W
WannabeRocketScientist
Guest
Hi!
I was going through old books I have bought, and came across a book I bought back in elementary school, Future Space. While it is a lower-level text, I flipped to the page of one "future space-station" I had remembered from when I last read it. The station is called the "Powerhouse in Space" and consists of large solar panels to collect large amounts of solar energy to turn into electrical power to run a massive laser. On either side of the station small cone-shaped spacecraft containing electronics and experiments are docked, their only fuel being water. The laser is turned on, flash-boiling the water in the tanks on the cone-craft and the cones shoot off at high velocity due to the pressure and steam created by the flash-boiling of the water, similar to the thrust of a chemical rocket. The laser beam is supposed to be powerful to beam power across millions of miles across space, and the cones themselves supposedly capable of crossing the solar system in a few days.
My question is: Is this feasible now? If so, is the thrust created by superheated steam really enough to propel a small spacecraft across the solar system in a matter of days, rather than years? I am unsure if we have lasers powerful enough to do what is described here, but if we don't, is it possible that we could build one this powerful in the near-future?
It just seems to me that the thrust couldn't be enough to do what is described here, but I have yet to do the calculations myself. If it is true, this could very easily revolutionize our study of our solar system, making it possible to send inexpensive craft into deep space quickly and cheaply. Perhaps, if it did have the velocity to cross the solar system in less than 7 days, it may be feasible to send a larger craft to Proxima Centauri and beyond within "somewhat" reasonable time-frames (certainly not thousands of years).
I was going through old books I have bought, and came across a book I bought back in elementary school, Future Space. While it is a lower-level text, I flipped to the page of one "future space-station" I had remembered from when I last read it. The station is called the "Powerhouse in Space" and consists of large solar panels to collect large amounts of solar energy to turn into electrical power to run a massive laser. On either side of the station small cone-shaped spacecraft containing electronics and experiments are docked, their only fuel being water. The laser is turned on, flash-boiling the water in the tanks on the cone-craft and the cones shoot off at high velocity due to the pressure and steam created by the flash-boiling of the water, similar to the thrust of a chemical rocket. The laser beam is supposed to be powerful to beam power across millions of miles across space, and the cones themselves supposedly capable of crossing the solar system in a few days.
My question is: Is this feasible now? If so, is the thrust created by superheated steam really enough to propel a small spacecraft across the solar system in a matter of days, rather than years? I am unsure if we have lasers powerful enough to do what is described here, but if we don't, is it possible that we could build one this powerful in the near-future?
It just seems to me that the thrust couldn't be enough to do what is described here, but I have yet to do the calculations myself. If it is true, this could very easily revolutionize our study of our solar system, making it possible to send inexpensive craft into deep space quickly and cheaply. Perhaps, if it did have the velocity to cross the solar system in less than 7 days, it may be feasible to send a larger craft to Proxima Centauri and beyond within "somewhat" reasonable time-frames (certainly not thousands of years).