> A NASA engineer and co-founder of Exodus Propulsion Technologies has claimed that his company’s propellantless propulsion drive system has generated enough thrust to counteract Earth’s gravity.
If that’s true using the conventional interpretation of “enough thrust to counteract Earth’s gravity.” (= can lift itself off form earth) it should be extremely easy to at least show half the effect:
- put the device on a scale
- notice its weight
- switch the device on
- see the scale show a much lower weight (even hitting 10% would be huge)
- wait an hour or so
- switch the device off
- see the weight return to showing the original number (to show the device didn’t use propellant)
Because of that, I think that claim is, at least, highly exaggerated, more likely utterly false.
Edit: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41423541 points to a video about this device. I didn’t watch the 45+ m8nutes, but from scrubbing it it doesn’t show anything at all. It just has the author making this claim in a 45+ minute video.
5 comments
[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 24.7 ms ] threadIf that’s true using the conventional interpretation of “enough thrust to counteract Earth’s gravity.” (= can lift itself off form earth) it should be extremely easy to at least show half the effect:
- put the device on a scale
- notice its weight
- switch the device on
- see the scale show a much lower weight (even hitting 10% would be huge)
- wait an hour or so
- switch the device off
- see the weight return to showing the original number (to show the device didn’t use propellant)
Because of that, I think that claim is, at least, highly exaggerated, more likely utterly false.
Edit: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41423541 points to a video about this device. I didn’t watch the 45+ m8nutes, but from scrubbing it it doesn’t show anything at all. It just has the author making this claim in a 45+ minute video.