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Multiple sources have reported that a paper about EmDrive has cleared peer review and will be published in December, although there is no certainty yet about whether NASA scientists have found evidence to support thrust apparently in violation of the law of conservation of momentum (and not within experimental error):
Long thought to be nothing more than a space dream, the EmDrive, a rocket propulsion technology that requires no propellant, has cleared peer review, the International Business Times reports. The new engine, first proposed 17 years ago, relies on microwaves for its thrust, which are fired into a metal cone, causing acceleration. The latest design, which will be published in the Journal of Propulsion, was the brainchild of scientists at NASA's experimental lab, Eagleworks Laboratories.
Also at Inverse.
Meanwhile, a company formed by Cannae Inc. has announced that it will launch a similar propulsion device into space to prove that it works:
On August 17, Cannae announced plans to launch its thruster on a 6U cubesat. Each unit is a 10-centimeter cube, so a 6U satellite is the size of a small shoebox. Approximately one quarter of this will be taken up by the drive. Fetta intends the satellite to stay on station for at least six months, rather than the six weeks that would be typical for a satellite this size at a altitude of 150 miles. The longer it stays in orbit, the more the satellite will show that it must be producing thrust without propellant.
Cannae has formed a company called Theseus with industrial partners LAI International of Tempe, AZ and SpaceQuest Ltd. of Fairfax, VA to launch the satellite. No launch date has yet been announced, but 2017 seems likely. "Once demonstrated on orbit, Theseus will offer our thruster platforms to the satellite marketplace," says the optimistic conclusion on their website.
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Monday September 05 2016, @03:35PM
Any reactionless drive is effectively a free energy device. At some relative velocity, the increase in kinetic energy is more than the power to run the drive. It may take some fancy engineering, but you can extract power from such a system indefinitely.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 05 2016, @06:28PM
A lot of academic scientists and wannabes like to shoot down stuff just because they don't understand it or can't think of a theory yet. Which is actually very unscientific, since what you should focus on is establishing whether the phenomena is real, not go "it definitely can't be true because it goes against existing laws". Of course if there completely is no evidence of any phenomena then sure shoot it down, but in many cases people have actually taken reasonable trouble to do some experiments and they're not complete retards. Take the cold fusion stuff too, people were saying silly stuff like - it's fake because there aren't enough neutrons generated, you'd be dead if it worked, the energy input is more than the output, etc. The thing is even if it isn't fusion it might be an alternative type of battery. A type of battery that might not be useful today but in the future who knows... After all plenty of scientists and mathematicians work on stuff that has no application today.
In the old days plenty of theories were very wrong, but a lot of methods and tech still worked despite the lack of understanding or accurate theories. In many cases the phenomenon is discovered first then people come up with theories to try to explain it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 06 2016, @05:52PM
Not true, this drive wouldn't allow someone to go faster than the power they have available. Just because it doesn't use a propellant does not make it some magic device, it just means there is some science we haven't quite figured out yet (if the drive works).
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Wednesday September 07 2016, @01:46AM
It produces force. Some pretty basic high school physics says:
Power(in) = Constant
Energy = Force * Distance.
Velocity = Distance / Time
Power(out) = Energy / Time
Doing some rearranging and substituting:
D = V * T
E = F * V * T
Divide both sides by T
E/T = P(out)_ = F * V
However small the F produced by the drive is, if it is greater than zero then there is a speed where P(out) will exceed P(in).
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.