Myrabo's Lightcraft flights in the past, done under Air Force sponsorship, used a "beam backstop". The Lightcraft would ride on the light beam and then smack into a black-painted plywood board that was positioned high over the laser facility.
History: light reading
The history of the Lightcraft dates back to 1987. Myrabo invented the device under contract with the Pentagon's Strategic Defense Initiative Organization.
First successful tests of laser-pushing a Lighcraft through the air began in 1997. Development of the idea for the last several years has been under joint sponsorship of the U.S. Air Force and NASA.
Tregenna Myrabo, business manager of Lightcraft Technologies, Inc., with a laser-boosted craft on the launch table
Government work on the laser propulsion idea is continuing at the Air Force Research Laboratory at Edwards Air Force Base, California.
The record-breaking Lightcraft flights were funded by a grant from the Foundation for International Non-governmental Development of Space (FINDS), a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting low-cost access to space.
Myrabo would not detail the dollar value of the FINDS sponsorship. However, he has moved his Lightcraft concept from exclusive government research into a commercial enterprise.
Commercial markets
"My goal is cutting the cost of access to space by orders of magnitude below what it is presently," Myrabo said. "I believe that the technology has finally moved far enough along where commercial industry can push it faster, because they can exploit commercial markets."
Myrabo's vision and business plan is proving the concept of pushing small, customized constellations of microsatellites into orbit via high-powered laser. LTI's privately funded venture, he said, is to become the lowest cost provider of
microsatellite launch services.
Orbiting microsatellites by laser is revolutionary technology. Current launch costs can be reduced by a factor of 50, Myrabo said.
Tossing microsatellites into orbit could cost less than the price of a new automobile. And, to accelerate them into orbit will cost no more than a few hundred dollars worth of electricity to run a megawatt closed-cycle electric laser.
"It is a new paradigm and a new way of doing business," Myrabo said.
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