Interplantary travel may soon be within our grasp. German scientists confirmed that an electormagnetic propulsion drive, EMDrive for short, which is reportedly fast enough to get to the Moon in four hours, potentially works. When the engine was first proposed 15 years ago by British inventor Roger Shawyer, it was ridiculed as being scientifically impossible. The engine worked by directly converting electromagnetic energy into thrust by colliding microwaves within a closed container, bypassing the need for propellant. By doing so, physicists claimed that the engine appeared to defy one of the laws of physics - the conservation of momentum, according to The Telegraph.
In April, a NASA engineer conducted a test in a vacuum and was unable to falsify results. The test imitated the conditions the engine would be working under in space and by doing so, debunked some initial concerns about the engine's viability,
Earlier this week, Martin Tajmar, a professor and chair for Space Systems at Dresden University of Technology in Germany claimed that his experiment, also within vacuum conditions, showed the engine produces thrust, according to Outerplaces.
"Our test campaign cannot confirm or refute the claims of the EM Drive but intends to independently assess possible side-effects in the measurements methods used so far," Tajmar wrote in a study. "Nevertheless, we do observe thrust close to the actual predictions after eliminating many possible error sources that should warrant further investigation into the phenomena. Our measurements reveal thrusts as expected from previous claims after carefully studying thermal and electromagnetic interferences. If true, this could certainly revolutionize space travel."
If these findings can be applied to actual space travel, then the engine would be revolutionary. With an engine that is capable of producing thrust thousands of times greater than a standard proton rocket, we would be able to reach Mars in 70 days and Alpha Centauri in "only" 100 years, as opposed to the tens of thousands of years it would take now, according to the Daily Mail.
While many are excited about the possibility of having an engine similar to the Impulse Drive from Star Trek, the test only confirmed that the engine produces thrust and alludes to its theoretical applications. The test was unable to confirm or refute the claims of the EMDrive's viability in space-like conditions. Furthermore, as many scientists note, there is simply no getting around the fact that the engine completely ignores one of the fundamental laws of physics.
