Quote:
Originally Posted by mikey23545
They are testing the drive in a laboratory setting at very low power levels. If I'm not mistaken, the NASA test was using 17 watts of power...Your damn laptop uses 3 or 4 times that much power.
This may surprise the shit out of you, but you don't seem to be very familiar with laboratory testing...
Edit: I cnnot locate the article that gave 17 watts as the input power for the NASA TEST, so I may have to hold off on that statement, but the fact still remains that there is no reason to believe the thrust cannot be scaled up. Also, non-scientists don't grasp the idea that in space a relatively small amount of thrust applied for long periods of time can add up to fantastic velocities.
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Like I said, it is still neat and all, but I'm just not jumping up and down with excitement. Not that I won't pay attention to it. Sadly you still have to cary fuel, because solar only gets you so far. But I love that they are still looking.
Without know how much energy they put it that at 70 grams of thrust it is going to take a while to get up to a decent speed.