Casimir Effect Space Propulsion Part I

Perpetual Force Generator

I may be accused of drifting a bit off-topic with these posts on inertial propulsion etc, but I still have in mind the idea of driving a perpetual motion wheel by means of perpetual force generators arrayed around its rim.

Wheel with perpetual force generators

One example of a perpetual force generator would be an inertial propulsion device, for as long as it could be kept running, but there are other possibilities.

The next few posts will examine the concept of a perpetual force generator exploiting Casimir Effect.

The Quantum Vacuum Plasma Thruster

I see that the "Quantum Vacuum Plasma Thruster", an example of (hopefully) practical exploitation of Casimir Effect has appeared on the internet; see the NASA pdf: http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20110023492.pdf
for more.

Quoting from the above:—

How does a Q-thruster work? A Q-thruster uses the same principles and equations of motion that a conventional plasma thruster would use, namely Magnetohydrodynamics (MHD), to predict propellant behavior. The virtual plasma is exposed to a crossed E and B-field which induces a plasma drift of the entire plasma in the E×B direction which is orthogonal to the applied fields. The difference arises in the fact that a Q-thruster uses quantum vacuum fluctuations as the fuel source eliminating the need to carry propellant. This suggests much higher specific impulses are available for QVPT systems limited only by their power supply's energy storage densities. Historical test results have yielded thrust levels of between 1000-4000 micro-Newtons, specific force performance of 0.1N/kW, and an equivalent specific impulse of ~ 1×10^12 seconds.

While it's good to see NASA actively investigating Casimir force thrusters (at last!) the performance cited seems very poor, when set against the high energy required to produce the electric and magnetic fields.

Can we not do better than this, ideally with a thruster that produces a net Casimir force simply from its own structure/geometry, without the need for any high energy consuming E or B fields? I'll look at that next time.