if he succeeds it will be the end of the chemical rockets era.
the hurdles i think are the fact that is so multidisciplinary that it's difficult for a big organization (like NASA or it's peers) to put up a study group, that's why maybe a one man team is more suited to bring it to fruition.
sincerely if it works it's the only technology right now that could be a paradigm shift from chem rockets, that remain unreliable, expensive and somewhat dangerous.
PS big organizations aren't good at multidisciplinary things at all! Unless they have all the "pieces" in house and anyway good luck having different dept work together. Here we are talking about cross organization resources (in addition to the fact i have my doubts the big players are interested in perturbing the status quo)
actually the beam generator is in a fixed position on the ground and you can "follow" your lightcraft from ground up from a single location.
1. maybe because i've been working in aerospace start ups for quite a while),2. Second I'm amazed at your faith in big organizations cooperating on multidisciplinary breakthrough projects, i really think hard and very few come to mind, especially if the disciplines involved are different from one another.....
do your homework, in all the reports and projections i've seen there is only one energy source on the ground and having studied the physics of the system i agree, you don't need more.
jimvela, i have no idea where you got the idea you need something in orbit, do you have a link?
How are you going to beam energy to your vehicle when you're over the horizon?