Laser / Microwave Propulsion

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Here are a few alternate propulsion ideas that are really cool. By mid 2000, Myrabo and his students had propelled their lightcraft up 220 feet. The concept is simple and elegant. An acorn shaped disk (sounds eerily like UFO sightings, huh) receives a high powered light pulse from a ground laser. This hits a parabolic mirror on the underside of the “craft” and directs it inward. This superheats air (18,000 and 54,000 degrees Fahrenheit – that’s several times hotter than the surface of the sun!) coming through the inlet chamber and results in a propelling explosion. I have seen a high resolution video of this in action and it’s just stunning. Here is a low-res video, double click on it to go full screen. As you can see in the picture, it emits an eerie color ring when the air is superheated – once again, kinda sounds like a lot of UFO sightings we hear about. After 2000, it seemed like this project dropped off the face of the earth. I then found my answer as to why…

The military and space programs approached the fledling research team about developing a microwave version of the Lightcraft. One of the major drawbacks of the Lightcraft was that it would have to use a super, high-powered laser to propel a large disk into space. So, they came up with the idea to use microwaves to propel the Lightcraft. The microwaves would be sent from orbiting satellites, harnessing the sun’s power. The Lightcraft then uses the microwaves to superheat the air much like its laser counterpart. When the craft reaches a good altitude, it turns from the thin side, to pointing its flat side in the direction of its travel. This seems counterintuitve. This is where the LightCraft initiates its magnetohydrodynamic drive. The microwaves are pointing upward, creating a super hot bubble of air that forms an air spike that acts as a nose cone. This helps the craft reach speeds 25 times the speed of sound. Myrabo comments, ” This cleans up the aerodynamics of a vehicle that does not look like it should fly in that diretion.” Incredibly, when the load is properly balanced, the craft sails through the air, without leaving a shock wave and almost no supersonic wake. Simply amazing stuff.

[tag]Myrabo,laser propulsion,microwave propulsion,LightCraft[/tag]

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