NASA Continue Testing the “Impossible” EM Drive

The EM Drive, a revolution in technology that was discovered by accident and despite further testing, which proves that the drive can actually work, scientists around the world are still scratching their heads trying to work out why and how it does!

The fuel-free engine, which was deemed impossible and implausible because it went against the laws of physics as we know them. The EM Drive creates thrust by bouncing microwaves around in a closed container, the power for which can be generated using solar, meaning that no physical fuel is needed. What’s strange, and I mean very strange about this engine, aside from needing no physical fuel, is that it appears to generate a forward-facing force, without creating an equal and opposite force in the other direction.

Paul March is one of the engineers working on the EM Drive Thruster at the Eagleworks Laboratory at the Johnson Space Center in Texas, who remarked that NASA managed to remove some of the errors from earlier tests, but the drive is still producing unexplained thrust. This means there may be a catalyst to the actions of the engine that we simply haven’t detected yet, but you can bet they’re working hard to figure out exactly what that is.

Something called The Lorentz force was thought to be the culprit, but March stated ‘I will tell you that we first built and installed a second generation, closed face magnetic damper that reduced the stray magnetic fields in the vacuum chamber by at least an order of magnitude and any Lorentz force interactions it could produce,’ he said ‘And yet the anomalous thrust signals remain.’ he added.

So what does all this mean? Given that virtually all current satellites, spacecraft and probes use fuel of some sort, an EM drive could significantly reduce the weight of the hardware, as well as extend their life cycle. This reduction in weight saves money at launch, as well as being able to constantly provide thrust once in space, which can also lead to incredible speeds, such as taking a spacecraft to Mars in around 10 weeks!

Electric powered drives, Mars within weeks? I’m sure Elon Musk is salivating right now, possibly building some nukes too.