NASA presents evidence that microwave thrusters seem to work
Wow. My gut tells me something is wrong here, and that this is being mismeasured. However, this would be an <i>enormous</i> breakthrough if it pans out, even at the low levels NASA has seemingly confirmed.<p>We're very good at generating power in space; solar is basically infinite in the inner parts of our solar system, and we have a lot of experience with RTGs and other power generation mechanisms. If we can directly turn power into thrust without burning fuel in the process, this truly changes everything.<p>But as I said, I think this will end up not panning out for one of these reasons: 1) The microwaves bouncing around cause a small amount of material to be lost and be sent out of the device, causing the thrust. 2) The RF in play is throwing off detection (this, to me, seems most likely -- it could explain the thousandfold difference in detected thrust levels between the Chinese and US tests). 3) Some sort of effect that is linked to gravity. No idea what, though.<p>I really look forward to further testing.<p>Edit: Given that I'm terrible with the scale of small numbers, I decided to do some quick math.  If you were to use that thrust of 50 micronewtons to drive the Voyager spacecraft (722kg) full out for one year from a starting velocity of 0m/s, you would end up at 0.0911259m/s at the end of the year.  By comparison, Voyager is currently traveling at 17km/s.