Talk:Laser broom

Spaceflight Start‑class Mid‑importance

	Spaceflight portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Spaceflight, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of spaceflight on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.SpaceflightWikipedia:WikiProject SpaceflightTemplate:WikiProject Spaceflightspaceflight articles
Start	This article has been rated as Start-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale.
Mid	This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.

It is requested that a diagram or diagrams be included in this article to improve its quality. Specific illustrations, plots or diagrams can be requested at the Graphic Lab. Please replace this template with a more specific media request template where possible.
For more information, refer to discussion on this page and/or the listing at Wikipedia:Requested images.

Just wanted to drop a note here to let everyone know I'm interested in this entry. I haven't anything to add yet, but I am researching. If I come up with anything interesting I will propose it here. - Plautus satire 01:35, 26 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I looked around and couldn't find anything recent about this project. Of course some stuff has been removed from the web after the suspension of the shuttle program. Is this project still ongoing? Were tests on the schedule for 2003? Rmhermen 16:37, Mar 1, 2004 (UTC)

It is hard to confuse this project with the orion (spacecraft) Crew Exploration Vehicle since no one in the news or at NASA calls the ProjectConstellation by the incorrect name of 'project orion'. Plus this information belongs on the disambiguation page.

Status?

what's the status of this plan? all the references ive ben able to find on Google are a few years old. -- 99.239.242.15 (talk) 00:10, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I just added a March 2011 secondary source, and brief summary, of recent NASA research. There is more in the Mail Online article. Cheers. N2e (talk) 00:13, 24 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Outer space treaty

Could somebody explain how does this project contravene the Outer Space Treaty? The Treaty places ban on use of nuclear weapons or weapons of mass destruction, and laser technology is neither. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.12.157.38 (talk) 22:31, 22 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I"m also confused by the Outer Space Treaty reference... one or other of the articles need to be changed Failedwizard (talk) 09:33, 17 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I removed the line about Outer Space Treaty, I read thought the treaty some distance and found no obvious way that a laser broom would be prohibited and a bit of googling found no answer either. Failedwizard (talk) 23:33, 8 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Also given that line has been removed, do we need a 'See also' for the treaty? Failedwizard (talk) 23:38, 8 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

How does it work?

I am curious how this "broom" will move debris. Will it use the optical tweezer effect, or will it just burn the debris up and cause a momentum change due to the evaporated material?--SkiDragon (talk) 17:11, 7 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

See the (UK) "Mail Online" source I just added (2011-03-24) mentioning recent NASA work. It would appear that it is pure momentum change, and does not need to have evaporated material at all. (Although with sufficient power in a laser there would be evaporation, along with the impartation of momentum. But that is not a necessary condition, as I read the sources.) Cheers. N2e (talk) 00:16, 24 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Unit confusion

This article claims that "firing a laser beam at a piece of space junk could alter velocity by 0.04 inches (1.0 mm) per second". The units here appear to be inconsistent, but I'm not sure what it should be and the cited source isn't very helpful. It could be either "firing a laser beam for some length of time at ..." or "... could alter velocity by 0.04 inches (1.0 mm) per second per some unit of time". — Preceding unsigned comment added by Scgtrp (talk • contribs) 03:56, 17 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Wasn't it agreed in the first place that all units used by any space agency, be it American, Russian, Chinese, French or German, just to name a few, be stated in metric value and not in the US-specific inches? my advice: leave those inches out.