A group of NASA scientists developing technology to make interstellar spaceflight possible by the end of the century may have reached a watershed moment.
The “EM drive,” which works by bouncing microwaves around in a chamber, has shown that it can produce thrust without expelling propellant, according to the website NASA Spaceflight.
The propulsion, which piqued the interest of the scientific community last summer, has now been successfully tested in a vacuum for the first time – meaning that it could have potential for propelling spacecraft to the farthest reaches of the galaxy, according to the site.
As early as 2011, the scientists at the NASA Johnson Space Center were saying that their work on the futuristic concept could be historic.
“It may be a ‘Chicago pile’ moment for this area of physics,” the researchers wrote in that report, referring to the first man-made and sustaining nuclear reaction, orchestrated by Enrico Fermi in 1942.
Classical physics held that a close cavity should be unusable for propulsion because of the law of conservation of momentum, according to NASA SpaceFlight.
But last summer the NASA Eagleworks team from Houston piqued the interest of the scientific community with test results from their quantum vacuum experiments.
The 2011 paper by the NASA team mentions that science-fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke proposed a “quantum ramjet drive” in 1985.
The NASA team said space travel could become a realistic possibility, depending on further testing.
Read more: Warp Speed? NASA May Have Made a Breakthrough for Galactic Travel
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