http://cannae.com/introduction
Nova shared a link on Facebook that there was merit to it and that there was serious testing in progress.
Real deal new tech, or someone trying to grab 15 minutes of fame?
Hmm interesting. Unfortunately I can’t view videos at work, and the links to the theory, numerical methods, and experimental results do not work. I’m familiar with using radiation pressure for thrust, but that’s in the form of solar radiation via solar sails. So until I can view the videos or the links start working, I cannot say one way or the other.
I can’t view the video either, but it looks to me as though they’re saying it’s reactionless
Wouldn’t reactionless = thrustless?!?
I don’t put much credit to anything announced on FB…
That’s kind of the point. If true, it would be a violation of conservation of momentum, and one would expect such a discovery to announced somewhere other than a website registered for the purpose.
As a concept, it seems to be related to EmDrive.
Their proof of concept design page (one of the few pages that actually work on that web site) definitely describes a reactionless system, with a sealed cavity:
Novas writeup
The news TODAY is that NASA found the 720 milliNewtons in the Cannae device.
yes its design is just like the EmDrive … there may be question about efficiencies in the design… but the Cannae drive is very similar to the EmDrive.
See Nasa validates 'impossible' space drive | WIRED UK
The worry is that they only measure a force down here on earth… and don’t up in space
FYI, Joel Hodgson of Mystery Science Theater 3000 fame is their Creative lead for media. I heard him talking about it on the Nerdist podcast a while back. I fogot about it until I saw this thread.
I don’t know that it makes the drive more credible, but it’s cool.
You Cannae break the laws of physics, Cap’n.
I'll get me coat.I find it interesting that there is an implication that it takes very sophisticated equipment (and a room full of rocket scientists) to measure the thrust levels they are talking about.
Am I off base here?
This part of that article confuses me:
Satellites don’t need propellant to stay in orbit. 
Yep. There are two possibilities here. That the thrust levels are so low that some source of unrecognized experimental error is responsible. Or deliberate fraud. Take your pick.
They do if they want to stay in orbit near Earth. There’s an infinitesimal amount of drag from the tenuos atmosphere that adds up over time
In low-earth orbit, there is enough of an atmosphere to cause orbital decay. Satellites in low-earth orbit either carry propellant, or are designed & expected to only last a few years (typically up to 10 years or so, but it depends on altitude, solar activity, etc).
Well, OK, but it never said that.
The wired article brings up the CERN faster-than-light neutrino result, which I think is exactly the right reference. Something we don’t understand yet is going on, but it’s far, far, far more likely to be an error in measuring, or an effect that’s previously unknown but consistent with current physics, than it is to be truly in contradiction to basic physics.
And, it’s worth noting, the NASA abstract says that they found the same force using a version of the thruster that wasn’t supposed to work according to Cannae’s theories. So my money is definitely on ‘some weird interaction in the test setup’, not ‘Cannae’s theories overturn basic physics’
To be strictly fair, there is a third possibility: They’ve stumbled onto a previously-unknown quirk of the laws of physics. If, after repeated experiments by, say, ten independent research groups, over the course of at least a decade, all get the same results, then it’ll be time for the theorists to start seriously considering the matter. And once they do, if they can come up with some sort of theoretical framework that allows for this, then at that point I would consider that third possibility plausible.
The reported measurement of 720 milliNewton translates to about 2.5 ounces. In their experiment, this force is vertical, so they’re looking for the weight of the apparatus to change by 2.5 oz. It’s not easy to make this measurement and eliminate measurement errors, especially since this is an RF device. (The radiation can easily interfere with measurement devices.)
Some (proposed) tether drives are propellantless, but they would work by reacting against the Earth’s magnetic field. Perhaps these ‘reactionless’ drives work by interacting with the Earth magnetically, or with some other magnetic object in the vicinity.