Chinese Say They're Building 'Impossible' Space Drive

[0iD]

http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/0...e-buildin.html

Chinese researchers claim they've confirmed the theory behind an "impossible" space drive, and are proceeding to build a demonstration version. If they're right, this might transform the economics of satellites, open up new possibilities for space exploration –- and give the Chinese a decisive military advantage in space.

To say that the "Emdrive" (short for "electromagnetic drive") concept is controversial would be an understatement. According to Roger Shawyer, the British scientist who developed the concept, the drive converts electrical energy into thrust via microwaves, without violating any laws of physics. Many researchers believe otherwise. An article about the Emdrive in New Scientist magazine drew a massive volley of criticism. Scientists not only argued that Shawyer's work was blatantly impossible, and that his reasoning was flawed. They also said the article should never have been published.

"It is well known that Roger Shawyer's 'electromagnetic relativity drive' violates the law of conservation of momentum, making it simply the latest in a long line of 'perpetuum mobiles' that have been proposed and disproved for centuries," wrote John Costella, an Australian physicist. "His analysis is rubbish and his 'drive' impossible."

[greenalien]

Just because it's apparently impossible doesn't mean that you can't get people to invest in it - Prof. Fleichmann (the 'Cold Fusion' man) has been doing very nicely out of his 'failed' invention for quite some time, as there will always be some investors who are prepared to back a 'long shot' on the off chance that the establishment are wrong and that it comes good in the end.

As far as the 'microwave drive' is concerned, sounds from the 'Wired' article that it just might work!

[blueball]

If you want a really impossible space drive read a short story by Isaac Asimov called "The Endochronic Properties of Resumblimated Thiotimoline".

Wiki

[Clunk]

Could they be prosecuted for breaking the laws of physics?

[blueball]

Could they be prosecuted for breaking the laws of physics?

Mmm, I like the way you think

[MadduckUK]

Mmm, I like the way you think

closet yank?

[mediaboy]

That'd be interesting... Wonder how long it is before the cold war springs back into action even more so than it has already?

Espionage and technology stealing ftw!

Industrial Espionage is complimentary on a much larger scale