In reply to David Roberson's message of Wed, 26 Nov 2014 17:43:00 -0500: Hi, [snip] > >Here I have to disagree. It makes more sense to assume that he looses energy >during both accelerations. If that energy goes into the zpe field then it >will just vanish as far as any observer can determine. The guy on the ship is >satisfied that he used up some of the mass of his vehicle to accelerate >regardless of the direction of that movement. > >This strange state of affairs is what makes me suspect of the entire concept. >The mass just seems to vanish from the universe.
If that were the case, then I would be suspicious of it too. That's why I think that if such a drive works at all, then the energy ends up as kinetic energy of the craft. As for the regenerative braking, consider this. It works with electric cars, because they can exchange momentum with the Earth through contact with the road. It is impossible for a normal rocket because they have no "road" with which to exchange momentum. However if this drive provides the capability of exchanging momentum with the ZPF, then the vehicle effectively has a "road" available to it while traveling through space, so regenerative breaking becomes a possibility. In the case of Sawyer's drive, it might manifest as virtual microwave photons becoming real photons in the drive, as it slows down. If these microwaves are then "damped" (i.e. rectified into DC and the energy stored), then they might constantly be replenished as the vehicle slows, thus converting the kinetic energy of the vehicle back into stored energy. Regards, Robin van Spaandonk http://rvanspaa.freehostia.com/project.html
