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#1 Interplanetary transportation » Solar Thermal for Ground Launch » 2014-02-04 17:18:57

eliaslor
Replies: 6

Hi, I read a Wikipedia article that suggests that there is technology being produced that will allow small rocket ships to be launched from land using solar power and an ammonia propellant. Does anyone here have an opinion on the likelihood of this technology being produced and used in the near future (the next 100 years)? Any help would be appreciated. Here is the excerpt from Wikipedia:

Solar thermal rockets have been proposed [7][full citation needed] as a system for launching a small personal spacecraft into orbit. The design is based on a high altitude airship which uses its envelope to focus sunlight onto a tube. The propellant, which would likely be ammonia, is then fed through to produce thrust. Possible design flaws include whether the engine could produce enough thrust to overcome drag, and whether the skin of the airship wouldn't fail at hypersonic velocities. This has many similarities to the orbital airship proposed by JP Aerospace.


Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_thermal_rocket

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