Inventor Roger Shawyer's antigravity drive could bring George Jetson's flying car into reality. Shawyer says he's working on a version of his superconductor-packing Emdrive that can generate 300 pounds of thrust using a 6 kW input. The idea is to silently lift vehicles, spacecraft or missiles with the Emdrive, and then propel those projectiles forward using other means such as rocket or jet engines.
Is this mad scientist and his antigravity drive for real? We'll see. Scientists all over the world are squabbling over whether it's possible to use the Emdrive's high-power microwaves inside a closed system to create thrust from electrical power. Chinese scientists are building one of the drives to be tested by the end of this year, and the British National Space Centre is investigating his claims — but an Australian researcher calls the inventor a "crackpot" and a "charlatan."
Undaunted, Shawyer is moving forward with his plan to build an unmanned demonstration vehicle, defying gravity thanks to four of his Emdrives. Shawyer says those four modules will silently lift the 1000-pound vehicle, and it'll be propelled forward with jet engines, reaching a speed of 230 knots. This tech could also have scary military implications, allowing weapons to be launched with no exhaust plume, making them undetectable. In 10 years the scientist wants to build a space plane that can make the 10,000 mile trip from London to Sydney in under three hours, or take 40 tons of cargo to the moon in four days.
Here's a video of the Emdrive in action:
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