EmDrive: 'Impossible' Space Propulsion System Starts New Space Race for China, US

By Charissa Echavez, | April 17, 2017

EmDrive appears to have sparked a space race between the US and China. (YouTube)

Although the controversial propulsion engine technology EmDrive has received criticisms from experts for defying Newton's law of physics, it appears that it has instead kicked off a space race between China and the United States.




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It could be recalled that China claimed that it outpaced NASA in creating the 'impossible' technology that could prove that interstellar, superfast space travel is not just a science fiction. The China Academy of Science and Technology (CAST) claimed that it has been funding the research since 2010 and NASA is merely "reconfirming" what it already knew.



"NASA published test results can be said to re-confirm the technology. We have successfully developed several specifications of multiple prototype principles," Chen Yue, CAST's head of the communication satellite division, said. He further said that CAST has created a test device for EmDrive and is being experimented in the low-orbit manned satellite Tiangong-2.







NASA's Eagleworks Laboratory team, on the other hand, published a research paper about the EmDrive spacecraft. The paper showed that EmDrive does appear to work and has indeed produced 1.2 millinewtons per kilowatt of thrust in a vacuum.



Rumors of the US government testing the EmDrive on the Boeing X-37B also would just not die down. Last month, Chinatopix reiterated the claim that the X-37B is testing the EmDrive after it surprisingly exceeded the current record of 675 days in orbit. The United States, however, denied such allegations and declared the propulsion experiment as a test of a Hall-effect thruster made by Aerojet Rocketdyne.



Experts are divided on whether to consider EmDrive as a reputable source of energy or not. But for now, spectators just need to wait and see how this controversial EmDrive theory turns out, particularly for both China and the United States.



Who do you think will get to the finish line first?

