The helical engine was designed by a NASA scientist called David Burns. The helical engine can theoretically travel at the speed of light by using Einsteins relativity ideas.This engine does not use exhaust of any kind for its propulsion. Instead it has some sort of mass inside it.
The system consists of an oval shaped object in a box which would move from left to right pushing the whole system but since the object would have a constant mass the system would get nowhere.
This is where the concept of Laurenz transformation is exploited.
When any object moves at the speed of light a few things happen to it, such as increase in mass and length.
Even after this if the object moves at the speed of light the energy would not be there forever. David Burns has also resolved this issue, by making the object spin the angular momentum would be conserved.
So after the object moves at the speed of light its mass would increase putting force on the end where it hits causing it to move forward and then the effect would undo and the system wouldn’t go back. David buns specifies that the Laurentz effect would be 7.26 which means the mass would increase by 7.26 times. Even to accelerate the object enough to get the mass 2 times more the velocity required is almost 90% of the speed of light the energy required would be 1.2*10^17(assuming mass of object=1kg). This energy is 1000 times more than the energy produced in a nuclear power plant. This is why the engine is very hypothetical right now but in the future there is a chance of this being possible.
