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?"

Comments

Life Imitating Art?

[rit]

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).

Re:Life Imitating Art?

[Dyolf Knip]

No, that's a laser-augmented solar sail. Operating something like this in an atmosphere and a gravity well is a different animal entirely.

Why can't they do this with power?

[LorneReams]

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.

Balsa..

[Papatoast]

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!

What is the fixation with wings?

[Moderation abuser]

The atmosphere is an ocean, you can float on it effortlessly. Why spend so much time trying to expend energy to stay up?

Wireless laptop power?

[semanticgap]

It'd be nice if I could something like this to work to power my laptop!

So, what happens when it gets cloudy?

[Eudial]

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).

Re:So, what happens when it gets cloudy?

[Arcturax]

If the laser uses the right frequency, such as some forms of infrared, clouds will be transparent to it.

I think this has it's best use in forms of helping a pilot who has run out of fuel. If planes move to fuel cell propulsion (There is a small fuel cell powered plane on the market now!) in the future, as they will once the technology is perfected in cars, if a pilot is running low on power, he can request a laser assist to limp to the nearest airport.

NASA has a laser powered flying saucer

[John Harrison]

There is another laser powered craft that is much simpler. In fact, it has no moving parts. It looks like a fancy chrome plated frisbee, and is about that size. They get it spinning fast on the ground and then start shooting a laser at it from below. The disk is shaped such that the laser is reflected and a small chamber is heated, causing the air inside to expand, pushing air through a nozzle. The spinning gives it stability and the laser provides propulsion.

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).

Another solution in development for a while

[PhracturedBlue]

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.

Re:One simple question

[pokeyburro]

One of the major problems with moving anything from place to place is getting energy to move it. That energy typically comes from partial conversion of matter (liquid oxygen, gasoline, coal, hay, etc.), and that matter in turn tends to be carried along with whatever you're moving. That matter in turn needs energy to move it, and in some cases this amounts to a rather offensive amount of overhead (e.g., Saturn V).

There are two ways of handling this. One is to get the most efficient conversion possible, to cut down on the amount of mass needed. The other is to figure out a way to use whatever matter is in the area, so you don't have to bring it along. It's like bringing along a credit card to buy food when you get to Peoria, instead of bringing a bunch of food in your luggage.

A variation is to deliver that energy in some lightweight form, such as photons. Even if the system for generating this energy is huge and weighty, it can just sit on the ground and not move, which is the most important thing.

Far in the future, it may be possible to move objects weighing several hundred pounds this way, at a range of several miles. Specifically, a family and their luggage. They could zip around at 3000 meters up, powered by laser repeater stations every few miles, set up much like cellular phone towers, except perhaps in special air lanes analogous to interstate highways. This would save billions of dollars in fuel that would otherwise have to be moved around along with the important cargo.

Eventually, one might also see goods transported to space this way. As was said earlier, a space elevator could use this to move cars up and down.