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Similar to the concept of how a spacecraft with a light sail and a ground station laser would be used to accelerate a craft, could a similar approach be taken using ions or electrons?

If it is possible, what would the general limitations of this setup be?

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  • $\begingroup$ Could you clarify what you mean by "using charged particles"? My first thought was charge the spacecraft with say positive charge and use a positively charged source at the station, but that's probably not what you are asking. $\endgroup$
    – Paddy
    Commented Jun 29, 2021 at 17:13
  • $\begingroup$ @Paddy - Electrons and/or ions basically. Think charging the craft like you said, and a linac at the station shooting a stream/packets at the target. $\endgroup$
    – jasper
    Commented Jun 30, 2021 at 9:44

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A beam of charged particles would tend to spread over long distances due to their mutual repulsion.
Also, the source would have to be in a vacuum, and on the moon to absorb the reaction force.

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  • $\begingroup$ Also, it becomes extremely difficult to make sure your source hits the target at long distances. I haven't done the calculations, but phenomena like diffraction at the source might produce issues as well. $\endgroup$
    – Paddy
    Commented Jun 30, 2021 at 14:53
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    $\begingroup$ Hitting a distant target would also be a problem with a laser beam, although I've heard that we can hit a reflector on the moon. $\endgroup$
    – R.W. Bird
    Commented Jun 30, 2021 at 17:48
  • $\begingroup$ Lasers are designed to have very low beamwidths which is possible because of the laser mechanism. As you can tell, this wouldn't be possible with a lantern of the same power for example. Although I haven't thought about it much, I don't know if a stream of charges can be generated with very small beamwidths. $\endgroup$
    – Paddy
    Commented Jul 1, 2021 at 14:35

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