Not only is it not random kooks off the street, it's the Advanced Propulsion Physics Laboratory, a group NASA set up for the express purpose of exploring exoti

Not only is it not random kooks off the street, it's the Advanced Propulsion Physics Laboratory, a group NASA set up for the express purpose of exploring exotic and unlikely propulsion concepts. They've done a small experiment on this particular concept and gotten interesting results. It would be utterly baffling if a group set up to explore such things explored them and then quit when they got interesting results.