Wow, I've not read something like that in a long time. More news needs to be like this. Examining what we know presenting where we are. Not taking sides and polarizing the discussion.<p>I do think people miss one small aspect of this story. How long has it been since we've had a device built that we've no understanding of the principles of it's operation? I think that's an amazing fluke and (if the effect is genuine) something worth celebrating (just because it's so rare).
I hope we'll find out in practice: <a href="http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/energy/a22678/em-drive-cannae-cubesat-reactionless/" rel="nofollow">http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/energy/a22678/em-dri...</a>
(via lobster_johnson)<p>"Proud to say that we have a partnership now - so the launch is already funded, and we hope to get a launch slot in 2017."
If they have two versions of the resonant cavity, one that is tapered and one that is just a simple cylinder that to me would be a big step in the right direction to address many of the concerns. Basically the cylinder with no taper should show zero thrust. And the version with the taper should show a thrust. Then if they test that setup inside the huge Apollo program vacuum chamber far away from the side walls and change the orientation of the coolant and power wires into different orthogonal directions that sounds promising..
The Summary: "this most recent report is a significant improvement, but has many shortcomings. Questionable subjective techniques are used to infer the “thrust” from the data. Other likely influences are not quantified. But also, despite those inadequacies, the possibility of a new force-producing effect cannot be irrefutably ruled out. This is intriguing, but still falling short of defensible evidence."
tl;dr;<p>> First, I cannot stress enough that there is no new EmDrive “effect” yet about which to theorize. The physical evidence on the EmDrive is neither defensible nor does it include enough operating parameters to characterize a new effect. The data is not even reliable enough to deduce the force-per-power relationship, let alone any other important correlations.
It's so near the noise threshold. Most of the energy goes into heating the thing; only a tiny fraction comes out as possible thrust. The heating prevents using enough power to get more possible thrust; the thing would burn out.<p>Very frustrating.
Remember that "tacking"* in sailboats (going upwind, using only the force of that wind) was held to be impossible, a violation of the laws of nature until people actually witnessed it, too. Severe violations of our expectations don't always break the actual math of a physics model.<p>*more properly said "beating to windward"
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacking_(sailing)" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacking_(sailing)</a>
IMO the "rational" approach is to treat the claims as a bunch of pointless lies until there's a repeatable demonstration. Remarkable claims demand at least some evidence before wild speculation commences. As it is, Harry Potter is just as credible a theory of reality.<p>After all, they've made the same claim repeatedly for 15 years after their first experiments were demonstrably not what they claimed.
we have several unexplained things which possibly look like some interaction between gravity and EM - em-drive, spinning magnet/superconductor gravimetric effects and unexpected velocity of stars in the galaxies (which are big rotating piles of plasma)
"Inertial frames are the reference frames upon which the laws of motion and the conservation laws are defined, yet it is still unknown what causes inertial frames to exist or if they have any deeper properties that might prove useful."<p>"...we must begin a more in-depth experimental program using qualified and impartial labs, plus qualified and impartial analysts."<p>Maybe humans don't really belong in labs in the same way that they don't belong in factories.
Busted by Thunderf00t<p><a href="https://youtu.be/jCAqDA8IfR4" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/jCAqDA8IfR4</a><p>It's amazing people are still giving this bollocks the time of day.