Newsgroups: sci.space
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Solid State Fusion for Launchers
Message-ID: <1989Apr4.000000.2486@utzoo.uucp>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
References: <1989Mar31.163051.5961@cs.rochester.edu> <1989Apr1.224916.22484@utzoo.uucp> <351@iconsys.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 4 Apr 89 00:00:00 GMT

In article <351@iconsys.UUCP> mmm@iconsys.UUCP (Mark Muhlestein) writes:
>Could someone comment on the use of cheap energy to power some kind
>of laser launch system? ...

Energy is not the major bottleneck in laser-launch systems, unless you
want to launch seriously big payloads in one lump.  Beam-directing optics
are probably the biggest challenge.

>Maybe some of the SDIO research may yet come in handy!

The US laser-launcher research program is indeed relying on SDI to build
big lasers and figure out how to point them; they're working on the other
engineering problems of the scheme.
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