Mustafa's Space Drive; a hint of the future? [View all]

[Berlin Expat]

19-year-old Egyptian physics student Aisha Mustafa is someone we may see again in the media in the future because though young she's patented a new type of propulsion system for spacecraft that makes use of an obscure, and only recently experimentally proven, quantum physics effect.

You can read the rest of the story here: http://www.fastcompany.com/1837966/mustafas-space-drive-an-egyptian-students-quantum-physics-invention

OK, science-y type DU'ers...............read it and let us know what you think. There has to a physicist or two somewhere around here!

I think it's an interesting story, to be honest. Not to mention the sheer value of if this true, and it really is a practical idea and if it ultimately works, I'm just trying to imagine the heads of people like Pamela Geller, Robert Spencer, Freepers everywhere, et al, exploding over the fact that a 19-year old girl from a Muslim-majority country invented something that would arguably be worth the Nobel Prize.

Also from the article, "Aisha's invention is so promising that her university's staff aided with a patent application. She intends to study the design further in the hope of testing it out for real in space, but as the OnIslam.net site points out she notes that there's no funding for a department of space science and this prevents important research being carried out in strife-ridden Egypt." Sounds like she needs to get some funding from a university or JPL or NASA or something. Maybe we can start a letter-writing campaign to NASA, JPL, or MIT?