Wouldn't it be nice if there was a way to launch satellites into space cheaply so that we could use them as a free, never-ending energy source and end the world's energy crisis for good?
This is the future as imagined by Roger Shawyer, a British scientist who has spent years promoting his research on a highly controversial space propulsion technology called EmDrive.
Although he has been ridiculed and even accused of fraud by some in the international space community after New Scientist wrote about his invention in 2006, the proof is in the pudding as now NASA has started testing the technology and says that it does indeed work.
Shawyer proved that if you had a 100kg spacecraft, the thrust would be in a clockwise direction, and the spacecraft would then accelerate in an anti-clockwise direction.
In this video filmed by Shawyer, the tests simulated the engine moving a 100Kg spacecraft in weightless conditions.
"This technology is a quantum leap," Shawyer tells IBTimes UK. "It would enable vertical take-off and landing for airplanes, it's quiet and it uses liquid hydrogen as a fuel, so it's green too".