NASA’s Solar Thermal engine

I didn't really understand your point, so basically the rockets won't be powered anymore by fuel, but only by solar energy, right?
 
I don't believe, this project has a chance to be realized in the next 10 or 20 years. The reason why I think like that is that I can't imagine how big and powerful should be the batteries to deposit such an amount of energy, to perform even a take-off process. And the solar panels should be enormous as well. I mean this solar energy has only started to improve and is already available to be used for power home facilities. I have them installed last year, that's why I have an idea of how this energy works and how much time it needs to charge and to produce energy enough to power only the house, but imagine how much it would need to power a rocket to fly into space.
 
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VinsaHrdok said:
didn't really understand your point, so basically the rockets won't be powered anymore by fuel, but only by solar energy, right?
Click to expand...

The solar energy, focused by mirrors, would be used to heat propellant in rocket engine. So yes, the rocket would not need fuel (it would use Sun to provide heat), but would still need propellant (which would be heathed and ejected from nozzles, thus creating thrust).
 
And so this engine would be immune to the inverse square law? Yeah, maybe once it gets far enough out the EM Drive kicks in. I could see a Solar or Sunlight powered reaction engine used in or its maybe out to 2 AU but I question just how efficient it would be given the mass of the mirror system and the chamber used to heat the propellant to a temperature that would produce a high enough increase in performance versus systems now on use. Current chemical fueled engines use a propellant heated by the burning of a fuel/oxidizer mixture. The heated combustion product is the propellant. Granted a solar powered engine eliminates the oxidizer.
 
Apologies to any Musk fans because it seems the video is criticizing him.


But on 9:58 is it correct that solar panels generate 200 kilowatts on earth and 2 kilowatts near Jupiter?
 
Kevin Renner said:
And so this engine would be immune to the inverse square law? Yeah, maybe once it gets far enough out the EM Drive kicks in. I could see a Solar or Sunlight powered reaction engine used in or its maybe out to 2 AU but I question just how efficient it would be given the mass of the mirror system and the chamber used to heat the propellant to a temperature that would produce a high enough increase in performance versus systems now on use. Current chemical fueled engines use a propellant heated by the burning of a fuel/oxidizer mixture. The heated combustion product is the propellant. Granted a solar powered engine eliminates the oxidizer.
Click to expand...

The mirrors would be very lightweight - most likely inflatable paraboloids with a partially silvered interior skin.

Specific impulse at 1 AU would be about 900-1000 s maximum but they're subject to sunlight energy density.

You could quadruple the specific impulse by using a similar design to focus laser light, but of course the Sun is cheaper than a large laser.
 

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