Space Drive Video Loop with Notes

youtube.com

2 points·dave333··7 comments

Notes explain what is happening in this "Space Drive" video showing concrete blocks being lifted by 300 Watts of power in an ordinary microwave oven.

I don't believe the author is being very serious here. Their comparison with Starship forgot to normalize for propellant mass, which is one of the more dishonest comparison figures I've seen in my lifetime. Nobody's microwave has a higher specific impulse than the Raptor engine, nevermind nine of them.

The space drive has no reaction mass, but there is a small quantity of plasma that is the working medium.

Well sure. But the Starship does, so you either have to scale up the space drive or scale down the Raptor engine to get a fair comparison. "power to weight payload lift capability" is a completely facetious comparison if your impulse is too weak to leave the atmosphere.

A middle-schooler could tell you how this goes. The microwave probably weighs ~80lbs to lift 100lbs of rocks. A single Raptor engine has a thrust-to-weight ratio of 200 - the microwave has a ratio of 1.2.

I think the microwave is cost-optimized, not weight optimized.

Then it is perhaps the singular least-novel application of the technology, besides perhaps illustrating it in crayon on a piece of A4 paper.

If you're responsible for this circus, you might as well admit it now. God forbid you've invested money into this project, this one's bleak pal.

Calling it technology is premature - still in the experimental phase.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com