China claimed that it has overtaken NASA into building a "warp drive” technology that could prove that interstellar, space travel is more than just a science fiction. The country has apparently been funding into controversial research since 2010, according to the China Academy of Science and Technology (CAST). They added, “NASA is simply "reconfirming" what it has already known.
Recently National research institutions (NRI) have performed a series of long-term, frequent tests on the EmDrive” Chen Yue, CAST's head of the communication satellite division, said. "NASA's published experiments outcomes can be said to re-confirm the idea. We have effectively established many statements of multiple prototype principles."
Chen claimed that CAST has already built a test device for the EmDrive and is being tested in the Low Orbit manned Satellite Tiangong.
"The formation of an experimental confirmation platform to fulfill the milli-level micro thrust measurement test, as well as several years of frequent experiments and researches into corresponding interference factors, confirm that in this type of thruster, thrust does exist."
Known as the EmDrive Propulsion System (EPS), the 'warp drive' technology was earlier believed to be impossible as it break the laws of physics. While spaceships need to generate thrust to push them towards the correct direction, the EmDrive has been designed to generate thrust by harnessing light particles and bouncing microwaves around inside a closed, cone-shaped compartment. Such movement produces thrust at the slim end of the cone, pushing the engine forward, the Mirror noted. However, while the research brought great news and was admired by many, other critics continued that the idea is inconsistent with Newton's conservation of momentum, which states that a body will not move unless an external force is applied.
If such technology is successful, space travel could take humans to the moon in just four hours and to Mars in just a few weeks. But apart from the much-coveted Mars travel, British engineer Roger Shawyer further pointed other major things EmDrive could do for the world.
"It will be solar power stations, city-to-city long-haul flights consuming hydrogen. It's convenient and good to go and will revolutionize our world in the next few decades," he said.