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Solar Sails Could Reach Mars in Just 26 Days
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Possible or maybe not
Others talk of Exotic designs like AntiMatter or some new Nuclear Ion type or old Orion engine, Specific impulse Isp the measure of how efficiently a reaction mass engine rocket using propellant creates thrust, some even discuss Sails or Ion Propulsion and Ion Drives for the Nearby Interstellar Medium.
pdf
https://web.archive.org/web/20220427211 … 012350.pdf
From Solar Sails to Laser Sails
The sails we have are not close to what we need
Radical NASA Propulsion Concept Could Reach Interstellar Space in Under 5 Years
https://www.sciencealert.com/radical-na … er-5-years
The pellet-beam concept was partly inspired by the Breakthrough Starshot initiative, which is working on a 'light-sail' propulsion system. With the help of millions of lasers, a tiny probe would theoretically be able to sail to neighboring Proxima Centauri in just 20 years.
The new proposal starts with a similar idea – throw fuel at a rocket instead of blast it out of one – but it looks at how to shift larger objects. After all, a small probe isn't necessarily what we need if we want to one day explore, or colonize, the worlds outside our Solar System ourselves.
To work, the conceptual propulsion system requires two spacecraft – one that sets off for interstellar space, and one that goes into orbit around Earth.
The spacecraft orbiting Earth would shoot a beam of tiny microscopic particles at the interstellar spacecraft.
Those particles would be heated up by lasers, causing part of them to melt into plasma that accelerates the pellets further, a process known as laser ablation.
Pellet-Beam Propulsion for Breakthrough Space Exploration
https://www.nasa.gov/general/pellet-bea … ploration/
an internet discussion question from 10 years ago, yahoo answer would have some interesting science-ish comments
Laser propulsion possible?
https://space.stackexchange.com/questio … n-possible
Is it possible to get an impulse, if you shoot at a solar sails with lasers mounted on the spaceship?
'Magic' ideas?
https://projectrho.com/public_html/rock … rlight.php
The secret is using a Laser Sail, which you will recall is a photon sail beam-powered by a remote laser installation.
https://projectrho.com/public_html/rock … #lasersail
The advantage is the starship does not have to carry the mass of the engine and the propellant, you leave it at home. This makes the task of designing the starship merely incredibly difficult, instead of utterly impossible.
Solar Sail Propulsion: The Future Of Space Travel!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdjwwGw95SU
Last edited by Mars_B4_Moon (2023-10-02 18:52:53)
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NASA’s Next Solar Sail is About to Go to Space
https://www.universetoday.com/166594/na … -to-space/
Everyone knows that solar energy is free and almost limitless here on Earth. The same is true for spacecraft operating in the inner Solar System. But in space, the Sun can do more than provide electrical energy; it also emits an unending stream of solar wind.
Solar sails can harness that wind and provide propulsion for spacecraft. NASA is about to test a new solar sail design that can make solar sails even more effective.
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Don't forget, the first solar sail satellite was sent up there by the Planetary Society. It worked.
It's cheap propulsion, but the accelerations are very low, even much lower than with electric propulsion. That is unlikely to change any time into the foreseeable future.
GW
GW Johnson
McGregor, Texas
"There is nothing as expensive as a dead crew, especially one dead from a bad management decision"
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