Back in 2001, British engineer Roger Shawyer introduced the world to the EmDrive, a so-called “impossible drive” that claimed to generate thrust without propellant. The problem? It violated the fundamental laws of physics specifically, the conservation of momentum. Despite years of experiments and heated debate, by 2021 the verdict was in: the EmDrive simply didn’t work.
But the dream of a reactionless, propellant-free engine hasn’t disappeared. Now, a new concept has emerged and this time backed by a former NASA scientist who insists his team has uncovered a force outside our current understanding of physics.
Charles Buhler, once part of NASA’s Kennedy Space Center where he co-founded the Electrostatics and Surface Physics Laboratory, now leads Exodus Propulsion Technologies. He claims his group has identified a “New Force” that allows thrust without propellant.
“The most important message to convey to the public is that a major discovery occurred,” Buhler told The Debrief. “This discovery of a New Force is fundamental in that electric fields alone can generate a sustainable force onto an object and allow center-of-mass translation of said object without expelling mass.”
Buhler stresses that this project is not affiliated with NASA. Instead, his findings were recently shared at the Alternative Propulsion Energy Conference (APEC), a forum of engineers and enthusiasts exploring unconventional propulsion methods sometimes with controversial credibility.
According to Buhler, decades of research into propellant-less drives led his team which includes veterans from NASA, Blue Origin, and the Air Force to focus on electrostatics. Early designs generated negligible thrust, but refinements over the years built momentum. By 2023, the team claims their drive produced enough thrust to overcome Earth’s gravity.
As Buhler explained: “Essentially, what we’ve discovered is that systems that contain an asymmetry in either electrostatic pressure or some kind of electrostatic divergent field can give a system of a center of mass a non-zero force component.”
In plain terms, the team believes that under certain electrostatic conditions, objects can experience measurable force seemingly without pushing against anything.
Of course, extraordinary claims demand extraordinary proof. The EmDrive also appeared promising when NASA’s Eagleworks team reported measurable thrust in 2016. Yet careful follow-up studies, including a rigorous investigation by the Dresden University of Technology, found no thrust at all.
Given this history, scientists remain skeptical. Buhler’s discovery is “woah, if true” but still needs extensive, peer-reviewed verification before rewriting the laws of physics.