here comes the science?

this is the same technique that would be used to power the lifter on the space elevator.. (story from a couple of days ago)

If Iignore the rest of the story, and just concentrate on this one piece of a sentence, I can actually link how my elementary school was able to prepare me for a future job as an aerospace engineer!

"is constructed from balsa wood"

Put a shiat load of solar panels and those lasers in space and you could....
...RULE THE WORLD...
MWAH HAHAHAHAHA!!!!!

/falls over giggling like a little school girl

This does not excite me. 11 ounces - it couldn't even carry my lunch.

It's good to see Alabama on FARK for something other than "imbred southerner" jokes...

bah, that thing couldn't even singe my marshmallows....

What's the point?

I want global annihilation, damnit...not an overrated flash light!

It's "inbred", not "imbred", you inbred southerner.

"Without the need for onboard fuel or batteries, such a plane could carry scientific or communication equipment, for instance, and stay in flight indefinitely. "


Yeah, say until something happened to the laser's power source, or the laser itself. What happens when your 11oz airplane crashes into the Empire State building? Then what, smart guys?

bah, that thing couldn't even singe my marshmallows....
What's the point?

We agree completely. In fact, that's almost exactly what we told those stupid Wright brothers.
--Messrs. Hindenburg, Zeppelin, Dirigible & Blimp

"Science is gay"

Weil out.

My first and only solar calculator, in my briefcase right now, is just like this one:

http://www.datamath.org/Sci/Modern/TI-31.htm

It was real exciting technology back in '86.

Anybody everread "The Big Lifters" by Dean Ing? Great book; it examines the possibility of using laser-boosted rocket engines to put cargo in orbit more cheaply than ever before.

Janitor unplugs laser, crash ensues.

Sounds fun. Too bad so many things can interrupt the beam for this to be reliable. Even if the lasers were done from satellite , there's still too many issues.

wow I remember reading about this stuff like 10 years ago........ I swear............. hmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Where do I remeber this from? was this in some sort of science fiction thing? and not from "the Big Lifters"

Hmmm....perhaps "Tron"?

That is so cool I wet meself a little.

Your tax dollars at work America...

GoblinKing, it's been around for a while...from RPI is one source of something similar over 10 years ago.

coo...not only lasers, but FRICKIN lasers...

10/9 - Small model aircraft flown around gym using laser beam, the cure for cancer eludes us once again.

This sounds like some damn toy you will be able to buy at Radio Shack in a couple a' years - some kid will get his eye burned out with this, goddamnit!

Wouldn't the real world application of this be hindered by CLOUDS?

It's "inbred", not "imbred", you inbred southerner.

Deliberate misspelling. Sorry to see that you didn't get the joke, you Yankee. =P

"The craft could keep flying as long as the energy source, in this case the laser beam, is uninterrupted,"

So if one airplane flies below another...

This is stupid. Its not powered by laser beams, its powered by electricity. Its only getting the electricity from a laser beam shone at it instead of batteries. Big frickin deal

It's that whole energy-mass-inertia thing, reg.
This is a real, physically real, breakthrough on that previously insolvable problems.

It really is too bad that you cant use laser's to get to space..
1. Electricity
2. ???
3. Free vaccum manifold propulsion
4. Profit!

Apollo Lightcraft



/alma mater

They've been showing it on NASA TV all day.

"Too bad so many things can interrupt the beam for this to be reliable. Even if the lasers were done from satellite , there's still too many issues."

Unless of course you use converging beams, then the problems of signal interuption are eliminated, it also allows you to get more power, since there is a limit on a single beams's power (don't want to accidentaly cut a 747 in two).

"wow I remember reading about this stuff like 10 years ago..."

This is the first one ever built....

/Wonders why he's the first to do this.

Yeah wtf, I had to go to the bottom to find a pic of Dr. Evil.

Hopefully they won't do this in LA because the laser will ignite the smog and burn up the world.

reggaejunkiejew

This is stupid. Its not powered by laser beams, its powered by electricity. Its only getting the electricity from a laser beam shone at it instead of batteries. Big frickin deal

If that's the case, then there's no such thing as nuclear power, or anything else that uses a turbine to CONVERT energy from one source to another. A laser is a power source.

best headline ever..

This was on an episode of Star Trek TNG a while back. A few years a while back.

space craft being powered by energy pulse from remote location...sounds kinda like aircraft being powered by energy from remote location

people at NASA watching old Trek tapes...NEEEEVER

YOU KNOW some guy at nasa was like...how can we do this?!?

Which band does this guy remind you more of, "Talking Heads" or "Devo"?

So when do we start to put a hole in the ozone layer for "one million dollars" ?

"A telecommunications company could put transponders on an airplane and fly it over a city," Bushman said. "The aircraft could be used for everything from relaying cell phone calls to cable television or Internet connections."

Or, they could use a balloon.

This might be the first time this stunt was ever done -- with a literal airplane (as opposed to another flying craft) -- but I strongly doubt it.

Boeing did a lot of research into this same idea . . . in the 1970s. They had worked out a thermal (not photovoltaic) system that put a black heat exchanger on the back of a 747, for a solar-powered satellite in orbit to shine on.

Yes, it would've worked just fine. No, it would not have been more dangerous than current airliners -- it would've been a lot safer, in fact, since the planes could've carried much smaller, more heavily shielded fuel tanks.

The laser would not have been powerful enough to significantly heat any part of the plane that wasn't black (ie, any part other than the heat exchanger). Nor could passengers have even noticed it if it had somehow shone through the plane's windows, nor would it have been detectable (without scientific instruments) at the ground.

The laser would only power the plane at cruising altitudes. If you could fly a black Cessna in a commercial lane at 35000 feet, yeah, you might've had a small problem, but it wasn't going to happen too often. If the laser had lost power, the plane would've been able to fly to a nearby airport normally -- more easily than a current airliner that, say, lost its fuel supply.

And, best of all, the cost of the energy while the plane was cruising would've been 'free' -- just the amortized cost of the satellite. Boeing figured the airlines could cut ticket prices in half.

Back then, they thought solar power satellites would be a snap by, say, 1985, but the government didn't pursue them. Boeing had talked to Congress about it some, but they lost interest pretty quickly. They weren't going to pay to develop the satellites themselves.

Question: How are the lasers powered?

So the plane could fly forever--as long as it doesn't encounter a cloud.

I know this is late, but when I submitted this article I had Here comes the science in the headline. Too bad the admin who allowed it stripped it of its glory.