Well, since we're talking about NASA & impossible space drives... Excerpt of heavily encrypted PDF file
Proposal by Quantum Potential Corporation in response to 2011 NASA http://www.quantum-potential.com/ACT%20NASA.pdf NASA, U.S. Navy and U.S. Air Force have commissioned a number of interesting yet disjointed studies on asymmetric capacitors with the goal of evaluating their usefulness to propulsion applications. The nature of propulsive forces arising in asymmetric capacitors under high voltage was attributed to mysterious Biefeld–Brown effect, which hinted at new physics. Thorough examination by the aforementioned government agencies have conclusively proved that thrust in atmosphere is definitely due to ionic wind as the magnitude of the observed force closely matches ion transport calculations. Consequently, no thrust was observed in high vacuum. However, propulsive forces were noted when an electric arc jumped between the capacitor electrodes. Because ablation was the only logical conventional explanation, none of the studies pursued the subject further. The 2004 NASA study commissioned by NASA Breakthrough Propulsion Project was the only one to cast a shadow of doubt on the ablation hypothesis: the calculated mass loss was not supported by observations. Clearly, some other hitherto unknown mechanism must be at play. If this mechanism is genuine, it may be a manifestation of “new physics” with far reaching consequences and immediate applications in space propulsion (e.g., purely electromagnetic momentum exchange propellantless propulsion). Because of the potential importance of an unambiguous identification of the nature of the propulsive force arising from an asymmetric capacitor arcing in vacuum, we propose an experiment that will a) accurately measure thrust resulting from the arc (better than 104 N); b) accurately measure material loss due to ablation (better than 104 g); c) account for parasitic effects due to electrostatic/electromagnetic interaction with vacuum chamber walls . To our knowledge no such experiment has been performed. The experiment will be performed in a bell jar vacuum chamber (<105 Torr) using torsion balance similar to the one employed in the 2004 NASA study. Confirmation of thrust without ablation will be a truly significant accomplishment of American science (with significant public benefit) indicating that new and hitherto unrecognized phenomena may be at play. This discovery will have far reaching consequences for science and technology and thus corresponds for high payoff research. We may be only $116,000 dollars away from the next major technological breakthrough. At a very minimum successful confirmation of ablationless propulsive force will lead to development of new generation of propellantless thrusters for near Earth maneuvering and deep space travel that will markedly reduce the cost of space missions and may even solve the space junk problem (see Section 10). Numerous other applications will follow. On Thu, Jul 31, 2014 at 5:18 PM, Alan Fletcher <a...@well.com> wrote: > At 01:16 PM 7/31/2014, you wrote: > >> Okay, so can we get them to test the emDrive now? >> > > They tested the Cannae version (as reported by Wired) -- 40 micronewton at > 28W , but ALSO a "tapered" version, which is an emDrive -- 91 micronewton > at 17W. > > See page 1 of the Nasa paper http://arc.aiaa.org/doi/abs/ > 10.2514/6.2014-4029 >