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Modular Laser Launch Systems
BerntB writes "I don't think Jordin Kare's NIAC article has been covered? It's about using new laser tech to build modular
laser launch systems. The modular nature makes it easier to test and build. The only other launch ideas as cool are the Orion Project and the space elevator."
Since the prior story is about Carnegie Mellon its rather ironic that the most intriguing launch technology was left off entirely -- and it is out of the robotics department of CM: the Rotovar(tm) by Hans Moravec.
Seastead this.
In this Phase I effort, we will analyze the performance requirements and scaling of modular laser launchers using various current and proposed laser technologies, develop baseline designs for possible beam modules, and define a roadmap for technology development and deployment of a modular laser launch system.
they are just doing a requirements analysis, they are deciding if its feasable, so he's not missing anything.
This rocket skips the oxygen, which is heavy.
There is only hydrogen being boiled off by the laser.
Hydrogen is only 2 protons per molecule,
the same as helium, without the neutrons.
(plus some insignificant electrons, minus some
bits from e=mc^2, and so on)
At low altitude of course, all that hydrogen
will burn when it hits the air outside the rocket.
Oh well. So the exhaust catches on fire.
One would not (initially) try to launch multi-ton payloads; the baseline concept is to start with roughly 100 kg payloads and let the system grow as investment is available. Contrary to your comment, 100 kg is a useful payload for many applications, especially at a marginal launch cost of perhaps $20,000, as compared to $15 million for a Pegasus. However, a laser launcher would not immediately replace all other launch systems; at least to start with, rockets would still be preferred for heavy single payloads.
When and if we do build a big launcher, 12 GW would be a large power load, but not terribly hard to supply. At the moment, the least expensive storage medium is truck batteries (!) at somewhere around 1 cent/watt, but flywheels or superconducting magnetic storage would probably be preferable for an operational system. Ultracapacitors tend to be better for shorter-duration loads than the few hundred seconds required for a laser launch.
-- Jordin Kare
Superconductive coils are better: Cost scales a little less than radius, but energy scales as radius squared. On the other hand there may be problems getting the energy out fast enough. (Problems like radially pumping ground water that rips open the coil container.)
Another possibility is gas dynamic lasers. They scale all the way up, and fuel/oxygen tanks are cheap.
Orbital's approach is insanely expensive and logistically apalling. It's fine for launching must-not-fail satellites serving lucrative markets, but worthless for the human conquest of space. What I want is the flying equivalent of Conestoga wagons.I have an Idea, it's probably been proposed before but, i'm wondering if anyone with a better physics backround could verify or deny this idea. Basically For Satalites/already in space systems. Is it feasible to use some sort of lazer propulsion system? I.e Light energy is the most readily available source of power (through solar panel) Could A series of high powered lazers be used to hit an adjustable pannel (also attached to the satalite) with enough force to move the satalite. Thereby getting rid of any sort of fuel need? Considering that the satalite's mass is nearly 0 in space. Firing a lazer with enough force to propell the satalite would be simple. Or am I missing somthing here.??
AEnertia
Witty, tag line goes here
One nice thing about this approach, compared to many other systems, is that it could lend itself to distributed production which would spread wealth around to many companies and local economies rather than concentrating wealth in the hands of a few. The design requires over 2000 laser/telescope modules each in an intermodal container. Instead of having one contractor build them all, imagine having a hundred contractors (average two per state), perhaps many in university towns, each building 20 units to a common design. Move the factory to the workers instead of vice versa. Each production facility would have a large flatbed CNC mill, mirror grinder, welding equipment, and a small electronics shop or would be a consortium of local manufacturing shops with excess capacity (i.e. a machine shop and a welding shop). Many more smaller companies would produce subassemblies. Assuming that production was not continuous but came to an end, making them all in one factory would require large numbers of people to move to one city which would then have a large layoff and unemployment that the local economy could not absorb at the end of production. By spreading it out, local economies would be better able to absorb the layoffs. And the number of layoffs would actually be reduced because the 100 different companies could each have different transition plans to developing other products so you wouldn't need another project of the same magnitude to absorb the labor and manufacturing surplus at the conclusion of the project. The distributed surplus of manufacturing capability would then spur innovation in other areas. I am thinking that each factory would have, rather than single purpose fixtures, a more general purpose programmable production ability (such as CNC tools) that would need little retooling to work on other projects. Also, many of the manufacturers would be applying existing facility and labor surpluses to this project. Manufacturing the individual lasers would still be handled by a small number of plants with a few more turning them into laser arrays. Specialized tasks like silvering the mirrors might be cheaper to do by shipping an intermodal container based factory with metalization equipment to the various factories or by shipping the mirrors in to a central site. Mass producable electronics like tracking systems could be manufactured at a smaller number of plants and shipped to the individual plants. The honeycomb mirror blanks could be manufactured by the University of Arizona Mirror lab, Corning, or similar glass manufacturer and possibly spin cast to approximate curvature. When the booster modules are completed a tilt bed truck picks them up and transports them to the nearest railroad container facility to be put on a rail car for shipment to the final laser site.
The only huge scale production operation would be if you decided to build a nuclear power plant to power the system.
The individual launch craft would be small enough that their manufacture could be distributed as well.
The distributed nature would reduce cost overruns which are routine for large contractors since how many systems were ordered from each manufacturer would depend on the quality and cost of the systems they produced. The first (prototypes) would necessarily be built in small shops; this could be extended to final production and still keep a reasonable economy of scale by using flexible tooling and centralized engineering costs and by eliminating beaurocracy and monopolistic thinking and by reusing idle factory spaces around the country. The quantity of units isn't really high enough, anyway, to fall into the economy of scale of a fixed purpose production line (like for an automobile).
I imagine the laser site looking like a freight yard with perhaps 20 widely spaced parallel sidings with 100 containers each. The added expense of leaving rail cars under each container is offset by the ease of replacing modules although you could use a crane to move the container onto smaller wheel