Breaking the Tyranny of the Rocket Equation with

Breaking the Tyranny of the Rocket Equation with Future In-Space Operation Colloquium Photons November 9 2016 th Young K. Bae, Ph. D. Credit: NASA CEO Y. K. Bae Corp ykbae@ykbcorp. com 714 -838 -2881 www. ykbcorp. com 1

What is holding us from the Space Commercial Revolution? The Tyranny of the Rocket Equation Propellant Mass Rocket Dry Mass ΔV exp = ) ( Isp g - 1 2

“Using those established means, it would be closer to $10 billion person, which is completely out of reach for many people who might otherwise be willing to uproot their lives and make such a daring trip (to Mars). ” Elon Musk, The Verge, Sept 2016 NASA FY 2016 Budget: $18. 6 billions 3

Vacuum Tube Calculator: ENIAC Computer/Information Revolution Transistor Integrated Circuit 4

The Tyranny of the Rocket Equation Conventional Thruster Conventional Spaceship ? Photon Thruster Scaled-up Photon Thruster Space Commercial Revolution 5

Single-bounce Photon Thruster 6

Recycling Single-bounce Photon Thruster 7

Th Photon ruster X 1, 000 n Th d Photo le c y c e R hruster hoton T cled P 00 Recy X 10, 0 8 Y. K. Bae, Physics Procedia 38 ( 2012 ) 253 – 279

Recycling Beamed-Photon Propulsion Photon Source Spacecraft + Mirror Lens/Mirror 9

Recycling Beamed-Photon Propulsion 50 years of attempts failed. Photon Source Spacecraft + Mirror Lens/Mirror 10

Photonic Laser Thruster Spacecraft + Mirror Photon Source Mirror 2006 Proof-of-Concept Demo* Thrust = 0. 035 m. N Recycling Enhancement: 100 *under the auspice the former NIAC 11

Photonic Laser Thruster (PLT) 12

PLT Thrust Measurement Setup* *Patent Pending NIST/Scientech/Navy 13

500 k. W 14

15

Photonic Laser Thruster 1 U Cube. Sat Propulsion Demo: Amplified Laser Power: 450 k. W CW Thrust: 3 m. N 16

The key to the transistor success: Stepwise commercial applications First Transistor Computer/Information Revolution Electronic Devices with Several Transistors Device, Network & Applications Explosion First Integrated Circuit Early Computers 17

Pathway to Commercial Space Revolution Stepwise development supported by the return on investment Timely & judicious government stimulus Wise and enthusiastic private investment 18

Near-Term Potentials of Photonic Laser Thruster (PLT) The PLT Innovative Capabilities: • Ultra precision in control of thrust magnitude and vector • Propellantless/plume-free contamination-free operation • Inherent Optical Metrology for Precision Positioning • Inherent Power Beaming to Reduce SWa. P • Providing the Ultimate Isp PLT Potentially Enables: • Ultra-precision persistent formation flying • Propellantless stationkeeping and orbit maneuvering • Enhancement of the capability of small satellites, such as Cube. Sats Application Examples: • Virtual Telescopes • Synthetic Aperture Radars • Earth Magnetic Field Monitoring • Distributed Satellite Systems 19

Small Spacecraft Maneuver with Photonic Laser Thruster 20

Resource Platform Mission Platform PLT Permits Separation of Valuable Mission Platforms from the Expendable Resource Platforms. 21

Mission Demonstration Concept: PLT X-ray Interferometer 100 m– 1 k m 22

Aiming at the Future When scalable, Photonic Laser Thruster can revolutionize the space commercialism. Acceleration/Deceleration ~ 1 g Travel time ~ 3 days 23

Infrastructures for Computer/Communication Revolution IC Chip Fab Facilities Fiber Optics Network Com Sats Large Scale Mining Cell Towers Semiconductor R&D 24

Infrastructure Examples for Space Commercial Revolution with Photon Thrusters TUI SSP In-space Manufacturing In-space 3 D Printing Robotics Autonomous Space Systems 25

Scaling up of PLT Can we overcome the diffraction limit? A photon is a boson: Bose-Einstein Condensation (BEC) Recent Demonstration of Photon BEC in a micro-cavity at low power Condensed Photons 26

27

? 28

29

Conclusions • Photonic Laser Thruster (PLT), a recycled photon thruster, is projected to overcome the tyranny of the rocket equation, if scalable. • Photonic Laser Thruster has been successfully demonstrated in lab. • PLT permits the near-term applications that can generate investment returns. • Stepping stones for developing large scale PLTs and Photonic Railway. • PLT flight demonstrations in earth-orbits and mission studies and demonstrations are proposed to be the next logical steps. • The science and technologies, such as Bose-Einstein condensation of photons, which can overcome the diffraction limit of laser beam propagation over long distance, are recommended for the near-term R&D. 30

Acknowledgements Support: NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) - new NASA Institute of Advanced Concepts (NIAC) - old Collaborators: Hagop Injeyan Lawrence Williams Joseph Harkenrider Bong Wie (University of Iowa) Dausinger-Giessen GMBH NIST Scientech Inc Navy 31