I designed a crewed interstellar spacecraft

[alberto91]

Hi everybody,

I would like to share with you a crewed interstellar spacecraft which I have designed and called Solar One.

It employs a combination of 3 propulsion methods: nuclear fusion, beam-powered propulsion , and photon propulsion.

Basically, several compact fusion reactors power a laser system that propels a huge light sail.

Physicist Robert Forward already proposed in 1983 to use a 26-TW laser system to propel a 100-km light sail, a fresnel lens to focus the beam of the laser, and decelerate the spacecraft with a secondary light sail.

I propose something a bit different, which is to use to use for example a 60 TW-laser to propel a 5-km light sail that would deploy from the spacecraft after the acceleration stage, use parabolic mirrors that gradually change their orientation in order to focus the laser beam, and finally use a photon rocket to decelerate the spacecraft.

In theory, it could be possible to achieve 25% the speed of light, reaching the closest potentially habitable exoplanet in less than 20 years.

There are of course many challenges, like building high-energy continuous-wave lasers, reducing the weight of the nuclear fusion reactors (and of course achieving effective nuclear fusion first), and minimizing the effects of zero gravity during such a long trip.

What do you guys suggest to overcome these challenges?

This is my paper and a short video that summarizes all.

Edited July 4, 2020 by alberto91

[alberto91]

up

[andrew s]

I may have misunderstood but if the laser in on the spacecraft as is the light sail how does it overcome Newtons 3rd law, action and reaction are equal and opposite?

Regards Andrew 

[R26 oldtimer]

41 minutes ago, alberto91 said:

up

Is there a reason to think that your thread might be more interesting than the rest, as to need a bump?

[markse68]

On 06/07/2020 at 13:53, andrew s said:

I may have misunderstood but if the laser in on the spacecraft as is the light sail how does it overcome Newtons 3rd law, action and reaction are equal and opposite?

Regards Andrew 

Yes could you answer this @alberto91 as it doesn’t seem to make sense? Also what’s the difference between laser propulsion and photon propulsion?

[Zakalwe]

On 06/07/2020 at 14:09, R26 oldtimer said:

Is there a reason to think that your thread might be more interesting than the rest, as to need a bump?

A YouTube channel that wants more subscribers?