Russian scientists have proposed a novel way to accelerate a spaceship while in flight – firing a ground-based laser up its backside. The new technique uses a plasma flow caused by laser ablation to ...

Leik Myrabo is an aerospace engineering professor at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute who has demonstrated the feasibility of using ground-based lasers to propel objects into orbit; possibly reducing ...

It might sound like science fiction, but we already know how to make objects move at near light speed. Physicists do it all the time inside particle accelerators, where they accelerate particles to ...

The concept of using laser propulsion to accelerate payloads into orbit has been around since the 1970s. Since the 1970s lasers have become substantially more efficient, and the concept has been ...

For centuries, space travel has been limited by traditional propulsion methods, with chemical rockets remaining the primary ...

When NASA’s Perseverance Rover landed on Mars in February last year, it had travelled for more than six months in the harsh environment of interplanetary space. In that time, it experienced huge ...

Space launches have evoked the same image for decades: bright orange flames exploding beneath a rocket as it lifts, hovers and takes off into the sky. But an alternative propulsion system proposed by ...

Aerospace engineer Leik Myrabo is absolutely sure lasers are the future of flight, and he's confident we'll be flying at hypersonic speed using beam-powered propulsion within a generation. But experts ...

Chinese scientists at Harbin Engineering University have developed a laser propulsion system that promises a new era of submarine technology. Rather than using a propulsion shaft and propellers, the ...

Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. The Universe is out there, waiting for you to discover it. Anytime a powerful new technology is developed, it's worth rethinking ...