Thruster May Shorten Mars Trip from Months to Week

Dr. Young Bae is the founder of the Bae Institute in Tustin, California, which develops space technologies and has worked on photon, antimatter and fusion propulsion technologies for the past twenty years. Dr. Bae has developed an amplified photon thruster, a patented product that will revolutionize space travel especially to Mars.

He first demonstrated his technology, the photonic laser thruster (PLT) built from off the shelf products, since no existing products are available for this technology. He was able to produce a photon thrust of 35 µN in a small scale but could be replicated with a higher thrust value for future space missions. Some of the applications for this product include the following: highly precise satellite formation flying configurations for building large synthetic apertures in space for earth or space observation, precision contaminant-free spacecraft docking operations, and propelling spacecraft to unprecedented speeds -- faster than 100 km/sec.

With the high potential speeds from this PLT, spacecrafts equipped with PLT technology could travel the 100 million kilometer distance to Mars in less than a week’s time.

Many aerospace organizations have shown keen interest for this PLT and want to collaborate with Dr. Bae in developing civilian, military and commercial space vehicles. He has also been invited to present his work for NASA, Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), DARPA and the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL).

Franklin Mead, a senior aerospace engineer at AFRL, said in a Bae Institute statement that the PLT demonstration and the measurement of photon thrust are very novel and incredible, something that has not been done before.

Dr. Bae has also published a paper, “Photonic Laser Propulsion: Proof-of-Concept Demonstration”, in the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics’ Journal of Spacecraft and Rockets. He has outlined how he was able to overcome the traditional inefficient photon thruster designs and able to create this novel PLT method.

He said in the report:

"In contrast, Bae’s PLT (patent pending) places the laser medium within a resonant optical cavity between two platforms to produce a very stable and reliable thrust that is unaffected by mirror movement and vibration -- ideal for spacecraft control or propulsion."

His PLT research was partially funded with the help of the NIAC (NASA Institute of Advanced Concepts) as a part of a spacecraft formation flight concept grant.

It is a great start, once PLT is proven in a large scale model, it will be a revolution in space travel, the scientists can then plan missions without worrying about the time table, orbits etc. They can then send in supplies, people within short notices to Mars and back.