[PatrickHenry]

Anyone who wants to glance at the title and then post something clever and original like:

1. Bush did it;
2. Daschle is deeply sadened;
3. A full-screen Star Trek pic;

is certainly free to do so, but please address your post to someone other than me.

[Stellar Dendrite]

Bump

[Lancey Howard]

Thanks for posting this. I hope these things come to fruition in my lifetime.

[datura]

You forgot to mention getting your beeber stuned. Sorry.

[techcor]

A laser-based plasma rocket using coherent nuclear resonant scattering would be more powerful and efficient.

[VadeRetro]

New propulsion concept could make 90-day Mars round trip possible.

Sure, travel time is down but the lines to go through security at the spaceport will drive you nuts.

[RightWhale]

The beam generator power source would almost certainly have to be nuclear unless they wish to use asteroid mining techniques.

[KevinDavis]

[Cold Heart]

I thought the traditional bet was 80 days.

[Thud]

ping

[guitfiddlist]

Conceptually - they could use aerobraking in the upper Martian atmosphere to decelerate. And if we can get really wacky - when ready to return they can head away from the Earth - get re-accelerated by the beam - and hope Jupiter is somewhere out there to use the bank shot effect - doing a tight 180 around Jupiter as if in a highly elliptical orbit - to reverse direction while conserving velocity. Just conjecture though...

[boris]

Winglee has been around with this idea for years. It is not new. It IS his idea, but he keeps shopping it around and nobody bites. I find it droll that this is being touted as 'breakthrough' technology...

[airborne]

[hershey]

Awesome stuff. Great news.