Beaming into Space

HobbySpacer writes "At this week's 1st Int. Symposium on Beamed Energy Propulsion in Huntsville a wide range of laser and microwave propulsion schemes are being presented. The big news so far is the announcement by Gregory Benford of plans for a test of microwave propulsion with the Cosmos Sail, due to fly early next year. The possibilities of using lasers to deflect incoming asteroids & comets are also under discussion."

Comments

They should get in contact with Junis

[Anonymous Coward]

I hear he has the latest technology in Afghanistan. He has hooked up his recently-dug-up Commodore-64 to a laser emitter and gotten it to accelerate objects to near light speeds.

Not creative enough

[cscx]

I'm waiting for when they can do this using one of those medieval catapults.

Microwave propulsion systems?

[Anonymous Coward]

10... 9... 8... 7... 6... 5... 4... 3... 2... 1...

Ding!

Why deflect Asteroids?

[saskboy]

We should land on Asteroids, dig deep into their core, and use Nuclear weapons to blow the things up. Don't the article writers know any sciece what-so-ever?

Re:Why deflect Asteroids?

[stygar]

Sadly, the increasing automation of offshore drilling rigs means that there are no longer enough crews of misfit (but, of course, expert) drill operators to man such expeditions to incoming asteroids. NASA has also dropped the ball on this, by failing to move ahead with the stainless steel space shuttle, and by screwing up the prototypes of experimental drill designs (found whilst rummaging around the US patent office).

One thing to not worry about.

[karmavore]

The inflight meal will not be cold.

Re:One thing to not worry about.

[glenebob]

...the middle will be cold, but the outside will be hot enough to ignite helium.

A simple proposal

[sam_handelman]

1) Lock all the air and space engineers and astrophysicists together in a big building (with lab equipment, and access to journals and suchnot.) That building at MIT with the mile long hallways would do nicely.
2) Don't let them out until they have a prototype design for FTL.

Physics has become boring and I think we, as a species, have to put our collective foot down as regards this whole no FTL business. You can worry about whether or not black holes emit radiation later, I want a warp drive and I want one yesterday!

Great a propulsion system that flashes 12:00

[Sagarian]

but if it has a "Popcorn" button, it's gold!

Just how much?

[EmagGeek]

Just how much momentum do the photons in a 1.21 Gigawatt laser have anyway? Didn't the flux capacitor get destroyed when the train plowed through the time machine?

Is there enough momentum in that laser to actually change the velocity of a flying windows license appreciably enough to make it miss (assuming it's on a collision course - after all - it might blue-screen before it hits Earth and stop say, 62 miles from impact).

The only thing this laser deflection system might buy us is instead of being annihilated by a really fast, frozen rock from outer space, we're annihilated by a piping hot rock from outer space that turns the Atlantic Ocean into a giant thingie of Jiffy-Pop before we all are vaporized, or have our guts ripped out.

Funny how energy expended always seems to come back and bite us in the proverbial arse... How many more movie references can I cram into this post?

We need ChiaEarth!

[Maul]

The solution to asteroid collisions was presented several years ago by Pinky and the Brain.

We just build another Earth out of paper mache and move to it before the asteroid hits.

Re:We need ChiaEarth!

[kingkade]

Hmmm, I fail to see any problems with this as well. It does seem like a well thought-out, fool-proof plan. Lets get those 3rd graders started on building "Earth2: mostly (gooey) paper".

"Beam me up...."

[jdkincad]

What? The articles about propulsion and not some type of transporter-like thing. Damn misleading headlines.

Re:Most immediate space challenge? Riiight....

[DopeRider]

Wow, I always thought that the likelihood of an iceberg hitting this ship was low, at least low enough that ther are probably better things to spend one's time addressing...

Mmmm asteroid

[jokerghost]

Scrambled egg: 5 minutes
Bacon: 20 minutes
Asteriod: 5 hours on high, serves 10-15

-jokerghost

Re:Mmmm asteroid

[glenebob]

Watching some idiot gnaw his way through microwaved bacon: priceless.

Asteroids

[Zakabog]

The possibilities of using lasers to deflect incoming asteroids & comets are also under discussion

Scientist: Ok *pointing to a screen* here is a little demonstation of our ship, and if you notice the propulsion system here the ship will accelerate very quickly. And here's a shot of it shooting asteroids with the high powered laser, we are guessing the asteroids will break up when shot so we will make sure the laser can quickly destroy any little asteroids as you can see here. Any questions? Ah you in the back *pointing to a reporter*
Reporter: Yes, well I have one question, isn't that just the game asteroids for atari?
Scientist: NO FURTHER QUESTIONS *storms out quickly*

Asteroids

[Anonymous Coward]

If they destroy enough asteroids, their initials will be remembered forever in the Hall of Fame, but they'll probably just put ASS or SEX or something like that.

Re:Asteroid Deflection

[TheGreatGraySkwid]

quoth the poster:
However, with the current technology it is feasible as much as the "tractor beam".

Silly Human!

Tractor beams would only help if we could get behind the asteroid and "tug" on it. This application clearly calls for a Repulsor beam!