Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-cfpbc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-19T10:43:45.455Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

LISP: Laser impulse space propulsion

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 March 2009

C.R. Phipps  and
M.M. Michaelis
C.R. Phipps
Affiliation:
Los Alamos National Laboratory, Mail Stop E543, Los Alamos, NM 87545
M.M. Michaelis
Affiliation:
University of Natal, Faculty of Science, Department of Physics, King George V Avenue, Durban 4001, South Africa
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

It is not often that a new form of transportation suddenly appears and replaces what was hitherto regarded as mankind's only realistic option. In space and upper atmosphere transportation, chemical rockets have held center stage for over half a century. Tsiokolvsky's ideas led to Wernher von Braun's V2, which in turn led to the Soyuz, Apollo, and Ariane programs and the Space Shuttle. But recently theoretical and computational studies as well as a few initial experiments have pointed to a new option: laser impulse space propulsion (LISP). This may offer a more efficient and less ecologically damaging means of putting payloads into orbit. The world high-power laser community is well suited to following and aiding developments in LISP, though most practical research is still at an embryonic level. Obviously an effort of the size required to develop a laser-driven low-earth-orbit (LEO) launcher would require a multinational commitment. LISP could then be regarded as a parallel challenge to those of achieving ICF rriicrofusion yield and of improving X-ray lasers, especially in the “water window.” Any physicist or engineer involved with the latter projects would find many points in common with the former. It therefore seems appropriate to briefly review the progress made in LISP and also to communicate some recent results from high-power laser-matter experiments that have lead to conceptual designs.

Type
Research Article
Information
Laser and Particle Beams , Volume 12 , Issue 1 , March 1994 , pp. 23 - 54
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1994

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Acton, D.S. & Smithson, R.C. 1989 In Proceedings of the Tenth Sacramento Peak Summer Workshop on High Spatial Resolution Solar Observations, O. von der Luhe, ed.Google Scholar
Ashoor, R. et al. 1989 Euromech 257 Conf. Marseille.Google Scholar
Barnard, J.J. 1989 Appl. Opt. 28, 438.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chapman, P.K. et al. 1977 AVCO-EVERETT, DARPA Order 3138.Google Scholar
Eshbach, O.W. 1952 Handbook of Engineering Fundamentals, 2nd ed. (John Wiley, New York), p. 8.Google Scholar
Fabbro, R. et al. 1991 J. Appl. Phys. 68, 775.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kantrowitz, A. 1972 Astronaut. Aeronaut. 10, 74.Google Scholar
Kantrowitz, A. 1986 Proc. SDIO/DARPA Workshop on Laser Propulsion, Kare, J.T., ed. LLNL Conf-860778, 2, Livermore, CA, 1987, p. 1.Google Scholar
Kare, J.T. 1987 In Proc. SDIO/DARPA Workshop on Laser Propulsion, LLNL Conf-8710452, Livermore, CA, 1990.Google Scholar
Kare, J.T. 1989 In Current Topics in Shockwaves Kim, Y.W., ed., AIP Conference Proceedings 208, American Institute of Physics 1990, p. 359.Google Scholar
Kelly, R. & Dreyfus, R.W. 1988 Nucl. Inst. Meth. B32, 341.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kogelnik, H. & Li, T. 1966 Appl. Opt. 5, 1550.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marx, G. 1966 Nature 211, 22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mehta, N.C. 1992 (private communication).Google Scholar
Michaelis, M.M. et al. 1991 Nature 353, 547.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moeckel, W.E. 1972a J. Spacecraft and Rockets 9, 863.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moeckel, W.E. 1972b J. Spacecraft and Rockets 9, 942.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moeckel, W.E. 1975 J. Spacecraft and Rockets 12, 700.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Phipps, C.R. 1989 Laser and Particle Beams 7, 835.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Phipps, C.R. 1990 Los Alamos National Laboratory Report LA-11832-MS.Google Scholar
Phipps, C.R. 1992a In Proceedings of the 9th International Symposium on Gas Flow and Chemical Lasers, Elounda, Crete.Google Scholar
Phipps, C.R. 1992b In Proceedings of the Near-Earth-Object Interception Workshop, Report LA-12476-C, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM, USA.Google Scholar
Phipps, C.R. et al. 1988 J. Appl. PHys. 64, 1083.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Phipps, C.R. et al. 1990 Laser and Particle Beams 8, 281.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Phipps, C.R. & Michaelis, M.M. 1992 Conference on Physics of Nuclear Induced Plasmas and Problems of Nuclear Pumped Lasers. Obninsk, Russia.Google Scholar
Phipps, C.R. & Dreyfus, R.W. 1993 In Laser Ionization Mass Analysis, Gijbels, A.V. Renaat & Adams, F., eds. (John Wiley, New York).Google Scholar
Potter, J.H. 1967 Handbook of Engineering Sciences II (Van Nostrand, New York), p. 310.Google Scholar
Raizer, Yu.P. 1970 Sov. Phys.—JETP 31, 1148.Google Scholar
Sänger, E. 1956 Aero Digest (UK), p. 68.Google Scholar
York, G.W. 1991 (private communication).Google Scholar