3 ms·
Do they not need to run it/them continuously for years for a solar sail approach to make sense? NIF is not a good comparison for exactly that reason.
by andrewflnr 3y ago
Do they not need to run it/them continuously for years for a solar sail approach to make sense? NIF is not a good comparison for exactly that reason.
- jessriedel 3y agoNo, the acceleration phase is only for a few minutes. (I agree with you that if it requires 100 GW of power for years, his criticism would be accurate.) After a few minutes, the probe is already so far away from Earth that you can't focus the lasers effectively on it.
- andrewflnr 3y agoFrom wikipedia: > ground-based lasers would then focus a light beam on the crafts' sails to accelerate them one by one to the target speed within 10 minutes, with an average acceleration on the order of 100 km/s2 (10,000 ɡ) Well damn, then. I missed that when I was reading about it before. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakthrough_Starshot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakthrough_Starshot