Originally Answered: How does the EmDrive warp space?
And the stories link to this list of forum posts which as far as I can tell doesn't even mention warp drive or measurements of faster than light laser light in any of the forum posts: EM Drive Developments - related to space flight applications - Thread 2
At any rate if it is mentioned somewhere in that long thread, not seen any announcements or papers.
If anyone knows of a more substantial source, be sure to say!
As for the drive itself, first when they say NASA here, they mean Eagleworks, a small NASA funded group of researchers with a small budget who specialize in exploring way-out fringe ideas just in case there is something of value in them.
NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)
And the drive, if it works, bounces microwaves around inside a tapered chamber, The puzzling thing about it is that the waves never leave the chamber but somehow by bouncing around inside this irregular shape, the experimental results suggest they managed to generate thrust without any reaction mass, which though the thrust is tiny still seems to defy conservation of momentum.
But then, it might not if there is some way to use quantum fluctuations in the vacuum in some way to substitute for the need for reaction mass. That's where it gets controversial with other experts saying that doesn't make any sense that you could use quantum fluctuations for propulsion.
Some time back then a group of 5 people from Eagleworks tested this device for about a week. Their experiments found a small amount of thrust. They tested two versions, the version as described in the patent by its inventor, and a simpler version omitting some of the details that the inventor said were essential for it to function. Both versions produced thrust though the version with the extra improvements produced more thrust.
The Chinese also worked on a similar device a while back and reported positive results there also.
That's about it, plus a lot of speculative theory about how it might work, if it does work.
EmDrive
If it does work the main thing it could do is to help a little (or some say revolutionize if you believe the hype) with travel in outer space, because you don't need to take any reaction mass along with you, so could travel further without even needing to take the amount of mass you need for an ion thruster.
So it is a way of saving on reaction mass. Still need the power, it's not getting energy from nothing. But it would be a major benefit if you didn't need to keep replenishing your supplies of reaction mass to fire out of the rocket motors for propulsion.
E.g. an ion thruster with propellant, could travel indefinitely and never run out of fuel only using e.g. solar power.
I haven't seen any suggestion in the few articles I've read that it would permit FTL flight. Unless we get more information, I'd recommend just ignoring this latest news for now.
But there just possibly might be something in the EM Drive for those who like way-out ideas. One of many ideas, maybe one of them will come to something. Early days yet though for this one.
DETAILS OF THE ORIGINAL PAPER (NOTHING IN IT ABOUT FTL)
You can read the original paper here (with no claims of warp drive, if there are new results it's not been published or at least widely publicized yet).
Anomalous Thrust Production from an RF Test Device Measured on a Low-Thrust Torsion Pendulum
The abstract is here
NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)
The "null test article" was one without the "asymmetrical engraved slots" that the inventor claimed were needed to get thrust. The real "null test" was the instrument setup with an RF load set across but no device. The test articles were tried mounted in two different directions to check that the direction of thrust thrust changed when you just turned the device around to face in a different direction.
Their conclusion is, "There appears to be a clear dependency between thrust magnitude and the presence of some sort of dielectric RF resonator in the thrust chamber. The geometry, location, and material properties of this resonator must be evaluated using numerous COMSOL® iterations to arrive at a viable thruster solution. We performed some very early evaluations without the dielectric resonator (TE012 mode at 2168 MHz, with power levels up to ~30 watts) and measured no significant net thrust."
Basically, they published some preliminary results that are intriguing enough that you can understand why they would want to pursue it further and see if there is anything in it. Especially since that is their remit, to investigate claims like this and see if there is anything in it.
Which isn't to say that I think that they have verified that the EM-drive works . It is just too early - many scientific experiments seem to produce positive results at this stage in research and then they later the researchers find another explanation.
It is rare that you see science that's so much at the cutting edge where nobody yet knows what is going on to quite this extent (even if it eventually does turn out to be something mundane).
UPDATE
First, here is the video talk, if you want to give it a listen. Quite technical and hard to follow what's going on and he had to leave out part of the presentation due to running out of time.
And here is a summary of what we know so far, which someone did on Reddit, it's good, much better than my answer here :):
The FACTS as we currently know them about the EmDrive and Cannae Drive
It may also help with the video talk to read that first.
Thanks to Hugo Galvão Ribeiro Arraes for linking to it in the comments :). Good find!
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Robert Walker
Writer of articles on Mars and Space issues - Software Developer of Tune Smithy, Bounce Metronome etc.Studied at Wolfson College, Oxford
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