Hi All

Assuming the 3,000-fold amplification a 100 kW laser gives a 1 Newton push over a second of firing. I'm not sure that's much of a breakthrough really. A bank of a 100 lasers gives a vehicle a 100 Newton boost. Assuming a 20-ton ship the acceleration is a mere ~ 0.005 m/s^2 - enough to boost the ship to ~ 432 m/s in a day. Good performance for a VASIMR in top gear, but it ain't going to get to Mars in a week.

Sure they might up the power to ~ 100 MW (a thousand lasers firing) and get that acceleration up ten-fold, but a week to Mars needs more like ~ 2 GW, some 20,000 lasers. But how then do they keep a narrow beam over 50 million km and 3,000 reflections of the laser beam itself?

Adam