It was in 2017 that 'To the Stars Academy of Arts and Sciences' released a video that shows a mysterious flying object screeching across the skies, after defying all laws of physics. As the video went viral online, conspiracy theorists claimed that this flying object might be an alien vessel developed by an advanced extraterrestrial civilization.
Now, David Burns, a NASA engineer at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama has revealed that he has invented an advanced spacecraft that has the capability of flying across space without using any fuel.
However, Burns is not at all bothered about the fact that this spacecraft may break the conventional laws of physics.
"I'm comfortable with throwing it out there. If someone says it doesn't work, I'll be the first to say it was worth a shot," Burns told New Scientist.
Burns has named this new spacecraft 'helical engine', and it has been learned that this flying vessel, during its course breaks all laws of physics as we know them. The operation of this helical engine is very simple; a ring inside a box is sprung in one direction, the box recoiling in the other.
"When the ring reaches the end of the box, it will bounce backward, and the box's recoil direction will switch too. This is action-reaction – also known as Newton's third law of motion – and in normal circumstances, it restricts the box to wiggling back and forth," explains New Scientist in their report.
And now, Burns asks the billion-dollar query that could break all conventional theories in physics; what if the ring's mass is much greater when it slides in one direction than the other? If the ring's mass is greater, it would give the box a greater kick at one end than the other. As the action exceeds reaction, the box would accelerate, but Newton's third law, 'for every action, there will be an equal and opposite reaction' gets violated.
Burns has now worked on the design if the helical engine in private, and he has not used any sponsorship from NASA. Even though Burns admitted that his design is not that effective, he believes that the introduction of the helical engine can harvest much of the energy that the accelerator loses in heat and radiation.
Space experts believe that materializing this technology could revolutionize space travel in the future, and it will help humans to carry out interplanetary colonization with ease.
