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

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

NASA FY 2016 Budget: $18.6 billions “Using those established means, it would be closer to $10 billion per 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).” NASA FY 2016 Budget: $18.6 billions Elon Musk, The Verge, Sept 2016

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

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

Single-bounce Photon Thruster

Recycling Single-bounce Photon Thruster

Photon Thruster Y.K. Bae, Physics Procedia 38 ( 2012 ) 253 – 279 X10,000 Recycled Photon Thruster X1,000 Recycled Photon Thruster Y.K. Bae, Physics Procedia 38 ( 2012 ) 253 – 279

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

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

Photonic Laser Thruster Spacecraft + Mirror Photon Source Mirror 2006 Proof-of-Concept Demo* Thrust = 0.035 mN Recycling Enhancement: 100 *under the auspice the former NIAC

Photonic Laser Thruster (PLT)

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

500 kW

Photonic Laser Thruster 1U CubeSat Propulsion Demo: Amplified Laser Power: 450 kW CW Thrust: 3 mN

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

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

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 SWaP 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 CubeSats Application Examples: Virtual Telescopes Synthetic Aperture Radars Earth Magnetic Field Monitoring Distributed Satellite Systems

Small Spacecraft Maneuver with Photonic Laser Thruster

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

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

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

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

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

Can we overcome the diffraction limit? 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

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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.

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