Propulsion Systems Integration for a `Tractor Beam' Mercury Lightcraft: Liftoff Engine

Details Propulsion Systems Integration for a `Tractor Beam' Mercury Lightcraft: Liftoff Engine Propulsion Systems Integration for a `Tractor Beam' Mercury Lightcraft: Liftoff Engine

May 2003

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2003aipc..664..683m&link_type=abstract

BEAMED ENERGY PROPULSION: First International Symposium on Beamed Energy Propulsion. AIP Conference Proceedings, Volume 664, pp

Computer Science

Spaceborne And Space Research Instruments, Apparatus, And Components

Scientific paper

Described herein is the concept and propulsion systems integration for a revolutionary beam-propelled shuttle called the ``Mercury'' lightcraft - emphasizing the liftoff engine mode. This one-person, ultra-energetic vehicle is designed to ride `tractor beams' into space, transmitted from a future network of satellite solar power stations. The objective is to create a safe, very low cost (e.g., 1000X below chemical rockets) space transportation system for human life, one that is completely `green' and independent of Earth's limited fossil fuel reserves. The lightcraft's airbreathing combined-cycle engine operates in a rotary pulsed detonation mode PDE for lift-offs and landings; at hypersonic speeds it transitions into a magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) slipstream accelerator mode. For the latter, the transatmospheric flight path is momentarily transformed into an extremely long, electromagnetic ``mass-driver'' channel with an effective `fuel' specific impulse in the range of 6000 to 16,000 seconds. These future single-stage-to-orbit, highly-reusuable vehicles will ride ``Highways of Light,'' accelerating at 3 Gs into space, with their throttles just barely beyond `idle' power.

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