Spaceships to reach supersonic speeds with lasers?

Excerpt from
techtimes.com 

One
of the things that makes space travel unfeasible is the huge cost (and
added weight) that comes with powering rockets with solid or liquid
fuel. The faster a rocket will eventually go, the more fuel it needs,
which adds to the weight that needs to be launched into space, and the
size that the spacecraft needs to be to carry the fuel.


Scientists and science-fiction writers have toyed with the idea of a
spaceship that could be fueled by laser beams of light. Now, this idea
is closer to becoming a reality. Yuri Rezunkov, a physicist at the
Institute of Optoelectronic Instrument Engineering in Russia, and
Alexander Schmidt, a physicist at the Ioffe Physical Technical Institute
in Saint Petersburg, Russia, have developed one of the steps necessary
for fueling a rocket by lasers. This new process combines another
process that already existed, called laser ablation, with the gas
nozzles on a spacecraft.  Their research paper was published on October
29 in the Optical Society’s (OSA) journal, Applied Optics.


Laser ablation is a process through which a pulsating laser beam is
directed at a surface. It would burn some of the gas, creating a plasma
plume, which acts like exhaust, which would create added thrust to the
rocket.


The researchers theorize that by integrating laser ablation into the
ship’s gas burning process, they can make gas flow out of the nozzle
even faster, allowing the spacecraft to reach much faster speeds, while
simultaneously burning less fuel. This could allow gas to flow out of
nozzles at supersonic speeds.

“Summarizing the data obtained, we can forecast the application of
the supersonic laser propulsion techniques not only for launching small
satellites to Earth orbits but also for additional acceleration of
supersonic aircrafts to achieve Mach 10 and more,” Rezunkov said.

Source Article from http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/AscensionEarth2012/~3/TKenLo-XWW4/spaceships-to-reach-supersonic-speeds.html

You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Leave a Reply

Powered by WordPress | Designed by: Premium WordPress Themes | Thanks to Themes Gallery, Bromoney and Wordpress Themes