A novel micro‐scale light‐sail and thin‐film beam‐generator

Abstract

“Microscale light sails” (MLS) are simultaneously manufactured and launched as a matter‐beam from a proposed Lunar facility. Lunar aluminum would be refined for the feedstock of this “thin film beam generator”. A battery of linear, aluminum‐vapor, rocket engines make up the first stage of a “laser cooled thermal beam”. After a supersonic expansion, the condensing sheets of AlI atoms undergo light‐force mediated cooling, guidance, and compression. The individual, partly condensed sheets are brought together at sufficiently low energy to form the core of the thin film. MLS‐swarms can become either the reaction‐mass for a deep space, beam‐propulsion transportation network, the constituents of an orbital space‐mirror or an interstellar, laser‐driven probe, or simply be used as raw building material for outer space structures. An articulation of the beam generator may manufacture solar cells and other kinds of thin‐films from space resources.

Citation

Bishop, F. (2004), "A novel micro‐scale light‐sail and thin‐film beam‐generator", Aircraft Engineering and Aerospace Technology, Vol. 76 No. 2, pp. 160-169. https://doi.org/10.1108/00022660410526024