Last week, excitement was stoked by a specialist forum that Nasa was working on an emDrive — a British invention that uses microwaves to push through space without the need for conventional fuel. But while Nasa has said that it is testing similar technologies, it hasn’t actually had any practical success with them yet.
"While conceptual research into novel propulsion methods by a team at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston has created headlines, this is a small effort that has not yet shown any tangible results," NASA officials told Space.com. "NASA is not working on 'warp drive' technology."
What makes the emDrive so exciting but also impossible, according to many scientists, is that it would appear to violate central laws of physics. A ship with it attached would supposedly be able to travel so far through the universe because the engine generates more energy than it uses — violating the law of conservation of energy, which says that energy can’t ever be created.
Some tests claim to have shown that the energy can actually do what it says it can, which have been claimed to show that the planned technology could be viable. But scientists say that quirks of the test — like leaks in the testing chamber or the effect of the Earth — could have been responsible for the unusual results.
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