Quote:
Originally Posted by photon
Research that gets announced on an Internet forum deserves every once of skepticism that can be mustered.
Like the faster than light speed neutrinos it's far more likely a measuring problem or a confounding factor they aren't accounting for.
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True, but this one NASA tested itself and found unexplained thrust of 1N/Kilowatt in vacuum.
http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2015/...stic-em-drive/
At the very least this deserves a bit of investigation to try to figure out why.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hesla
^ Similar to how we have created cold fusion. There is quite a bit of issues with it.
1) the EM drive would require exotic matter/energy to run. Something we do not have
2) the test was not completed in a vacuum.
3) Still need large amounts of energy
However, It is extremely exciting that it could be technically possible. Unfortunately, it likely would not happen in our lifetime.
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You are getting the Alcubierre drive (FTL) mixed up with the Resonate Cavity Thruster or EMDrive (sublight). Warp vs. Impulse. EMDrive requires no exotic matter.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcubierre_drive
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EmDrive
EM drive is only theoretically 9.4% the speed of light and results have been replicated by NASA in vacuum. This is especially exciting as results have now been replicated independently in two non-vacuum tests and once in vacuum. Theory for these has not yet been dismissed as measurement noise like the earlier neutrino mess but three positive tests is promising, especially the ones from NASA. See NASA link above. If results continue holding up and it actually works in practice, the engine would allow us to get to the moon and back in roughly 4 hrs.