FYI,

"Laser Propulsion: Wild Idea May Finally Shine"
Space.com
http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20090729/sc_space/laserpropulsionwildideamayfinall\
yshine

: New laser propulsion experiments are throwing light on how to build
: future hypersonic aircraft and beam spacecraft into Earth orbit.

: Indeed, a "Lightcraft revolution" could replace today's commercial
: jet travel. Passengers would be whisked from one side of the planet
: to the other in less than an hour - just enough time to get those
: impenetrable bags of peanuts open. Furthermore, beamed energy
: propulsion can make flight to orbit easy, instead of tenuous and
: dangerous.

: That's the belief of Leik Myrabo an aerospace engineering professor
: at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY. He's an expert in
: directed energy applications, aerospace systems, space prime power,
: and advanced propulsion.

: For the past three decades, Myrabo's burning desire has been to
: create and demonstrate viable concepts for non-chemical propulsion
: of future flight vehicles through his research and company
: Lightcraft Technologies, Inc., of Bennington, Vt.

: "Typically, a new propulsion technology takes 25 years to mature...
: to the point where you can actually field it. Well, that time is
: now," Myrabo told SPACE.com.

: Real hardware...real physics

: The brightest new news in beamed energy propulsion is that
: experiments are now underway at the Henry T. Nagamatsu Laboratory
: of Hypersonics and Aerothermodynamics at the IEAv-CTA in Sao Jose
: dos Campos, Brazil.

: The work is being sponsored under international collaboration
: between the United States Air Force Office of Scientific Research
: and the Brazilian Air Force.

: Basic research experiments using high-powered lasers are underway
: in Brazil, with experts investigating the central physics of laser-
: heated airspikes and pulsed laser propulsion engines for future
: ultra-energetic craft.

: At the Brazil-based lab, a hypersonic shock tunnel is linked to two
: pulsed infrared lasers with peak powers reaching the gigawatt range
: - the highest power laser propulsion experiments performed to date,
: Myrabo said.

: "In the lab we're doing full-size engine segment tests for vehicles
: that will revolutionize access to space," Myrabo emphasized. "It's
: real hardware. It's real physics. We're getting real data...and
: it's not paper studies."

: "Right now, we're chasing the data," Myrabo said. "When you fire
: into the engine, it's a real wallop. It sounds like a shotgun going
: off inside the lab. It's really loud."

: The laser propulsion experiments, Myrabo added, are also relevant
: to launching nanosatellites (weighing 1 to 10 kilograms) and
: microsatellites (10 to 100 kilograms) into low Earth orbit.

: Highways of light

: Creating and flying Myrabo's "highways of light" has been a
: methodical and step by step undertaking.

: Back in 1996 through 1999, he flew Lightcraft prototypes via a
: 10 kilowatt high-power infrared laser at White Sands Missile Range
: in New Mexico. In 2000 - sponsored under a grant to his company
: - he established a new world altitude record of over 230 feet
: (71 meters) for laser-boosted vehicles in free fight.

: Myrabo points to his new book "Lightcraft Flight Handbook, LTI-20,"
: co-authored with John Lewis and recently published by Apogee books,
: to explain his quest for low-cost, safe space access with beamed-
: powered Lightcraft.

: "The physics of high-power beamed energy propagation through the
: atmosphere...there's not a lot of expertise out there to make this
: stuff real. It's completely out of the conventional box," Myrabo
: said. "I've been working on it for 30 years. I know how to do it."

: For decades, Myrabo said, what laser propulsion physicists have
: been hungry to achieve is a couple of dollars per watt of laser
: energy. "We're here now. It's a matter of will and do we want to do
: it. This technology is now at the cusp of commercial reality."

Mark Reiff