[TChad]

Clever new way to accelerate heavy payloads out of the solar system.

[gundog]

So, beyond Pluto? Still a long way to anywhere else.

[bunkerhill7]

powered by rabbits

[Gene Eric]

>> $175,000 NASA grant

Racial agitators get far more for their college tuition

[ASOC]

https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/niac/2023/Pellet_Beam_Propulsion/

not new to old-school scifi readers.

A version of LASER boost meets solar sail. Clarke even write a piece for Boy's Life n this...in 1964

[Thunder90]

FTL is the only way.

[cowboyusa]

Sean Jeffrey Christiphet is ready to go.

[chrisser]

Sounds like it would be a one-way trip.

[mythenjoseph]

yA KNOW...if you think about it NASA should have branched off long ago with a serious exploration of our own world IE:oceans. SApace is cool and all/satellites etc... TANG....but we no less of our own God given world yet spend BILLIONS running around where we can’t grow a piece of grass?

[Robert DeLong]

I've become cynical perhaps, but I now take all claims made by any government agency, as being a lie, until I see differently.

The track record of government agencies, including the military, have destroyed my faith & trust regarding their honesty. What has been done by our government is not only a shame, it's often been criminal, as we keep learning new revelations from various sources, including whistleblowers from within.

I still love my country deeply, but not what it has become.

[Paal Gulli]

You’re still taking a couple of hundred generations to get to the Alpha Centauri system, and a few billion generations (with a “B”) to get to the Andromeda galaxy.

They don’t call it “space” for nuthin’.

[AndyJackson]

The spacecraft orbiting Earth would shoot a beam of tiny microscopic particles at the interstellar spacecraft. Those particles would be heated up by lasers, causing part of them to melt into plasma that accelerates the pellets further, a process known as laser ablation.

This is the process that is used in laser fusion. It's a few percent efficient in converting laser energy into pellet kinetic energy. And the conversion of electrical or chemical energy in the laser is 10%-20% effient if you are really really lucky and really really good.

Then there is the problem of putting into orbit the generating capability to provide all of that energy to driver the laser.

Then there is the problem of controlling the trajectory of the pellet to the required accuracy [imagine trying to hit a 20' tarket with a .22 cal rifle from accross the solar system. You have all kinds of tracking and pointing problems. Oh, and you have to allow for corrections from a solar wind that hasn't yet been ejected from the Sun when you shoot the bullet. The solar wind is a weak force, but it doesn't take much to miss a target when you are shooting across the solar system

But once these kinks are worked out it will be a brilliant concept.

[DannyTN]

Use Radicals for space propulsion?

Part of me says Great Idea!!! Make a bunch of trouble makers do something useful.

But who gets to determine who is radical?

[griffin]

Ditch the unleaded and go with nitrous oxide and a blower! YEAH!!

[Organic Panic]

“could” = No it won’t

[sauropod]

bkmk

[zeestephen]

How do they slow it down?

If the space craft cannot slow down enough to orbit a planet, dock with a space station, or land on a moon or planet, it seems to have very limited utility, except for taking high def photos as it speeds by various heavenly bodies.

[fella]

Few people can grasp the reality of how vast the universe is and how alone and tiny we are.
No matter how much we theorize and search the fact this is the only place we know where life is. Earth is truely a privileged planet.

We need to get our megalomaniac leaders under control or their contests to rule the world will destroy it.

[free_life]

How to get your enemies (Russia and China)to waste time and money on made up nonsense.

[absalom01]

To work, the conceptual propulsion system requires two spacecraft – one that sets off for interstellar space, and one that goes into orbit around Earth.

The spacecraft orbiting Earth would shoot a beam of tiny microscopic particles at the interstellar spacecraft.

Those particles would be heated up by lasers, causing part of them to melt into plasma that accelerates the pellets further, a process known as laser ablation.

Those pellets could reach 120 km/second (75 miles/second) and either hit the sail of the interstellar spacecraft or repel a magnet within it, helping to propel the spacecraft to huge speeds that would let it whizz out of our heliosphere – the bubble of solar wind around our Solar System.

"With the pellet-beam, outer planets can be reached in less than a year, 100 AU [astronomical unit] in about 3 year and solar gravity lens at 500 AU in about 15 years," says Davoyan.

 

So, seems that there's a small problem: no brakes.  The vehicle would just zip along forever at high speed, but with no way to stop.