I would like to share with you a crewed interstellar spacecraft which I have designed and called Solar One.
It resembles the Zephyr spaceship.
Solar One employs a combination of 3 propulsion methods: nuclear fusion, beam-powered propulsion , and photon propulsion.
Basically, several compact fusion reactors power a laser system that propels a huge light sail.
Physicist Robert Forward already proposed in 1983 to use a 26-TW laser system to propel a 100-km light sail, a fresnel lens to focus the beam of the laser, and decelerate the spacecraft with a secondary light sail.
I propose something a bit different, which is to use to use for example a 60 TW-laser to propel a 5-km light sail that would deploy from the spacecraft after the acceleration stage, use parabolic mirrors that gradually change their orientation in order to focus the laser beam, and finally use a photon rocket to decelerate the spacecraft.
In theory, it could be possible to achieve 25% the speed of light, reaching the closest potentially habitable exoplanet in less than 20 years.
There are of course many challenges, like building high-energy continuous-wave lasers, reducing the weight of the nuclear fusion reactors (and of course achieving effective nuclear fusion first), and minimizing the effects of zero gravity during such a long trip.
What do you guys suggest to overcome these challenges?
This is my paper and a short video that summarizes all.
Would the laser be planetary based or would the ship carry the laser in an aft, forward firing position?
The biggest problem is not that FTL isn’t possible, the problem is, how do you generate propulsion power, while on the fly, that takes away the need to use bulky and heavy chemical engines that are needed to move, even a low cargo volume, through space-time, that won’t take thousands of years to achieve?
There are two layers of space-time. The first layer is Einstein Space-Time that is comprised of gravity and energetic reactions that are based on aspects of gravity that are present after the Big Bang.
The second layer, rather the first layer is Primordial Space-Time. Primordial Space-Time is space-time that existed prior to Einstein Space-Time that would have had particles and less gravity overall, but none the less there was still gravity.
Both types of Space-Time still exist and are now woven and tangled around each other.
But, if you can reduce the amount of Einstein Space-Time that you encounter, which has more mass than Primordial Space-Time, which has less mass, then a ship would be able to travel faster and not experience as much mass increase in Primordial Space-Time compared to Einstein Space-Time.
It won’t work if the laser is carried by the spacecraft. The momentum of photons exiting the laser in the forward direction produces thrust in reverse, cancelling out the thrust developed when they reflect off the sail.
This concept has been extensively written about for many years, but the lasers are based in orbit or on the Moon.