NEW YORK: One of the biggest hurdles to interplanetary space travel has always been fuel: how can you possibly carry enough to get you to the outer reaches of the solar system? Well, the fuel-conscious scientists at NASA may have cause to celebrate. Their colleagues at the Johnson Space Center recently tested an electromagnetic (EM) propulsion drive, which could replace traditional propellant during space travel. Although EM Drives have been tested in the past, the folks at Johnson were the first to conduct such trials under similar conditions found in space-in a vacuum.
It was long-believed that EM Drives worked great in theory, but could not overcome certain fundamental principles of physics to be applied in the real world. That all changed last summer when a team of advanced propulsion researchers from NASA EagleWorks, led by Harold “Sonny” White, presented their findings at a conference in Cleveland, Ohio. And the key to their success lay in the Quantum Vacuum.
The practical application of EM Drives to spaceflight (and more specifically, space stations) was brought one step closer to reality in 2010 by Professor Juan Yang in China, whose research showed that such drives may provide the necessary power to enable the International Space Station to function without the need for energy re-boosts from visiting vehicles. The only problem was overcoming the complex physics of propulsion in space. That’s where White’s team stepped in.
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