[Bobboau]

well, when it goes flying off at relativistic speeds the moment you turn the power on, you could consider that something of an indicator that it's working, and I would imagine that it might glow red due to heat from all those microwaves bouncing around.

[perihelion]

Nah, that's just a thermal effect.   

[z64555]

well, when it goes flying off at relativistic speeds the moment you turn the power on, you could consider that something of an indicator that it's working, and I would imagine that it might glow red due to heat from all those microwaves bouncing around.

except that with the amount of thrust that it's getting, it's not going to be doing that. Also it appears that the magnetron is the one that's warming up, not necessarily the resonating cavity. My rudimentary knowledge of how waveguides work tells me that it isn't tuned/positioned correctly, so most of the power is being reflected back into the magnetron rather than trying to bounce around in the cavity.

[qwadtep]

You know what I find most laughable about this? Every single press release seems to be using a gridded electrostatic xenon thruster pictures when talking about the EM drive. You know, the ring that emits blue-ish haze, with a small neutralizer hole (or several) in the center. This is a regular ion drive, flown multiple times and about as mysterious as a normal chemical rocket engine. It looks (and works) nothing like the EM drive. EM drive looks like this:

And doesn't emit any haze at any time (if it doesn't use reaction mass, there's nothing glowy being thrown out, it stands to reason). I noticed that even the thread title likely refers to gridded thruster pics as well.

It still looks really cool, in a steampunk-ish kind of way.

[jr2]

It still looks really cool, in a steampunk-ish kind of way.

Nah, it's just retro:

Apollo F1:

[Bobboau]

except that with the amount of thrust that it's getting, it's not going to be doing that.

 

[z64555]

Hey don't blame me, you forgot your sarcasm tags and/or this guy:

[Scourge of Ages]

I think just most media-type people were expecting (and asking for) something that looks like it's out of Star Trek, not something out of Jules Verne.

Jules Verne-looking engine is cool, though.