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NASA Flies First Laser-powered Aircraft
unassimilatible writes "NASA has successfully tested a small-scale aircraft that flies solely by means of propulsive power delivered by an invisible, ground-based laser. How far away can in-flight IP/LASER broadband be?"
How far off can space death rays be is the real question
Is there anyone else out there who is picturing the land shark as the pilot?
Life is the leading cause of death in America.
I thought they were talking about that 747 with the laser cannon on it... Too bad.
Is this ship piloted by friggin' sharks with friggin' lasers on their heads?
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
While it sounds like a fun idea, how big would the laser have to be to power a full size airplane? And why dont they put solar panels on top of the plane to take advantage of the sun. I however see how this could have application in space travel and satelite technology.
or something like it:
It used microwaves instead of "invisible lasers" (IR? i havent RTFA yet) but same end result, no?
Newsie, Moderator, www.tauniverse.com
One of the hallmarks of classic science fiction, Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelles' "The Mote In Gods Eye", proposes this very thing. The opening sections of the book are based upon on premise: lacking true FTL travel, an alien race reaches a human colony by building humungous lasers in their asteroid belt and planet surface, and using them to propel a light sail armed interstellar craft between stars. Good book all around, and it's cool to see decent Science Fiction become more than just speculative drivel (it's one of my favourite books).
Solar sails in space next?
"You lied to me! There is a Swansea!"
This is the technology they want to use to power the space elevator.
If they are using laser beams to power a generator in the plane, why don't they use this to solve our energy distribution problem? In blackouts, just beam power to cities by laser.
was the laser used to heat up the popcorn that provided the real propulsion?
This signature is a waste of 42 characters
The National Research council did this in Canada many years ago using microwaves. You've seen one EM powered plan..you've seen them all.
Oh, yeah. Just what we need, high powered lasers slicing up the skies above us. I can't wait.
Game dev and music blog
Nasa has been experimenting with lasers for awhile now for flight.s /prop16ap r99_1.htm
http://science.nasa.gov/newhome/headline
This is my post. Deal with it.
Next people will be talking nonsense about IP over power lines!
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97 Miles, 98 miles, 99 miles, 100 miles (plane falls to the ground), 99 Miles.
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hoping u read this before it goes to -1(offtopic) : your sig is blatantly wrong and should read
Guiness: if you can spell it, you haven't drank enough yet
When will I end this grieving ? When will my future begin ?
I live in England :-)
-WolfWithoutAClause
"Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"Anyone who watched Gostbusters knows what happens when you cross the beams!
"A telecommunications company could put transponders on an airplane and fly it over a city," Bushman said. "The aircraft could be used for everything from relaying cell phone calls to cable television or Internet connections."
Now I will have an excuse for not calling the folks often enough - "Sorry ma, I tried to call but it was cloudy, and the telephone exchange fell out of the sky.". Seriously, how would these work during extreme weather conditions? I presume they must have some sort of fuel on-board as backup or would the laser simply cut through cloud vapor?
How far away can in-flight IP/LASER broadband be?
Let's hope it's very, very far off. A laser beam pointing to/from a commercial aircraft is essentially a giant pointer, constantly updated, announcing the precise position of the plane. It should not be difficult at all to build a guidance system that follows the laser and delivers a payload to the plane just as a line climber follows a kite string to a kite. Said payload is not likely to be an emergency delivery of peanuts and soda.
/. is shoving a space between the p and r in the page url for some reason. Just ignore it.
This is my post. Deal with it.
If only they could harness this "laser" technology to allow consumers to burn dvds faster. Oh well.
...but we used liquid fuel.
And the Russians did it even before that.
"Hey, I can see my house from hOH GOD, MY EYES!!"
They directed a laser beam at photaic cells? Nice other name than solar panel. OK, the laser powered plain flies as long a laser hits it. But still the plain is carrying it fuel (photaic cell aka solar panel) on board, as meantion in the introduction. This is no breakthrough but rather a toy for big children.
The article claims its the first plane to fly without fuel on board...Heh!
I used to buy balsa wood airplanes at the local 7/11 for fifty cents and fly those puppies all day with no fuel on board. 'Course at the end of the day you would light the tail on fire with the matches you snuck from the kitchen drawer, climb up on the roof and send her spiralling into oblivion; riding a tail of flame and smoke!
We didn't need no stinkin lasers!
We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold. - HST
I can see it now:
"Homeless celebrate as pre-cooked pigeons fall from sky near airport"
Slashdot is like Playboy: I read it for the articles
Well least missles won't need their own guidance now . They can just follow the laser.
Rus
Cheap UK and US VPS
I remember something like this from several years ago...seems like it has actually turned into a company: http://www.lightcrafttechnologies.com/
The concept offers potential commercial value to the remote sensing and telecommunications industries, according to Bushman.
Is that just fancy talk for "The people who want to spy on you"?
Yes, but they are lasers...all the light is going in one direction. So you can't see them until the light hits and reflects off something or it hits you straight on.
This ain't the Star Wars universe...
Already exist (or existed) in central Stockholm, Sweden.
My only question is, how soon before Thinkgeek.com gets these? :)
And you thought windfarms were bad. Falling birds...now availble shredded *or* fried.
The atmosphere is an ocean, you can float on it effortlessly. Why spend so much time trying to expend energy to stay up?
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
Ever since the dawn of powered flight, it has been necessary for all aircraft to carry onboard fuel - whether in the form of batteries, fuel, solar cells, or even a human "engine" - in order to stay aloft.
But a team of researchers from NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards, Calif., and the University of Alabama in Huntsville is trying to change that. Then they state that:
The laser tracks the aircraft in flight, directing its energy beam at specially designed photovoltaic cells carried onboard to power the plane's propeller.
Well, how is this much different than carrying a solar cell? It is still carrying what the author describes as "onboard fuel". The laser thing is cool, though.Hmmm, a system capable of tracking the precise position of an aircraft? You mean like RADAR?
Blockwars: free, and multiplayer
"They do not preach that their god will rouse them, a little before the Nuts work loose." Kipling, 'The Sons of Martha'
Just think about all of the birds that get in the way.
...after you hack the navigation laser and upload the program from the Laser Zeppelin show from the local planetarium. Think when those Spirograph patterns get displayed. No amount of free peanuts will make up for that.
"Not a laser?"
You sir, are an idiot. Check your CD/DVD player sometime.
But, How far can this scale up ?
A balsa wood R/C aircraft is cool and all but I'm willing to bet that it will be a long time before we'll see one carring a human passenger
wanted: one clever sig,apply within
How does it work? And why do we want this? It's not exactly energy efficient or simple, is it?
-- Cheers!
This is cool but I like China's space program better...they are going to be doing manned exploration of S P A C E.
There have been several other light powered craft, although mostly using solar vs. laser power. It makes sense to beam energy to vehicles vs. carrying it as stored energy and releasing it via chemical reactions. You save weight and like someone else said it's scalable! You can also put the beam sources in orbit for better efficiency above 400,000 ft.
Why not use the same technique for ion drive based space probes? Perhaps we could even use arrays of micro particle accelerators as the engine.
When was the last time you saw an invisible laser.. lasers are in the visible light spectrum
I'm not a physicist, but I've seen lots of inivisble lasers (okay, not the beam itself, but you know...). Lasers in both the infrared and ultraviolet regions are commonplace. Google for "infrared laser" or "ultraviolet laser" and you'll find many, many examples of each.
I suppose you could make some sort of argument that the L in LASER if for "light," and that IR and UV somehow aren't light because we can't see them. But insects and perhaps some animals can see in those regions, so it'd be a difficult position to defend. Both IR and UV are called "light" in general use. Additionally, there's no significant physical difference between a visible light laser and a UV or IR laser. And scientists now use the term "laser" even where most people would agree that the electromagnetic energy in question falls outside the part of the spectrum that we tend to think of as "light," e.g. x-ray lasers and microwave lasers.
Wonderful. If NASA scales up the airplane to do something useful the laser will have to be so powerful that it will incinerate the vehicle.
How far away can in-flight IP/LASER broadband be?
In a sense it has been here for some time. The US military flies satellites that use laser crosslinks to relay communications. Milstar is one. Any others?
an ill wind that blows no good
I first read about this sort of thing back in the 1970s. Proposals back then focused on constructing huge satellites (think 5 miles by 5 miles or 10 KM by 10 KM) in geosynchronous orbit. Energy would be beamed to earth via microwaves or lasers.
Planes could be powered via laser pointed at various reception devices (photovoltaic, steam generators, etc.).
Clouds would not be a major problem. Just pick a frequency that penetrated the clouds fairly easily. Or, in the case of airplanes, fly above the clouds.
For lots more information, just Google "Space Solar Power".
"Beer is proof God loves us and wants us to be happy." -- B. Franklin
There is a difference between an engine, and fuel. Good (insert random deity) man!
...
Whether it's a waste is a different matter, mind
Simon
Physicists get Hadrons!
From the article:
The plane, with its five-foot wingspan, weighs only 11 ounces and is constructed from balsa wood, carbon fiber tubing and is covered with Mylar film, a cellophane-like material.... The lightweight, low-speed plane was flown indoors at Marshall to prevent wind and weather from affecting the test flights.... Without the need for onboard fuel or batteries, such a plane could carry scientific or communication equipment, for instance, and stay in flight indefinitely.
Okay, they've gotten a plane they weighs less than my foot with a wingspan longer than most 12 year-olds are tall to fly where there's no wind.
Does this have any practical application where a helium blimp -- or a simple antannae -- wouldn't be a better choice? I mean, even if we had something decent sized, this thing's gotta keep moving and sucking energy or it'll come crashing to the ground. It doesn't even hover. And it's not like this has applications with passengers.
But then we find the answer, again from the linked article...
Laser power beaming is a promising technology for future development of aircraft design and operations. The concept supports NASA's mission-critical goals for the development of revolutionary aerospace technologies.
As an ex-on-site government contractor (not that that's required to have a clue here), I think I might see what's going on. NASA has grant money for "revolutionary aerospace tech" and this company is happy to create something impractical that'll soak up enough dough to pay them for a few years. Wish we'd quit looking for new stuff and just send another 1960s capsule to the moon and back.
I realize that's pretty cynical... But honestly, where's a good treatment (better than the article) of what this sort of thing is pratically good for?
It's all 0s and 1s. Or it's not.
...he would have given us photon receptors that convert light into energy.
So what happens if it's cloudy and the water particles cause the laser to difuse?
Does the plane crash?
In Soviet Russia, the television watches YOU!
It'd be nice if I could something like this to work to power my laptop!
grisha.org
"When was the last time you saw an invisible laser"
Absolutely classic, hehe.
And for those clueless enough to mod the troll up. I suggest you do a bit of research on infra-red. Otherwise all the CD manufacturers have been lying to you with their warning labels.
LASER stands for Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation. Regardless, calling something a "laser" indicates the process by which coherent waves are produced. Any wavelength using the same process can be considered a laser.
... but with a boat, does it count?
NASA used a Photovoltaic Material that works reactive to a laser in place of Sunlight. This new technology will allow our Armies of Solar Powered Aircraft to be free from there reliance on using the unreliable sun as a powersource. The Benefits of this technology are as follows:
1.Cost Efficient electricity can be used to power the lasers instead of expensive and hard to find Sunlight.
2.Clear Aluminum will be used as an aerospace industry standard to prevent air traffic from blocking each others lasers feeds.(Clear Aluminum is cool)
3.No Longer will the Range of Solar powered aircraft be limited buy the range of the Daylight Sun. now they can fly as far a the Eye can see. (with the exceptions of trees and cell towers )
Need help finding the flow? http://www.myspace.com/naturalismandbalance
Who do you get to be an expert to tell you something's not obvious? The least insightful person you can find? -J Roberts
A New Zealand scientist recently gave me an intriguing extract from an article published in a German magazine, relating to a demonstration of levitation in Tibet. After obtaining a translation by a German journalist, in English, I was amazed at the information contained in the story, and was surprised that the article had slipped through the suppression net which tends to keep such knowledge from leaking out to the public.
All the similar types of stories that I had read up until now were generally devoid of specific information necessary to prove the veracity of the account. In this case a full set of geometric measurements were taken, and I discovered, to my great delight, that when they were converted to their equivalent geodetic measures, relating to grid harmonics the values gave a direct association with those in the unified harmonic equations published in my earlier works.
The following extracts are translations taken from the German article: 'We know from the priests of the far east that they were able to lift heavy boulders up high mountains with the help of groups of various sounds...the knowledge of the various vibrations in the audio range demonstrates to a scientist of physics that a vibrating and condensed sound field can nullify the power of gravitation. Swedish engineer Olaf Alexanderson wrote about this phenomenon in the publication, Implosion No. 13.
The following report is based on observations which were made only 20 years ago in Tibet. I have this report from civil engineer and flight manager, Henry Kjelson, a friend of mine. He later on included this report in his book, The Lost Techniques. This is his report..
A Swedish doctor, Dr. Jarl, a friend of Kjelsons, studied at Oxford. During those times he became friends with a young Tibetan student. A couple of years later, it was 1939, Dr. Jarl made a journey to Egypt for the English Scientific Society. There he was seen by a messenger of his Tibetan friend, and urgently requested to come to Tibet to treat a high Lama.
After Dr. Jarl got the leave he followed the messenger and arrived after a long journey by plane and Yak caravans, at the monastery, where the old Lama and his friend who was now holding a high position were now living.
Dr. Jarl stayed there for some time, and because of his friendship with the Tibetans he learned a lot of things that other foreigners had no chance to hear about or observe.
One day his friend took him to a place in the neighbourhood of the monastery and showed him a sloping meadow which was surrounded in the north west by high cliffs. In one of the rock walls, at a height of about 250 metres was a big hole which looked like the entrance to a cave.
In front of this hole there was a platform on which the monks were building a rock wall. The only access to this platform was from the top of the cliff and the monks lowered themselves down with the help of ropes.
In the middle of the meadow, about 250 metres from the cliff, was a polished slab of rock with a bowl like cavity in the centre. The bowl had a diameter of one metre and a depth of 15 centimetres. A block of stone was manoeuvred into this cavity by Yak oxen. The block was one metre wide and one and one half metres long. Then 19 musical instruments were set in an arc of 90 degrees at a distance of 63 metres from the stone slab.
The radius of 63 metres was measured out accurately. The musical instruments consisted of 13 drums and 6 trumpets.(Ragdons) Eight drums had a cross-section of one metre, and a length of one and one half metres. Four drums were medium size with a cross-section of 0.7 metre and a length of one metre. The only small drum had a cross-section of 0.2 metres and a length of 0.3 metres. All the trumpets were the same size.
They had a length of 3.12 metres and an opening of 0.3 metres. The big drums and all the trumpets were fixed on mounts which could be adjusted with staffs in the direction of the slab of stone. The big drums were made of 1mm thick sheet iron, and ha
You know, I have one simple request and that is to have aircrafts with freakin' laser beams attached to them!
http://www.talknerdy.org
Not all lasers are visible. There are X-Ray lasers and IR lasers, any frequency light could potentially be lased, it's just a matter of aligning all the rays in the same direction. Collumated light.
Ahhh... the University of Coneheads.
If you don't know what that means, ask someone who's been there more than a decade about the "Conehead Incident." What a classic prank.
You know SCO will claim that it is their IP, and demand that all airline passengers must pay for a $699 license per engine ($1399 after next Wednesday).
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
But, I fucking hate slashdot editors, posters, and maybe even the people who submit the articles.
Why the hell would you even mention laser broadband? What would posess you to bring that up? It's off topic, and it's not even in the forum yet!
It's completely irresponsible to post an article without reading it, and then mention some topic that you could only connect if you only read a few words of THE HEADLINE (not the whole thing, or you'd see that it's a total disconnect)- and only mention it because it gives you some sort of little techno-fetish stiffy.
I hate you, slashdot.
Come on, GI Joe did this back in the 80's with the B.E.T (Broadcast Energy Transmitter).
I hear it's also good for destroying spores before they enter our atmosphere
TruePunk | Games
So, what happens when it gets cloudy?
Or something else that vexes me even more greatly; will it be able to fly in london? (fog).
GAAH! MY PRINTER IS ON FIRE!!! PUT IT OUT! PUT IT OUT!
I saw it on a PBS show about advanced propulsion devices a few years ago. Very much a research project, and not currently capable of carrying a payload, but interesting for its simplicity (in the craft at least).
Lasers Controlled Games!
A New York Times article of December 8, 1915 says:
"Nikola Tesla, the inventor, has filed patent applications on the essential parts of a machine, possibilities which test a layman's imagination and promise a parallel of Thor's shooting thunderbolts from the sky to punish those who had angered the gods...Suffice it to say that the invention will go through space with a speed of 300 miles a second, a manless ship without propelling engine or wings sent by electricity to any desired point on the globe on its errand of destruction, if destruction its manipulator wishes to effect."
'It is not a time,' said Dr. Tesla yesterday, 'to go into the details of this thing. It is founded upon a principle that means great things in peace; it can be used for great things in war. But I repeat, this is no time to talk of such things.'
'It is perfectly practicable to transmit electrical energy without wires and produce destructive effects at a distance. I have already constructed a wireless transmitter which makes this possible, and have described it in my technical publications, among which I refer to my patent number 1,119,732 recently granted. With transmitters of this kind we are enabled to project electrical energy in any amount to any distance and apply it for innumerable purposes, both in war and peace. Through the universal adoption of this system, ideal conditions for the maintenance of law and order will be realized, for then the energy necessary to the enforcement of right and justice will be normally productive, yet potential, and in any moment available, for attack and defense. The power transmitted need not be necessarily destructive, for, if distance is made to depend upon it, its withdrawal or supply will bring about the same results as those now accomplished by force of arms.'
A second article also appeared in the New York Times, on September 22, 1940 and read:
"Nikola Tesla, one of the truly great inventors, who celebrated his eighty-fourth birthday on July 10, tells the writer that he stands ready to divulge to the United States government the secret of his 'teleforce', with which, he said, airplane motors would be melted at a distance of 250 miles, so that an invisible Chinese Wall of Defense would be built around the country..."
"This 'teleforce', he said, is based upon an entirely new principle of physics that 'no one has ever dreamed about', different from the principle embodied in his inventions relating to the transmission of electrical power from a distance, for which he has received a number of basic patents. This new type of force, Mr. Tesla said, would operate through a beam one one hundred-millionth of a square centimeter in diameter, and could be generated from a special plant that would cost no more than $2,000,000 and would take only about three months to construct."
"The beam, he states, involves four new inventions, two of which already have been tested. One of these is a method and apparatus for producing rays 'and other manifestations of energy' in free air, eliminating the necessity for a high vacuum; a second is a method and process for producing 'very great electrical force'; the third is a method for amplifying this force and the fourth is a new method for producing 'a tremendous electrical repelling force'. This would be the projector, or gun, of the system. The voltage for propelling the beam to its objective, according to the inventor, will attain a potential of 50,000,000 volts."
"With this enormous voltage, he said, microscopic electrical particles of matter will be catapulted on their mission of defensive destruction. He has been working on this invention, he added, for many years and has recently made a number of improvements in it."
-------------
One of the greatest EM scientists of all time.. who for some odd reason isn't mentioned in ANY western schools.
Maybe nasa hasn't woken up.. look up the patents.. they are real.. so.. why aren't we taking advantage of them??
True, I havent actually seen an invisible laser. ;o)
Sindri Traustason.
I came up with this idea as a rocket propulsion many years ago while pondering the best way to get a rocket up. Go to Huntsville, AL sometime and walk along the Saturn V that's laying down there, and keep in mind that most of the fuel is simply lifting other fuel. By the time you get to the end of it, and realize that the tiny capsule is the payload, you know there's gotta be a better way. Keeping the bulk of the propulsion system ground based would allow you to fly something little bigger than a capsule, and save big time on fuel, labor, and design costs. It makes sense to do it with airplanes, too.
:)
The only downside is that there's not much room between powering the craft and shooting it down
Do you have ESP?
In Soviet Russia the plane flies outside and lases NASA
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Here is a different solution (from back in '99) using a conical mirror to focus a high-powered laser and ignite the air underneath it to generate propulsion. Perhaps not generally useful yet, but perhaps more generally applicable than charging solar-cells with a laser.
Just because Humans are limited in their perception of the EM spectrum does not mean physics should be so Human-centric.
--
Whatever you do, just don't cross the beam.
Sounds like this would only need to be hooked up with LIDAR LIDAR to compensate.
"Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart, he dreams himself your master."
Lightcraft Technologies Inc. have been flying laser-powered craft since 1997 their heighest flight reached a 233ft in October 2000.
Their technolnogy is rather different to nasa's photon-pushed leightweight design, instead they have a 1-kilo spinning-top that has a curved mirror on the bottom, which focuses very short laser pulses from the ground to heat the air under the spinning top to extreme temperatures, 'blasting' the top upwards.
Sadly, their website (www.lightcrafttechnologies.com) was last updated in Dec 2000, does anyone know if the idea/company has any life left in it?
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
Maybe they should focus on landing shuttles safely first....... ;)
..in an airplane with frickin lay-zer beams aimed at me
What would be the spread of a laser from a geo-sync solar sat?
Better efficency from space based solar collection?
What effects would a power laser beam have on surface stuff (people, computers, animals, plants, etc.)?
What if we had huge, tethered balloons, up several miles as receivers for space based power production. Could you use lower power transfer beams, since you wouldn't have to go through the lower 5-10 miles of atmosphere? You'd then pipe the electricity down to ground based distribution stations.
Would make sense to use the fusion source we're tethered too, right?
I drank what? -- Socrates
Seems to me that laser-powered craft are doomed. Sure, if you HAVE to have something up there 24/7 it may be viable, but it's probably a lot cheaper to have a series of craft running in rotation. So, what is up their sleeve? Weapon research. Way back when, "they" were experimenting with ground-based lasers to knock missles out of the sky, or at lower power, "blind" satellites. One of the major problems beaming laser light is the miles of air it has to bore through to hit the target. Not only are there losses, the turbulence created also makes it tough to keep the light in "a straight line". So, if "they" can solve all the problems of beaming power accurately to a wee plane, you can bet they can use the knowledge to cook other targets. Cute little planes are more palatable than Star Wars weaponry.
Ever since the dawn of powered flight, it has been necessary for all aircraft to carry onboard fuel - whether in the form of batteries, fuel, solar cells, or even a human "engine" - in order to stay aloft.
But a team of researchers from NASA......is trying to change that
But how does it work Bob:
The laser tracks the aircraft in flight, directing its energy beam at specially designed photovoltaic cells carried onboard to power the plane's propeller.
Now how do 'solar cells' count as fuel when 'photovoltaic cells' don't?
M0571y H@rml355.
The article doesn't say exactly what the laser wavelength is, but it's invisible, and above the bandgap for the photovoltaic material (probably Si) so something close to 1 micron is a good guess. Furthermore, the 1.064 micron Nd:YAG line is quite common.
This gives me concerns for eye safety. That particular wavelength can focus to a diffraction limited spot on the retnia. Since you can't see it, you don't even know the beam is there until it's too late. Powers well under a watt can do serious damage. I don't want multi-watt beams at this wavelength shooting through the skys all over the world.
This is NASA's first laser-propelled aircraft. This isn't the very first laser-propelled craft.
... that the intro says that "solar cells" are a fuel source, but calls them "photovoltaic cells" later in the article and they're not a fuel source? Wow, by calling the cells a different name, it changes their role in powering the aircraft.
Non relevent NASA spin. Just another example of a claim to having a perpetual motion machine.
"A telecommunications company could put transponders on an airplane and fly it over a city," Bushman said. "The aircraft could be used for everything from relaying cell phone calls to cable television or Internet connections."
I really wish they would stop talking such nosense, every time there's a storm or strong winds and microbusrts these thing would get destroyed. It's bad enough my Cable Modems goes down all the time imagine every time it get's windy you loose your internet....
I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it. - Pablo Picasso
Will they be able to propel craft all the way across the oceans by using a relay/tag-team system consisting of sharks with fricking laser beams attached to their fricking heads?
Sparks:Gadget:Beer Maker
The basic problem is the laser: lasers are inefficient. For nearly every laser currently available, 99.9% of the energy you use to pump the laser goes into heat; only a small fraction is converted to coherent light.
Current laser designs are capable of delivering watts of power, at the cost of kilowatts of energy. A few watts, even a few hundred watts is barely enough to power the map light in a plane/space capsule/whatever, let alone make it fly.
They got away with this by:
(a) using incoherent light (a spotlight) which is much more efficient (but of course cannot be focused on very distant targets)
(b) having a very low-energy toy aircraft
While the article may be correct that this is the first time a plane has been powered by laser light, there was the SHARP project that flew a plane powered by a microwave beam. It was fitted with a special microwave receiver that converted the beam directly to DC current. This project was envisioned to be used for communication platforms too. I wonder which version would be more energy efficient?
--
Luck is just skill you didn't know you had.
Use the right frequency of laser or microwave, and clouds needn't be much of a problem. Come to think of it, if the thing (or part of it) were tunable, it could probably be used to make clouds disappear... And birds... And airplanes... And ICBMs... :)
If it can make clouds disappear, I imagine it wouldn't be too far of a stretch to have it (1) make clouds appear, and (2) make air currents hotter/colder, and thus have a shot at making tornadoes and hurricanes disappear... no doubt it's a huge amount of power being called for, but that's just engineering. That power is kinda sorta already there.
Lately democracy seems to be based on the skybox, the Happy Meal box, the X-box, and the idiot box.
...space tourist onboard playing Doom X, "What the hell! I've got a frickin' LIGHTSPEED connection, and my ping times suck ass! I want my money back!"
+1 Funny this mofo!
Hmmm, laser powered plane with IP/Laser connection. Post a link to the flight on slashdot and watch them soar! :-D
(Yeah, I know it doesn't really work that way.)
--- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.
How powerful does this beam have to be to get a significant range? What happens to passing birds or say, aircraft, if they happen to be in its path?
I could see it possibly being used as a cheap communications platform, circling a service area. There are much more effective platforms that can handle bad weather that can serve the same purpose ( radio tower ).
Luckily, this is just a research project at this point, so either it dies off or inspires a more useful innovation later.
This seems more promising to me
Sig Applied For
One of the greatest EM scientists of all time.. who for some odd reason isn't mentioned in ANY western schools.
Don't be ridiculous. I doubt very much that you can find a freshman physics class in the western hemisphere where Nikola Tesla isn't mentioned. And I don't remember visiting a science museum that didn't have a giant Tesla coil. The man's name is an International Unit for heaven's sake.
The Canadian SHARP microwave powered aircraft scaled very well. One version had a 4.5m wing span. There's a picture of it at the link above.
I suspect that the microwave rectenna system is more efficient than using a photovoltaic cell and would probably work better on cloudy days too.
The project that probably will fail due to scaling issues is the LightCraft. It'll require so much power that laser dispersion, air heating and other such problems will ultimately limit it's lifing power.
Signatures are a waste of bandwi (buffering...)
How far away can in-flight IP/LASER broadband be?
Pretty damn far. I'm still waiting for a flying car.
Actually this is nothing new we've been doing this for a while. I think the Discovery Channel had a show on this about a year ago.
what is so special about that? Just because you shoot lasers at it?? doesn't that make it worse than one that could fly solely off the power of the sun? what about clouds? what about birds? what about the horizon? sure it's slightly interesting, but hardly earth shattering, and definitely not worthy of slashdot's front page.
The folks at SkyTower have a wonderful explanation for why this would be a useful technology. They have a similar technology that is supposed to use solar power and, will, eventually, if they can get it to work, also have fuel cells to store energy for night flying.
The basic idea, if you're too lazy to read their web site, is that they make wonderfully cheap substitutions for satallites with some of the small footprint advantages that the cell phone network has.
The laser powered system would have the advantage of not needing to store energy for night flying.
Of course, it's doubtful that a lowly photovoltaic system could be efficient or light enough for this to scale well. The Canadian SHARP microwave powered aircraft is likely much more practical and has had lots of research behind it.
Signatures are a waste of bandwi (buffering...)
This is isn't "groundbreaking" research work at all. The "aircraft" in question is an 11 ounce toy made of mylar and balsa wood. I have an experimental "aircraft" too, it's powered by wind. You see, what I do is fold a $1 bill a certain way, then place it on my palm and blow on it. As long as wind keeps blowing on it, it keeps flying.
Where is my research grant money?
Yes, the LightCraft is very cool, but it has several problems that limit it's practical applications.
One is that the laser required to launch it has to use so much power that it heats the air, which causes the beam to disperse. This puts an upper limit on the payload.
Also, it turns out not to be very effective once it gets high enough that the atmosphere has thinned out. The developers have had to add layers of ablative material to the inside of the cone lip to provide material that can be accelerated away from the craft to provide proplusion. It's debatable whether this counts as fuel because most rocket fuel provides both reactive mass and energy, but, in this case it provides only the reactive mass. Just like conventional rockets, this extra material places limits on the lifting power of the craft.
Signatures are a waste of bandwi (buffering...)
(obligitory obvious prior art posting to prevent people from patenting this stuff) Isaac Asimov "I, Robot" .. a space-based power station near the sun that beams the solar energy back to earth. Major plot that the station is taken over by a "religious" robot.
meh
This is not the first flight powered from the ground. Skydivers have long used tunnels: large engine and propeller creating a fast vertical air stream alowing a skydiver to float on an air cushion. The only difference is that this is light instead of air.
You consider a DC-3 full of backup tapes "broadband" otherwise that was just a sad non sequiter. Broadband and power over laser are two different technologies and have very different hurdles to surmount before being practical. Progress in one area does not neccicarily cause progress in another. Kids, we're loosing touch with reality, there are things that don't revolve around broadband. (I think)
Little Brother, watching the watchers
There are many good reasons to use lasers to power airplanes and/or satellites, such as night time operations, or when a satellite is in the earth's shadow.
Also, it is possible to generate more light at the airplane/satellite than 'one solar equivalent'. This may be used to compensate for the degradation of the solar cell arrays in older satellites. Or new satellites may use smaller solar arrays, thereby lowering launch weight and launch costs.
The efficiency of solar cells is a function of the wavelength of light shining on the cell. So solar cells may be optimised for light of a specific frequency/wavelength.
See this patent application for additonal details.
and a 6 wheel vehicle to carry it all. 2 people to operate it. Very efficient.. NOW if the laser automatically tracked the RC plane, that would be something.. JMHO..
Another use for beaming power by laser which the article doesn't mention would possibly be for power generation - imagine placing a satellite in orbit with large solar panels and have it beam the energy down to a ground station by laser.
:) - huge parabolic mirrors are already flying in space - they are being used on military listening satellites to pick up weak radio signals.
Infact, if you are confident about aiming the beam, it would probably be very efficient to just put a huge parabolic mirror in space that focusses the sun's energy onto photovaltaic cells on the ground (which would have the disadvantage that you can't just shut it down when you accidentally aim the beam at a city
http://blog.nexusuk.org
I saw a guy at White Sands working on a laser propulsion system for spacecraft. He had a high power laser and small funnel shaped discs. The discs are spun at high speed above the laser, which is pulsed to produce plasma beneath the spinning disc. (not sure what causes the plasma to form exactly) The plasma ignites and sends the disk flying. He didnt have the laser tracking the disks, nor did they have a means of keeping themselves spinning (I guess in a vacuum there would be little to stop them) The spinning may have been used just for stability, not sure. He had to make sure there where no airplanes in the area while performing the test, the laser was designed to take out satellites from the ground. Wouldnt it be fun to work at white sands.
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weather, smoke, pollution, lost balloons, flocks of birds, other aircraft, flying toasters... could affect not just transmission, but tracking as well.
isn't there enough RF and solar energy flooding our atmosphere by now, if we could harness it, to power something this light and small?
"This is not a sig." -- R.
Here is a picture of their incredibly sophisticated laser tracking device. Nice goggles. I'm assuming this is just a prototype...
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They made a ground laser powered prototype aircraft and tested it. There is no way this current one is the first laser powered aircraft.
snap.. crackle... POP! This technology is, as their website indicates, possibly the cheapest, most effective way to launch craft into space. By complete coincidence, all methods that truly have the potential to reduce the cost to lift a pound into space to somewhere in the $10,000 range seems to dry up. Disappear. Naturally, this has nothing to do with the fact that any such system would give the owner a weapon with global delivery and potentially as damaging as a nuclear bomb. Put something up high enough, when it comes down, release a lot of Kinetic Energy. Plus the delivery method itself will involve such tremendous energy that it will make an effective weapon in its own right. The most recent example of this phenomenon, for me, is the evaporation of the company which had been working on carbon based materials to make a cheap space elevator. Last time I visited their website, there was a mention of an upcoming defense department grant. Now I can't find them at all. zrrrtKLACK! With my Paranoia reduced, I of course realize that I am brain damaged and have been hallucinating most of these instances I am referring to, since I can't find any evidence of them. Clearly, wearing that Hat makes be insane, as per some definitions of "Paranoia" Have a nice day!
How useful can this be?
If you have to have a ground based laser(s) to make them work, wouldnt that severly limit the range of any possible craft? How would you fly over the ocean? Or in bad weather? What happens if one laser in a flight path is broken or malfunctioning?
In short Im not reall sure how useful such a technology would be as applied to airplanes. However Im sure there are plenty of other possiblilties that 'remote power sources' could turn into reality.
Jainith
``How far away can in-flight IP/LASER broadband be?''
Is that going to be a revision to RFC 1149?
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
This isn't the first laser powered flight, this was done a little while ago at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. They shot a laser straight up at a metal object covered with parabolic dimples, the laser light focused on a small spot and heated the air so much it caused small explosions that propelled the craft. I don't think NASA's airplane should be considered "laser powered" when it uses photovoltiac cells to convert the laser energy into electricity. I couldn't find a good link but just so you know im not full of $h17 Click Here.
I can't believe NASA is getting press over this. It is a solar powered model airplane that has its solar cell power output increased by shining a laser on it. I expect to see this sort of thing at a high school science fair; not flight tested at both Edwards and Marshall (so that the engineers at each location could get some free travel, no doubt). It looks to me as if someone needs their budgets cut. Keep this waste of tax dollars in mind next time NASA complains that unless they get more money then they will have to compromise safety.
Two reasons.
1. It is very inefficient.
2. There is nowhere to beam it from. You need line of sight.
Even lasers in the visible light spectrum are generally invisible. There has to be significant amounts of dust or particulates in the air before the beam is visible.
Haven't you ever been in a movie theater while some fool is playing with a laser pointer? Not too many of those dorks ever get caught.
...and they shall know me by my sig.
It's a similar thing in the book Sport Death by Robin Heid, which I bought near the so called Area 51, at The Little A'Le'Inn in Rachel, Nevada about 13 years ago.
The book is "fiction" of course, but it features an experimental hypersonic aircraft that uses a ground based, high powered LASER for boost in order to make the jump into space.
Actually not a bad little novel if you like tech stuff, as much of it is QUITE accurate technically speaking.
It must be out of print though, as a search didn't return any hits.
I'd wager that somebody already has an operational aircraft such as this already.
A bird, a plane, smoke and spewing magma from the volcanoes they have mentioned as survey/research applications of this tech?
when my laptop is powered this way..
I don't think they mentioned anywhere if this is a saftey hazard but what if an airplane or other flying craft passed throught the laser? Would the people onboard get cooked or what...
do unto others as you would have them do unto you
While what you say is true; in my experience, he _is_ given very little credit in western hemisphere classes.
Well, if the put the laser on the plane then it could stay up indefinitely!
My other car is a 1984 Nark Avenger.
Well, if it is invisible, by definition I could not see it...
lasers are in the visible light spectrum
I have an Associate's Degree in Laser Electro-Optic Technology. Any oscillator that produces electromagnetic radiation in the range of infrared or shorter wavelengths by the process of stimulated emission of radiation is considered a laser. In fact, the name has become shorthand for just about anything that produces a beam of anything through quantum triggering (e.g., an "atom laser"). A carbon dioxide laser's primary (strongest) output wavelength is 1.6 microns, which is well within the infrared portion of the spectrum, and completely invisible to the human eye. The Nd:YAG laser also produces its primary wavelength in the infrared range (the beam is often sent through a frequency doubling crystal, which produces green light at half the power of the input beam). CD players use an infrared diode laser (invisible beam). At the other side of the visible spectrum, the eximer laser produces ultraviolet light, at a wavelength that is invisible to the normal human eye. The nitrogen laser also produces a beam that is not directly visible to the unaided human eye, but the beam causes air to fluoresce in a wavelength normally visible to humans.
Taking stuff apart since 1969 (TM)
1964
"At a 28 October press conference, Raytheon, under contract with RADC, demonstrated an experimental microwave-powered helicopter. The significance of this effort was not merely in the development of the equipment, but in the technological advances, particularly the use of a microwave beam to transfer power. The helicopter subsequently was included in a federal science and engineering exhibit."
(Photo included)
1964 History: Rome Air Development Center
Note that these devices need not use a maser or microwave laser; an ordinary microwave source is sufficient.
"The founding father of modern microwave power transmission gave a presentation and showed videos of the microwave-powered helicopter that he built for the Air Force in the 1970's which was also funded by Raytheon. A Japanese group showed videos of their microwave-powered room size blimp, and a group from University of Alaska showed videos of their progress on a small microwave-powered helicopter. All of these devices are based on some form of "rectenna" which is an antenna array which rectifies the electromagnetic beam impinging on it. Usually, special rectifying diodes are used. Efficiencies are remarkably high: >90% for the antenna and >~65% for the entire system at typical powers of tens of Kilowatts. The greatest loss comes from generating the microwaves in the first place from DC power. JPL, NASA, and other folks talked a lot about their design for the satellite which will collect solar energy and beam it down to earth."
The 1996 IEEE MTT Conference
Taking stuff apart since 1969 (TM)
This is the equivalent to shining a flash light on some solar power cells and making an electric motor spin. whoopie.
Of course, the numbers vary greatly, depending on the type of laser. Most visible light lasers are highly inefficient; helium-neons are about 0.1% efficient at converting wallplug electricity into light. However, other lasers are far more efficient than helium-neons. The best wallplug efficiency in diode lasers is over 50% at room temperature, and I have seen even higher efficiencies for cryogenically-cooled diode lasers.
"The goal of the SHEDS program is to increase diode laser wall plug efficiency to 65% in the first 18 months of the project, with a target of 80% in the following 18 months."
Alfalight Selected by DARPA for Super High Efficiency Diode Sources (SHEDS) Program
Taking stuff apart since 1969 (TM)
It sounds like a nice proof of concept gadget to try out the control problems on.
The lasers don't bounce off anything. Angels' Pencil was powered by the reaction against the laser light leaving the ship. When the laser was pointed at something (a Kzinti ship) it simply cut through it.
Robert Forward's Flight of the Dragonfly AKA RocheWorld was more technically interesting, he even went as far as devising a frequency multiplier for the ground-based laser system, which upped the force and improved the focus.
Or if you just like the cutting aspects, try one of David Weber's Honor Harrington series (I liked Honor of the Queen).
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
scalar energy as opposed to...vector energy? which doesn't exist? ps- IAAP