. It is easy to show that the wind is solar powered and that sun is powered by fusion. Conservation of energy still applies.
To run with the wind comparision if this device was just a better mag sail that could use solar wind then there could be a slide to explain it as such. As a general rule devices that violate the law of coservation of energy are nonexistant, regardless of how much I would love to use one to take a weekend trip to the Mooon.
If this does what they say, it’s not too difficult to turn it into an infinite free energy machine, so… I’ll believe it when I see one work in space. This stuff is notoriously hard to test on the ground.
I don’t quite understand why such things are hard to test on the ground. Sure if you are measuring transient nano-newtons of force that is hard but putting things in space doesn’t make it easy.
I have a radical physics hypothesis that may explain this – I’d need to see how they are designing it to confirm if it aligns or not. But here’s a prediction based on my hypothesis: The relative thrust will be different (slightly reduced) in space and on the moon – the further away from strong gravitational fields, the slightly weaker the thrust. Not to zero though.
That’s what I was thinking too
I will wait until there are some independent test results. I remain unconvinced.
If you have more than 1G acceleration, you don’t need a ride to space. Just launch your device from the ground to get to space.
Agreed. Making a working non-Newtonian drive capable of acceleration greater than 1G would dispel all reasonable doubt, which begs the question, why haven’t they done it yet. Maybe they need to raise more money
“Just another few million and Star Trek becomes real. Trust me, bro.”
Though, if it’s totally legit, I wouldn’t mind being proven wrong. I’ll just dry my tears with my ticket stub to Alpha Centauri.
In fairness that would be one heck of a demo.
There’s lots of skepticism for this, and rightly so – it would be turning a fundamental rule of physics into a breakable ‘guideline’. That said – things that were treated with great skepticism have turned out to be valid in the past, e.g. quasicrystals, or the invariance of lightspeed. So I will hold out a teeny little bit of hope that this pans out, and we’re about to see a revolution in physics. Just a teeny bit.
Thing to think about, they claim 1g of trust, the apparatus looks to be fairly weighted, in the hundreds of grams? That would be a lot of wind if it would be produced by ion wind, and should be noticable, I don’t know much about fields, Brett will undoubtly do.
“High performance space propulsion would need to increase the active materials as a percentage of the mass of the craft.”
You know, LEDs would have a decent thrust to weight ratio as a photon drive, if you could eliminate everything in the system except the junction. But, of course, you can’t, because then there’d be nothing supplying the electricity…
Proposals like this make my head hurt, really. I’ve enough physics to know that physics would be utterly broken if this thing could work.
Then how would you explain the results?
Honestly you’re way more into physics than I will ever be, but keeping an open mind sometimes – maybe something shows up that we do not know about, wouldn’t be the first time troughout history not?
I’m happy that Brian has got the balls to post this, a true scientist must research things, also if his brain says it cannot be. Only so we can make progress.
That’s a fair question: It’s in air, there appears to be no effort to null out the Earth’s magnetic field. Those are big points right there. I’d rather see a test in a non-metallic vacuum chamber with all ambient magnetic fields nulled out, and the ‘drive’ enclosed in a Faraday cage to make sure that no static fields extend outside it to interact with the outside world. Heck, at least they should have wrapped the thing in aluminum foil! How hard would that have been?
I give them props for giving directions on how to build one, even though the production quality was horrible.
My big problem is the theory. Look, EM fields are inverse square law, (Just like gravity.) setting aside the really tiny photon thrust, EM fields only produce forces when interacting with charges. And it’s equal and opposite reactions all the way down.
There really isn’t any static configuration of charges that, for reasons of basic math, can produce an unbalanced force. Like, it’s mathematical nonsense. Anybody who understands the math can tell you that, it’s utterly nonsensical. It’s pulling on your bootstraps stupid. It’s EXACTLY pulling on your bootstraps!
The only way this works is if Maxwell’s equations are wrong. And I mean grievously wrong. And they are absurdly well proven.
I would literally stake my life on their having made a math error someplace, probably one that’s really obvious once it’s pointed out, and just looking like they’ve got thrust because they haven’t taken into account all interactions with the environment.
On these things, I’m an empiricist. Show me a device that works any time, on any circumstance and under independent replication hands, and I’ll accept it as real.
Theory can come later. But so far none have achieve that, or we’d be in a whole different world already.
Propellantless propulsion is like the bride who never shows up on her wedding day.
I’m a perpetual skeptic too, but some things have changed of late: we know that UAPs exist, as perceptible objective phenomena that can be recorded into film without the shadow of a doubt. The government did it and published it, and I don’t think they have any reason to invent them. It’s embarrassing to admit their ignorance and powerlessness to stop them.
The UAPs came here and fly using some mechanism like the one above. So ontologically and empirically, propellantless thrusters of some kind are possible. We just have to keep looking.
I’m not familiar with the whole background of UAPs, but how are you sure that UAPs (provided that they exist) use propellantless thrusters?
Any type of thrust means a very limited speed, and/or too much time to attain a speed limit acc-eptable for the typically enorm-ous distances involved in space travel. There is 1 form of propul-sion currently unknown to us but will require intense R&D to fully understand.