Laser-driven vehicles: from inner space to outer space

Abstract

Laser supported propulsion of a micro-airplane with water-covered ablator is demonstrated. The repetitive use of overlay structure is experimentally demonstrated with specially-designed water supply. The various transparent overlay is investigated by the CIP-based hydrodynamic code and experiments by pendulum and semi-conductor load cell. The momentum coupling efficiency of 5000 N-sec/MJ has been achieved by ORION experiments that agree with the simulation code. With the maximum efficiency approximately 10<SUP>5</SUP> N- sec/MJ predicted by the simulation, 30 pulses of MJ laser can give the sound speed to 10tons airplane. The concept can also be used for driving a micro-ship inside human body and a robot under the accidental circumstance of nuclear power reactor in which large amount of neutron source makes electronic device useless.