An Engineer Says He’s Found a Way to Overcome Earth’s Gravity

Key Points:

• The EmDrive, introduced in 2001 by Roger Shawyer, claimed to produce thrust without propellant, challenging fundamental physics principles like conservation of momentum, but subsequent tests, including those by Dresden University of Technology in 2021, found no thrust, discrediting the claim.
• Exodus Propulsion Technologies, led by former NASA electrostatics specialist Charles Buhler, claims to have discovered a "New Force" generated by electric fields that can produce propellantless thrust sufficient to counteract gravity, based on extensive vacuum-chamber experiments.
• Buhler's work is independent of NASA and presented primarily through the Alternative Propulsion Energy Conference (APEC), where the focus remains on further testing and refinement, with no independent replication of the results yet published as of mid-2026.
• Despite the excitement, the scientific community remains skeptical, emphasizing that patents and conference presentations do not constitute validation; rigorous third-party verification and reproducibility under controlled conditions are required to confirm such extraordinary claims.
• The history of propellantless drives is marked by initial enthusiasm followed by disproval, making Buhler's claims intriguing but highly improbable until independently verified.