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Sorry, But Lasers Aren't Taking You To Mars Anytime Soon
An anonymous reader writes: It's long been a dream of humanity to travel interplanetary distances at great speeds, or to make it to another star system within a human lifetime. Until recently, technologies to get us there — antimatter propulsion, wormholes or warp drive — have all been composed of physically unrealistic solutions. But recent developments in laser technology make directed energy propulsion a feasible solution. By building a giant laser array in space and developing a new type of solar sail that reflects the laser light with incredible efficiency, a laser sail, this propulsion system is scalable to arbitrarily large powers. There are many technical obstacles to be overcome, and so it's unlikely we'll see the fruit of this anytime in the next few decades (despite the promises of some), but this may well be the technology that takes us to the stars in the coming centuries.
If interested in this potential star-reaching tech, read Robert L. Forward's book Rocheworld.
Non-Linux Penguins ?
XKCD covered this and came to the conclusion that laser propulsion just isn't practical, even by the lofty standards of theoretical intrastellar space travel.
I read the internet for the articles.
Unfortunately you are traveling faster than escape velocity. Therefore you CANNOT "enter orbit". The planet will only deflect your path. The laser idea is just that an idea. Interesting but totally impractical and unworkable. Better to put a liquid salt thorium nuclear reactor and ion drives onboard the space craft. Or use an EM massless drive if it turns out to be real and not an experimental error. The light weight thorium reactor could use both ion drive for long haul low acceleration to conserve reaction mass and for a burst of high acceleration you could use the thermal output of the reactor to heat reaction mass and expel it directly. Interesting idea for a hybrid nuclear rocket system.
So we have multiple experiments showing it is, but you're not linking to what debunks it.
No we don't, we have several experiments which show that there is no effect larger than the current experimental errors.
Why?
Seriously? Would you expect me to provide a link if I claimed timecube is bunk? Anyway, start here:
Noether's Theorem.
SJW n. One who posts facts.