Laser Ablation Propulsion is a broad field with a wide range of applications. We review the 30-year history of laser ablation propulsion from the transition from earlier pure photon propulsion concepts of Oberth and Sänger through Kantrowitz's original laser ablation propulsion idea to the development of air-breathing "Lightcraft" and advanced spacecraft propulsion engines. The polymers POM and GAP have played an important rôle in experiments and liquid ablation fuels show great promise. Some applications use a laser system which is distant from the propelled object, for example, on another spacecraft, the Earth or a planet. Others use a laser that is part of the spacecraft propulsion system on the spacecraft. Propulsion is produced when an intense laser beam strikes a condensed matter surface and produces a vapor or plasma jet. The advantages of this idea are that exhaust velocity of the propulsion engine covers a broader range than is available from chemistry, that it can be varied to meet the instantaneous demands of the particular mission, and that practical realizations give lower mass and greater simplicity for a payload delivery system. We review the underlying theory, buttressed by extensive experimental data. The primary problem in laser space propulsion theory has been the absence of a way to predict thrust and specific impulse over the transition from the vapor to the plasma regimes. We briefly discuss a method for combining two new vapor regime treatments with plasma regime theory, giving a smooth transition from one regime to the other. We conclude with a section on future directions.

When a large piece of space debris forced a change of flight plan for a recent U.S. Space Shuttle mission, the concept that we are trashing space as well as Earth finally attained broad public awareness. Almost a million pieces of debris have been generated by 35 years of spaceflight, and now threaten long-term space missions. The most economical solution to this problem is to cause space debris items to reenter and burn up in the atmosphere. For safe handling of large objects, it is desired to do this on a precomputed trajectory. Due to the number, speed, and spacial distribution of the objects, a highly agile source of mechanical impulse, as well as a quantum leap in detection capability are required. For reasons we will discuss, we believe that the best means of accomplishing these goals is the system we propose here, which uses a ground-based laser system and active beam phase error correcting beam director to provide the impulse, together with a new, computer-intensive, very high-resolution optical detection system to locate objects as small as 1 cm at 500-km range. Illumination of the objects by the repetitively pulsed laser produces a laser-ablation jet that gives the impulse to de-orbit the object. A laser of just 20-kW average power and state-of-the-art detection capabilities could clear near-Earth space below 100-km altitude of all space debris larger than 1 cm but less massive than 100 kg in about 4 years, and all debris in the threatening 1-20-cm size range in about 2 years of continuous operation. The ORION laser would be sited near the Equator at a high altitude location (e.g., the Uhuru site on Kilimanjaro), minimizing turbulence correction, conversion by stimulated Raman scattering, and absorption of the 530-nm wavelength laser beam. ORION is a special case of Laser Impulse Space Propulsion (LISP), studied extensively by Los Alamos and others over the past 4 years.

It is not often that a new form of transportation suddenly appears and replaces what was hitherto regarded as mankind's only realistic option. In space and upper atmosphere transportation, chemical rockets have held center stage for over half a century. Tsiokolvsky's ideas led to Wernher von Braun's V2, which in turn led to the Soyuz, Apollo, and Ariane programs and the Space Shuttle. But recently theoretical and computational studies as well as a few initial experiments have pointed to a new option: laser impulse space propulsion (LISP). This may offer a more efficient and less ecologically damaging means of putting payloads into orbit. The world high-power laser community is well suited to following and aiding developments in LISP, though most practical research is still at an embryonic level. Obviously an effort of the size required to develop a laser-driven low-earth-orbit (LEO) launcher would require a multinational commitment. LISP could then be regarded as a parallel challenge to those of achieving ICF rriicrofusion yield and of improving X-ray lasers, especially in the “water window.” Any physicist or engineer involved with the latter projects would find many points in common with the former. It therefore seems appropriate to briefly review the progress made in LISP and also to communicate some recent results from high-power laser-matter experiments that have lead to conceptual designs.

International audienceThe study of the variability of stratospheric aerosols and the transfer between the diierent atmospheric regions improves our understanding of dynamical processes involved in isentropic exchanges that take place episodically in the lower stratosphere through the subtropical barrier. One useful approach consists in combining in situ ground-based and global measurements with numerical analyses. The present paper reports on a case study of a horizontal transfer evidenced ÿrst by Rayleigh–Mie LIDAR observations over Durban (29:9 • S, 31:0 • E, South Africa). Additional data from MeteoSat and SAGE-2 experiments, and from ECMWF meteorological analysis have been used in this study. Contour advection maps of potential vorticity from the MIMOSA model derived from ECMWF ÿelds, were also used. By the end of April, 1999, LIDAR observations showed that aerosol extinction, in the lower stratosphere, has increased signiÿcantly and abnormally in comparison with other LIDAR and SAGE-2 observations recorded for the period from April 20 to June 14, 1999. The dynamical context of this case study seems to exclude the possibility of a local innuence of the subtropical jet stream or tropical convection, which could inject air masses enriched with tropospheric aerosols into the stratosphere. On the contrary, a high-resolution model based on PV advection calculations and ECMWF meteorological analyses shows that air masses are isentropically advected from the equatorial zone close to Brazil. They cross the southern barrier of the tropical reservoir due to laminae stretching and reach the southern subcontinent of Africa 5–6 days later

A portable jigsaw is adapted to provide an inexpensive large-scale demonstration of the inverted pendulum experiment. Stroboscopic study reveals interesting features of the motion of the inclined pendulum, as well as the possibility that no pendulum is ever quite inverted. Kalmus [Am. J. Phys. 38, 874 (1970)] and Kapitza [Collected Papers by P. L. Kapitza, edited by D. TerHaar (Pergamon, London, 1965)] theories are used as analogs to study the behavior of the inverted and the partially inverted pendulum.