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Post by treptoplax on Sept 28, 2018 16:32:23 GMT
www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/niac/2018_Phase_I_Phase_II/PROCSIMAThe key innovation of our propulsion concept is the application of a combined neutral particle beam and laser beam in such a way that neither spreads or diffracts as the beam propagates. The elimination of both diffraction and thermal spreading is achieved by tailoring the mutual interaction of the laser and particle beams so that (1) refractive index variations produced by the particle beam generate a waveguide effect (thereby eliminating laser diffraction) and (2) the particle beam is trapped in regions of high electric field strength near the center of the laser beam.
Not going to pretend I understand the physics; NASA is interested in this for beamed propulsion. They theorize that by limiting the spread of the beams, they could use a 50 Gw laser (!) to accelerate a 1 Kg package to as much as 0.10c (!). Seems likely there would be military applications, assuming space combat is a thing, if this works...
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Post by Kerr on Sept 28, 2018 18:07:09 GMT
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Post by Anon1 on Oct 13, 2018 18:23:59 GMT
I see no reason why it couldn't be weaponized in principle, but you run into the problem of aiming a neutral particle accelerator. To put it mildly, this isn't an easy task if you are talking about ranges measured in lightseconds or more. At sub-light second ranges, a simple laser beam does it better.
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