sandrot - 26/2/2007 7:22 PMIt is interesting, but it doesn't explain what the trick would be. Are we applying radiation pressure to deviate the asteroid or we plan to focus the laser so that by overheating material on the asteroid surface we have a propulsive effect?I recently operated robotic laser welding systems. Focusing the laser to obtain material heating was already challenging enough from 1 meter distance.Besides, a laser in space is going to be considered by somebody "weaponization of space".
sandrot - 27/2/2007 9:00 AMYou are correct about my big dirty CO2, still I have difficulties to believe we can transfer significant energy to the surface of the asteroid from, say, 50 million km. Different the story if we plan to "land" a laser on the asteroid surface.
sandrot - 27/2/2007 9:33 PMIn my opinion the article was referencing more space based applications. I made a connection with ABL because it is a powerful and compact system...
TyMoore - 28/2/2007 4:14 AMI would imagine that laser pumped ablation of asteroid material would create a plume of material that moves significantly slower than the jet from an ion engine--this in itself isn't really a big deal. It has the entire asteroid to supply reaction mass. But the power system onboard the spacecraft presents a problem. If we go with a CO2 LASER, then the pumping is usually done with either a rf system or electrical discharge. In which case, depending upon the position of the spacecraft and the average power output of the laser, could either be powered by solar power or nuclear power.
bhankiii - 28/2/2007 4:16 PMJust a side note, as someone who once got a masters in optical signal processing, I'm constantly annoyed by the political use of the term "focus like a laser beam". A laser beam isn't focused, the light is parallel - so, like a politician, it just goes on and on, never coming to a point.