> DE-STAR or Directed Energy System for Targeting of Asteroids and exploRation
Ugh! "exploRation"?
Directed Energy Planetary Defense and Relativistic Probes
31–34 of 34 posts
Re: Directed Energy Planetary Defense and Relativistic Probes
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
Pressure from either sun light or laser is very small, and can be ignored for time intervals smaller than centuries. The method proposed in the article is only about thrust created by vaporization
The sun vaporizes. That's where comets get tails.
Does it? I thought that was heated gasses boiling off.
Re: Directed Energy Planetary Defense and Relativistic Probes
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
The sun vaporizes. That's where comets get tails.
Does it? I thought that was heated gasses boiling off.
Boiling off == vaporized (ok pedantically, boiling off -> vaporized, but not the other way around).
The Sun only does that on icy rocks, and when they are near. Lasers can (in theory) do that on icy rocks that are much further away.
Re: Directed Energy Planetary Defense and Relativistic Probes
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
Does it? I thought that was heated gasses boiling off.
Boiling off == vaporized (ok pedantically, boiling off -> vaporized, but not the other way around). The Sun only does that on icy rocks, and when they are near. Lasers can (in theory) do that on icy rocks that are much further away.
In space it often isn't so much boiling (liquid+heat=gas) as sublimation (solid+energy=gas). Sublimation can, weirdly, occur well below the freezing/boiling point. That one lone cosmic ray can heat a single molecule of water enough to cast it into space as a gas ... all in an environment where the average temp is well below freezing points. Temperatures in vacuum are strange.