Two German researchers claim they have produced measurable amounts of thrust using a copy of NASA’s controversial EMDrive. It’s a result that has many people talking, but don’t plan your trip to the to the Alpha Centauri system just yet—the experts we spoke with are all highly skeptical of the study and its findings.
As reported in Hacked, the details of the new study are being presented this week by Martin Tajmar, a professor and chair for Space Systems at the Dresden University of Technology, and co-author G. Fiedler, at the American Institute for Aeronautics and Astronautics’ Propulsion and Energy Forum in Orlando. A copy of the study, which has yet to undergo peer review, has been made available prior to the conference: “Direct Thrust Measurements of an EMDrive and Evaluation of Possible Side-Effects.”
Unlike conventional thrusters which need propellant, the electromagnetic drive, or EMDrive, works by converting electric power to thrust by bouncing microwaves within a closed container. But with no expulsion of propellant, there’s nothing to balance the engine’s momentum during acceleration; on paper, this device appears to violate conventional physics and laws of conservation of momentum. Hence the controversy. Critics of the EMDrive, of which there are many, say it’s all poppycock.