It would be refreshing to find that the energy is returned, but I harbor no expectation of that occurring. Consider that what we consider acceleration is exactly the same as deceleration as far as a ship is concerned. In either situation the ship is changing velocity as a function of time due to operation of the drive. I visualize the ship as being at rest just before each acceleration takes place. A force is applied by the reactionless drive at that time which leads to an acceleration along the line of the applied force. It does not make any difference what direction that force takes when you consider that the drive begins to burn up our mass at the time it causes the acceleration. There is no mechanism available to capture the kinetic energy that is assumed to exist.
If it so happens that microwave radiation or any other form of radiation is emitted from the vacuum as a result of the drive then there may be no need to consider it reactionless. In that case the spaceman can determine the location of his missing mass. Please understand that I am skeptical that a reactionless drive is actually possible. The only reason for this line of speculation is to consider the consequences in case an actual force is proven to exist when one of these devices is operated. That has not been firmly established. Do you believe that a reactionless drive is possible? I suspect that you are kidding. Dave -----Original Message----- From: mixent <[email protected]> To: vortex-l <[email protected]> Sent: Wed, Nov 26, 2014 8:23 pm Subject: Re: [Vo]:They call me a moron. A reply. 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
