[Colonel Flagg]

Originally Posted by Fathom Zero

And this looking for a propulsion that could move us at near the speed of light isn't going to go anywhere. Not anytime soon, at least. We don't have anything that efficient.

http://nextbigfuture.com/2007/02/pho...ropulsion.html

February 23, 2007
Photonic Laser Propulsion


Photonic Laser Propulsion has had a proof of concept demo it generated 35 micronewtons of thrust using mirrors that generated 3000 times amplification. The low power version would be great for position control of multiple satellites to nanometer precision.

UPDATE: It has been proposed that extremely small payloads (10 kg) could be delivered to Mars in only 10 days of travel time using laser-based lightsail caft (Meyer, 1984), but in order to do so, would require a 47 GW laser system. With 47,000 reflections then only a 1MW laser system would be needed. (fifty 20KW lasers). Scaling up 100 times would be able to deliver 1 ton payloads to Mars in ten days.

The difficult we do immediately; the impossible takes a little longer. - Motto of the US Army Corps of Engineers