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barrykirk
Guest
Many years ago I saw that expermentation was being done on the principal of pulse firing a laser into a solid rocket engine. The Engine only contained material which was vaporized by the laser providing the hot gas to expel out the back.<br /><br />I remember seeing a video where somebody tied a test rocket in a horizontal position hanging from a cable. When they fired the laser, the rocket took off at a good speed.<br /><br />Has this idea gone anywhere?<br /><br />From a practical standpoint, are there any technical reasons why this won't work?<br /><br />What kind of ISP could one expect from such a system?<br /><br />What kind of thrust?<br /><br />It seems that although rockets can do ETO, they can only just barely do it.<br /><br />Here is an analogy. If we had never invented the jet engine, could we have figured out how to go supersonic with propeller's? We will never find out, since any research on supersonic propeller research stopped with the invention of the jet engine.<br /><br />Well any case I was just wondering where the state of that research is.