What is happening at JSC?

Sorry for abandoning Math so soon. It is temporary, I promise. For the moment, I have to discuss another -possible- dead end. Which maybe it is not. I don't know yet. Media hype? Likely.

JSC stands for Johnson Space Center, which is one out of the 17 centers NASA has in the States.

I have heard some noise in the internet since September in sites like Gizmodo and Space.com about a JSC's scientist who claim feasibility of warping spacetime under certain specifications. Reliable science news, unfortunately, doesn't come from news sources, so I decided to wait a little before start looking for info.

Aerial view of JSC in 1989 -a long time ago, I know-. (Source: wikipedia)

The thing is if I hadn't found the publications in NASA website, I wouldn't give credit at all, but Dr. White seems to be in NASA's payroll, so he deserves at least the benefit of the doubt.

There are a couple of concepts I have to study a little bit better, like Alcubierre drive -knowing it exists, doesn't make you an expert in the subject- and Chung-Freese metric, but after a short read, Dr Harold White, at Eagleworks laboratory -inside the JSC- says energy needed to warp spacetime could be not so high if some tricks are used. It is still incredibly high -it seems-, but not so damn high.

I must give this idea the benefit of the doubt for one more reason: it proposes an experiment to prove it, despite I can't see yet how could it work.

It's a Michelson-Morley interferometer with a "toroidal capacitator ring" in one arm. If spacetime is warped, a detectable phase change is expected. (Source: here).

The thing is, Alcubierre drive is based in exotic matter -I know that- and that misterious toroidal ring, is expected to acquire/generate it. Or at least something like that. Cassimir dynamic effect has been detected, and Cassimir effect exists, but whenever someone start talking about quantum vaccum, I just prepare myself for running, because 80% of the time things go directly to zero point energy, water memory and other kind of stuff I preffer be far from. 

Other explanations offer different frames where to look at the experiment from.

To be fair, Dr. White's experiment and argumentation seem plausible. I keep myself comfortably in my skepticism, and he's trying to prove a good idea with a reasonable experiment. I promise I'll keep an eye on the subject and I'll inform if something remarkable happens.

From attackingspacetime, good luck Doc.

You can read more info at NASA website:
Warp Field Mechanics 101
Eagleworks Laboratories
Search at NASA site