Eric Drexler is making some strong arguments that if you eject the payload and then decelerate the payload with a laser fired from the rest of the “ship”, then this doesn’t obey the rocket equation. The argument seems very plausible (the deceleration of the payload is *not* akin to ejecting a continuous stream of small particles—though the (tiny) acceleration of the laser/ship is). I’ll have to crunch the number on it.
(if the probe is very robust, we might be able to railgun it instead of using a laser—and railgunning a single mass, once is clearly not subject to the rocket equation).
Eric Drexler is making some strong arguments that if you eject the payload and then decelerate the payload with a laser fired from the rest of the “ship”, then this doesn’t obey the rocket equation. The argument seems very plausible (the deceleration of the payload is *not* akin to ejecting a continuous stream of small particles—though the (tiny) acceleration of the laser/ship is). I’ll have to crunch the number on it.
(if the probe is very robust, we might be able to railgun it instead of using a laser—and railgunning a single mass, once is clearly not subject to the rocket equation).