By Graham Templeton

A study conducted last year by NASA scientists has become the latest, and by far the highest profile, piece of evidence in favor of a seemingly impossible space thruster design that’s been evoking worldwide skepticism for some time now. Apparently annoyed by the persistent boosters of several similar but distinct designs, the space agency finally agreed to test an American-made variant called the Cannae Drive. “Alright!” they said. “We’ll test your stupid drive that won’t work.” Except it did work. Seemingly in contravention of the law of conservation of momentum, the team confirmed that the device produces thrust by using electricity, and nothing else. Supporters call them microwave thrusters or quantum vacuum plasma thrusters (QVPT), while most others use the phrase “anomalous thrust device.”

First, the results of NASA’s experiment, since that’s all the team itself wants you to be talking about. Seemingly wanting to avoid unproductive controversy about the nature of existence, they’ve totally ignored the question of how the drive works in favour of simply reporting the data. With controls in place to avoid any confounding forces or variables, the NASA team recorded a reliable thrust between 30 and 50 micro-Newtons, less than a thousandth of the output of some relatively low-powered ion thrusters in use today. Still, the ion thrusters require fuel to operate, and the original QVPT inventor claims the version NASA tested is flawed, leading them to collect far lower thrust readings than his original can provide.

Read more » Extreme Tech
http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/187346-nasa-tests-impossible-no-fuel-quantum-space-engine-and-it-actually-works