NASA ‘Is About To Reveal Its Mysterious Warp Drive’, Insider Claims

Last year, NASA investigated a technology often described as a ‘warp drive’ - an engine which has no exhaust, and which would outperform any current booster used in space.

The concept of the EM Drive was considered implausible - and scientists suggested that it broke the laws of physics.

But NASA could be about to reveal its secrets - as one user on the NASA Spaceflight forums has posted, ‘It is my understanding that Eaglework’s new paper has been today accepted for publication in a peer-review journal, where it will be published.’

If true, it could revolutionise space travel.

The proposed engine works by bouncing microwaves around inside an enclosed container, and the idea was first mooted by British researcher Roger Shawyer.

But many researchers said it was impossible.

Steven Thomson of the University of St Andrews wrote, ‘The EMDrive is designed to be a closed system that doesn’t emit any particles or radiation. It cannot possibly generate any thrust without breaking some seriously fundamental laws of physics. To put it bluntly, it’s like trying to pull yourself up by your shoelaces and hoping you’ll levitate.’

Earlier this year, University of Helsinki researchers said that the engine does have an exhaust - but it’s invisible, consisting of two photons which ‘cancel each other out’.

Researcher Arto Annila told ScienceAlert, ‘"The EM drive operates by the same principle, for example, as a jet engine, where the high speed exhaust gases backwards (opposite reaction) push the airplane forwards.

‘Light at microwave lengths is the fuel that’s being fed into the cavity … and the EM drive exhausts backwards paired photons.

‘When two photons travel together, but having opposite phases, then the pair has no net electromagnetic field, and hence it will not reflect back from the metal walls, but goes through.