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An article at NasaSpaceFlight.com is claiming that the superficially reactionless EmDrive has again been tested at NASA Eagleworks, this time in hard vacuum, and the anomalous thrust is still being detected:
A group at NASA's Johnson Space Center has successfully tested an electromagnetic (EM) propulsion drive in a vacuum – a major breakthrough for a multi-year international effort comprising several competing research teams. Thrust measurements of the EM Drive defy classical physics' expectations that such a closed (microwave) cavity should be unusable for space propulsion because of the law of conservation of momentum.
With the popular explanations of thermal convection or atmospheric ionization being ruled out by operation in vacuum, and thrust thousands of times greater than expected from a photon rocket, is it time to start taking the EM Drive seriously as a fundamentally new form of propulsion, and possibly a door to new physics?
Roger Shawyer, the inventor of the EmDrive, claims that the device's efficiency will scale even further with greater levels of power, potentially enabling fast interstellar travel powered by a radioisotope thermoelectric generator or nuclear fission.
Previously: NASA Validates "Impossible" Space Drive's Thrust
(Score: 1) by Bogsnoticus on Saturday May 02 2015, @02:38PM
"If you expect people to accept a drive that operates on unknown principles it needs to be demonstrated in a splashy way."
Given how 95% of the population accept mobile phones, computers, the internal combustion engine, electricity generation, televisions, and all sorts of modern appliances with absolutely no understanding on how they work, why should one more device whose operation is beyond their ken be hard for them to accept?
Most will be happy if;
- It works
- Doesn't kill them immediately, or further down the track.
- Doesn't shrink their testicles.
- Doesn't produce the "brown note" and make them crap themselves when it is switched on.
The curious 5% can entertain ourselves by producing theories, conspiracies and just generally pondering the math behind it until a suitable answer is discovered.
Genius by birth. Evil by choice.