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Of all the dangers associated with spaceflight it's a pretty interesting concept to add "lasers at the origin shut off for whatever reason" and "lasers at the d
by pc86 3y ago
Of all the dangers associated with spaceflight it's a pretty interesting concept to add "lasers at the origin shut off for whatever reason" and "lasers at the destination never turn on / are misaligned / turn on too soon / turn on too late" to the list. Not sure I'd want to be in a spacecraft careening through the cosmos with no realistic way to slow it down.
- jandrese 3y agoThere is also the question of how you get the lasers to your destination in the first place.
- Teever 3y agoUse lasers for the first half of the journey to send a rocket that can decelerate and build the laser station at the destination.
- MilStdJunkie 3y agoSend a mirror ahead, bounce the beam back toward the ship to push it backwards. Loses a lot of efficiency, though. Laser propulsion, a lot of the thrust is coming from ablation of the surface.
- eru 3y agoHow do you 'send a mirror ahead'? Do you want it to stop, or just keep flying away indefinitely?
- MilStdJunkie 3y agoYep, throwaway mirror, it goes off to wherever once it's done bouncing light back at your ship. Again, much less efficient, so when you get where you want to go, you'd want to put in a laser station there too.