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New Thruster May Shorten Mars Trip
Originally published at Twixel.net. You can comment here or there.
Thruster May Shorten Mars Trip
TUSTIN, Calif., Sept. 7, 2007 — An amplified photon thruster that could potentially shorten the trip to Mars from six months to a week has reportedly attracted the attention of aerospace agencies and contractors.
Young Bae, founder of the Bae Institute in Tustin, Calif., first demonstrated his photonic laser thruster (PLT), which he built with off-the-shelf components, in December.
The demonstration produced a photon thrust of 35 µN and is scalable to achieve much greater thrust for future space missions, the institute said. Applications include highly precise satellite formation flying configurations for building large synthetic apertures in space for earth or space observation, precision contaminant-free spacecraft docking operations, and propelling spacecraft to unprecedented speeds — faster than 100 km/sec.
“This is the tip of the iceberg,” Bae said in a statement from the institute. “PLT has immense potential for the aerospace industry. For example, PLT-powered spacecraft could transit the 100 million km to Mars in less than a week.”
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But only the satellite formation part.
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(Anonymous) 2007-09-12 06:50 pm (UTC)(link)But if you had a decent antimatter reactor, you could do 50% c or better... Heck, if you heat up a filament and put it at the focus of a parabolic dish you could do pretty well, and it would have the advantage of being quick&simple.
The article said they got 35 microNewtons but not how much power it took. Am thinking they used more than ten kilowatts, so we're talking a bit big for solar panels? Oh, details!
"Our patent-pending, innovative, yet highly realistic, photon propulsion concept capable of accelerating spacecraft to near light speed without propellant. Using rapidly evolving laser technology, it is predicted that the implementation of a MW level of PLP can be achieved within several years. MW class PLP rockets will be capable of launching small payloads with weights in the order of kg, such as nanosatellites or small parts for space stations, into LEO in a single stage reusable platform, or of accelerating them to unprecedented high speed for rapid-outcome deep space exploration. The scaling of PLP to higher power will be capable of accelerating spacecraft to near light speed. A small scale PLP, Photonic Laser Thruster (PLT) has recently been successfully demonstrated by Bae Institute, and the result has demonstrated the principle of PLP by amplifying photon thrust by 3,000 times. The Bae Institute's PLP will significantly impact, if not revolutionize, the space industries and military space applications."
Well, they're not kidding about high delta-vees being possible. But the energy use! Great weeping fishfur, the energy! This is going to take *grams* of antimatter.
Whoops!
Hah.
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