Harold G. "Sonny" White is a mechanical engineer, aerospace engineer and applied physicist who is the Advanced Propulsion Team Lead for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Engineering Directorate and is known for proposing new Alcubierre drive concepts and promoting advanced propulsion projects, under development at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Johnson Space Center, including the first practical experiment to test the existence of Alcubierre drive effects.
Education
White obtained a Bachelor of Surgery degree in Mechanical Engineering from University of South Alabama, an Master of Surgery degree in Mechanical Engineering from Wichita State University in 1999, and a Doctor of Philosophy degree in Physics from Rice University in 2008.
Career
White attracted the attention of the press when he began presenting his ideas at space conventions and publishing proposals for Alcubierre drive concepts. In 2011, he released a paper titled Warp Field Mechanics 101 that outlined an updated concept of Miguel Alcubierre"s faster-than-light propulsion concept, including methods to prove the feasibility of the project Alcubierre"s concept had been considered infeasible because it required far more power than any viable energy source could produce.
White re-calculated the Alcubierre concept and proposed that if the warp bubble around a spacecraft were shaped like a torus, it would be much more energy efficient and make the concept feasible.
White has stated that "warp travel" has not yet seen a "Chicago Pile-1" experiment, a reference to the very first nuclear reactor, the breakthrough demonstration that paved the way for nuclear power. To investigate the feasibility of a warp drive, White and his team have designed a warp field interferometer test bed to demonstrate warp field phenomena.
The experiments are taking place at National Aeronautics and Space Administration"s Advanced Propulsion Physics Laboratory ("Eagleworks") at the Johnson Space Center. White and his team claim that this modified Michelson interferometer will detect distortion of space-time, a warp field effect.
Measurements of the experimental engine with this interferometer have been taken to suggest that Faster-Than-Light space travel might be a possibility.
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In April 2015, the space enthusiast website NASASpaceFlight.com announced, based on a post on their site"s forum by National Aeronautics and Space Administration Eagleworks engineer Paul March, that National Aeronautics and Space Administration had successfully tested their EM Drive in a hard vacuum – which would be the first time any organization has claimed such a successful test.