On reactionless drives

Bertil, I don''t think your idea solves anything. What sort of potential
energy would such a device create? Engines, by definition, turn potential
energy (the chemical or nuclear energy in the fuel, or electrical potential
in a battery) into kinetic energy and waste heat. The fact that a drive
is reactionless means that you make an object move without waste, in fact
with the use of less chemical energy than the kinetic energy you require.
Thus, you're creating energy out of nothing. My personal wish was that the
folx at GDW and DGP had just left the maneuver drives as fusion torches,
which follow reasonable laws and so forth. There have been mumblings to the
effect of "Oh, they were *always* reactionless, we just made it official
recently," from the designers, or so I've heard. I doubt this is true. If
so, then the decision was misguided from the start.

With a cantankerous "harrumph,"

metlay