Followup: Photon Propulsion Breakthrough Demonstrated

[groovychk]

Originally published at Twixel.net. You can comment here or there.

http://dialog.newsedge.com/newsedge.asp?site=2006121916143901110346&block=folderstory&briefs=off&action=XMLStoryResult&smd=true&storyid=p0906509.2rw&rtcrdata=off

TUSTIN, Calif., Sept. 6 /PRNewswire/ — The aerospace industry has taken notice of a California researcher who, using off-the-shelf components, built and successfully demonstrated the world’s first successful amplified photon thruster. Dr. Young Bae of the Bae Institute first demonstrated his Photonic Laser Thruster (PLT) with an amplification factor of 3,000 in December, 2006.

Major aerospace agencies and primary contractors have since invited Bae to present his work, including NASA JPL, DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency), and AFRL (Air Force Research Laboratory). Senior Aerospace Engineer at AFRL, Dr. Franklin Mead, “Dr. Bae’s PLT demonstration and measurement of photon thrust (is) pretty incredible. I don’t think anyone has done this before. It has generated a lot of interest.”

Recently, the Journal of Spacecraft and Rockets, a peer-reviewed AIAA (American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics) (http://www.aiaa.org) Journal, accepted Dr. Bae’s PLT demonstration paper, “Photonic Laser Propulsion: Proof-of-Concept Demonstration” for publication this year. In his paper Bae documents in explicit detail how he overcame the inherent inefficiencies of traditional photon thrusters in generating thrust by amplification with the use of an innovative optical cavity concept. For decades rocket scientists have tried to overcome the inefficiency of photon thrusters by amplification based on optical cavities separated from laser sources, but failed. In contrast, Bae’s patent-pending PLT breakthrough places the laser medium within a resonant optical cavity between two platforms to produce a very stable and reliable thrust that is unaffected by mirror movement and vibration — ideal for spacecraft control or propulsion.
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Looking promising!

Comments

[maxomai.livejournal.com]

Never take PR at face value.

[groovychk.livejournal.com]

Truly - I'm cynical enough as it is. I like for things to give me at least a spark of hope every once in a blue moon. Even if it is short lived. It makes me feel better.

[kyrie1618.livejournal.com]

Forgive me but I'm not sure what the breakthrough is. "Stable" thrust? A Maglight gives me stable thrust. The only problem is designing long-lasting bulbs and batteries. We can do both already...

As for "amplification by 3000"... did he make a brighter laser? A more efficient one? A smaller one? I don't even know enough to nitpick!

Dr Mead sounds excited, but I wish he would tell me why he is.

[kyrie1618.livejournal.com]

Light propulsion is awesome! The only problem is that 3.3 nanonewtons per watt thrust limit. If that could be broken, the stars themselves would be ours. But so far, the best drive I've seen is the Vasimr... lots more thrust but not quite as much specific impulse. More speed, less range, so to speak. Easy interplanetary travel.

Could we adapt the Skyhook to send ships to Venus and Mars? So the Beanstalk is out of reach, for now. But if we build small spinning tethers with counterweights maybe we could do something like a gravity assist. Send a bunch of probes sunward, then a bunch starbound, to keep the energy balanced out?

[kyrie1618.livejournal.com]

Hah! I got it all figured out. Remember the X-Prize suborbital hop? Going fully orbital takes 40 times the energy, right? We could lift *huge* payloads if we didn't have to make orbit.

So drop a tether from geostationary orbit to 100 miles above the surface of the Earth. Then start shipping stuff up there. You'd think our lifting capacity would jump by a factor of 40, but it's actually much better than that because most of what we're lifting that high right now is fuel.

So, what? Maybe a hundred-fold decrease in Earth-to-LEO cost? Just hop in a suborbital ship that wanders up 100 miles, then hook onto the bottom of the ladder, and climb.

You avoid having to connect the beanstalk to the earth, you avoid weather, you make the whole thing a lot lighter (because a lot of the weight comes from having to support that bottom piece), and if you go high enough you can avoid space junk slicing the beanstalk to ribbons.

Yeah, the beanstalk will fall slowly... so mount an ion drive or hall thruster or solar sail on it so it can slowly boost itself higher and higher.

It's probably still unworkable without nanotubes, but hey! A hybrid approach? Someone should write a paper. *hint, hint* :)