The simple solution being to put it in space, turn it on, and see if it 'stays' in space.
The claimed amount of thrust is significant enough that it will either obviously succeed or fail if you actually put it in space.
LEO has loads of stuff to interact with, and building a test article that won't drift due to, eg, materials outgassing is a specialist challenge.
The Planetary Society have will be testing their lightsail later this year and it's been years, one launch failure, one engineering demonstrator, and now an actual test bird with its companion (so it has something to measure distances against). And that's for something which has physics on its side and is adored by Sagan-era enginerds.
First demonstrate the thing in a lab. Otherwise nobody will take a launch request seriously, except maybe a non-expert bitcoin billionaire.
That would still be an extremely useful invention.
I was thinking about this more from a practical perspective. And what matters is "does it work", and much less so "how does it work".
I guess if it based on magnetic fields, then it wouldn't be useful for long range space travel but it would still be extremely useful for planet scale space travel!
already invented, already in use, not as great as you'd hope.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetorquer
> I guess if it based on magnetic fields, then it wouldn't be useful for long range space travel but it would still be extremely useful for planet scale space travel!
turns out it isn't that effective. which can be determined with a sophomore-level understanding of physics and magnetic fields.
0-60 in 1 hour is actually not so bad in space! That’s 10,000mph per week.
And these observable effects are large when you compare them to OTHER forms of space travel.
IE, if you can have a propellant less method of travel in space, of the amount that the EM drive supposedly does, this is a BIG DEAL.
The effect doesn't increase in space. Instead, the "small" effect when compared to earth methods of transportation, are extremely useful in space.