It's a bird .... it's a plane ... no its -- the future of NASA!

You know all those 'nuts' that think they see UFO's? They might not be as nutty as people think they are.

Discovery News : Discovery Channel : Flying Saucer Craft Set to Fly: "

A new wingless, saucer-shaped aircraft is scheduled to take to the skies. Just don't call it a UFO.

Subrata Roy, a scientist at the University of Florida, calls his aircraft a 'wingless electromagnetic air vehicle,' or WEAV, and if it flies he says it could usher in a new age of aircraft design.

'If this works and we are able to fly it, this will be a quantum shift in how we see flying objects,' said Roy."

Okay maybe people don't understand how grand this is -- they are basically coming up with the one thing that drives people over the edge. You think there's controversy over the effects of EM fields now ... just wait until this thing gets flying.

"The fictional submarine (from 'Hunt for Red October') engine had no moving or rotating parts, just a series of electrodes that ionized the water and shot it out, silently propelling the submarine forward...

...In Roy's WEAV there will be two different sets of electrodes placed on a thin ceramic plate. One set will be located on the top and bottom of the craft to move ionized air down, providing lift, and another set along the sides to propel the aircraft forward. The electrodes create a conducting fluid by ionizing the surrounding air into plasma.

The force created by passing an electrical current through this plasma pushes around the surrounding air, and that air creates lift and momentum and provides stability...."

This is so - COOL! Sorry there just isn't another word for it. Yes it will spin -- the spin will act like the spirals of a gun barrel allowing greater control of the vehicle .... its kind of technical, but that should give you an idea -- think of a frisbee, the more spin it has the truer the flight.

And don't worry about the little green men getting upset -- this thing would be a fish out of water in space, it has to have molecules to travel thru.

"...The new aircraft does need air or at least a magnetic field in order to operate; it wouldn't work in outer space or fly between planets, although Roy says it could fly missions on other planets. And don't expect the WEAV to zoom away from Earth like the flying saucers in the movies...."

So what good does it do us? well while it would not have uses in 'empty' space (since space is never really empty) it would be wonders in trips to other planets ... or thru the ocean ... or, um, both actually. Technically it would be a craft that could go from air travel to water travel if approached at the proper angle (you wouldn't be able to slam straight down into or up out of the water because of stress factors, but you could certainly hit it at a fraction of a degree off from 'skipping' angle and enter safely)