Launching with Lasers

The cost to launch a satellite into orbit is about $10,000 per pound. Researchers are trying to cut the costs and fuel it takes to launch a satellite into orbit. The alternative method they are using to try to launch a satellite into orbit is using lasers rather than chemicals. Aerospace engineer Franklin Mead Jr. of the Air Force Laboratory and physcist Eric Davis of the Institute for Advanced Studies at Austen, Texas, describe this as "lightcraft propulsion".

They aim a high powered beam upwards at a craft. When takeoff begins, the laser causes air at the base of the craft to explode into a jet of hot plasma and therefore creating thrust. The two researchers say that their design could reduce the amount spent on launching a satellie to $1,400 per pound. No lightcraft has made it into orbit yet, but one experiment has launched one as high as 233 ft. To reach orbit they would need megawatt lasers.

If this design sucessfully overtakes using fuel to launch, then we'd save plenty of money. Not to mention, we'd save plenty of fuel as well. The two researchers are now trying to find a stronger laser to launch a craft. The military has a strong megawatt laser, but it'd be difficult to get a hand of it.

Source: Zautra, Nick. "Launching on a Beam of Light". Discover August 2010: 21-21.