By Jan Gray
Leik Myrabo is an aerospace engineer professor at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York. He is also the inventor of a technique that uses light to throw objects into space.
Myrabo got the idea in the sixties to station a set of high powered lasers on the ground and simply beam the energy the spacecraft needs to use as propellant from this point. There is no need for big bulky external tanks and the bellows of rockets or the danger of cataclysmic explosions. The energy remains stationary on the ground.
The lasers fire upward to the base of the craft. The craft is equipped with a series of mirrors that focus the distant laser light into a piece that converts the beam into heat energy. So far we have used superheated air as the propellant. The air is heated to between 10,000-30,000 degrees Celsius. As a result, the air expands violently and pushes the craft in an upwards direction. This has already been successfully experimented with and we have reached altitudes of 233ft. We still have a ways to go. Some day Myrabo hopes that craft like this will be able to carry people to space for very cheap. All that is needed is more power. Supercharge the laser beam and use a propellant that expands more than air and we got it. A life size model of the craft, made from fiberglass and epoxy, has already been built
Leik Myrabo is an aerospace engineer professor at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York. He is also the inventor of a technique that uses light to throw objects into space.
Myrabo got the idea in the sixties to station a set of high powered lasers on the ground and simply beam the energy the spacecraft needs to use as propellant from this point. There is no need for big bulky external tanks and the bellows of rockets or the danger of cataclysmic explosions. The energy remains stationary on the ground.
The lasers fire upward to the base of the craft. The craft is equipped with a series of mirrors that focus the distant laser light into a piece that converts the beam into heat energy. So far we have used superheated air as the propellant. The air is heated to between 10,000-30,000 degrees Celsius. As a result, the air expands violently and pushes the craft in an upwards direction. This has already been successfully experimented with and we have reached altitudes of 233ft. We still have a ways to go. Some day Myrabo hopes that craft like this will be able to carry people to space for very cheap. All that is needed is more power. Supercharge the laser beam and use a propellant that expands more than air and we got it. A life size model of the craft, made from fiberglass and epoxy, has already been built
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