A new project from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration currently being developed, the NASA Laser Propulsion System could revolutionize space travel. This would allow for much faster space travel than it has been known until now; trips to Mars could be completed in as little as 3 days, in comparison to their current estimated time of completion of 6 months to 2 years, depending on the orbital position of both the Earth and the Red Planet in relation to the sun.

Sadly, however, this concept is still a bit of technological marvel when it comes to scientists to put it in practice right away. The way researchers are thinking of making this work is by finding a way to apply the rules and methods they do in the case of particles used in accelerators. With the current knowledge and technology it’s not an issue to get particles to move at the speed of light, but larger scale objects – such as a spacecraft would be – are a completely different story.

So far, large scale objects have not been able to achieve 3% of that speed because of physical limitations of the human-made technology so far. There are simply some laws of nature that mankind has yet to discover workarounds to.

However, one scientist working for NASA has considered a different method of making it work, and it feels like it was partly inspired by Bill Nye’s solar sail idea that was depicted in the ‘Think Big’ scenario. However, this time around it won’t be photons coming from the sun carrying space crafts to other places in our solar system, but instead it would be lasers.

And this time around, the theory is actually applicable at a larger scale too, not just applicable at a small scale like particle accelerators do. Laser propulsion is something that is already used and there’s little to no limitation from taking it up to a larger scale; large enough to send space shuttles all the way to Mars. This is the kind of idea that is not only feasible in a realistic, ‘to-be-achieved’ in the next decade method of reaching further parts of our solar system, but also a much better way of launching various types of shuttles as part of manned or unmanned expedition.

The fuel-based propulsion is not only inefficient, expensive but also potentially harmful to a number of things. By employing laser propulsion technology instead, launching space crafts into outer space would be easier, does not face fuel limitations and comes with a lot more efficiency when it comes to long distances.

Image Source: 1