Sorry, But Lasers Won’t Get You To Mars In Three Days
It’s a wonderful potential technology for going interstellar. But in your lifetime? Don’t hold your breath.
“Greatness is not in where we stand, but in what direction we are moving. We must sail sometimes with the wind, and sometimes against it — but sail we must. And not drift, nor lie at anchor.” –Oliver Wendell Holmes
Anytime a powerful new technology is developed, it’s worth rethinking our conventional ways of performing difficult tasks. When it comes to traveling to outer space and exploring the Universe beyond Earth, any new advances in energy production, storage or transmission is worth taking very, very seriously. But space is very, very big, and the distances from Earth to other planets — not to mention other stars — is literally astronomical. As of 2016, we’re still using chemical-based rocket fuel to launch and maneuver our spacecrafts, the same technology we were using in the 1950s and 1960s, when spaceflight first began. But recently, a team of scientists and engineers led by Philip Lubin has announced that they believe it’s possible to use laser propulsion to not only turn missions to Mars into a meagre three day jaunt, but to aim for the stars at faster speeds than any spacecraft has ever achieved.
