- Redshift rocket
The redshift rocket, envisioned by
novelist Karl Schroeder , is afictional method ofspacecraft propulsion .It is a variant on the Sänger
antimatter rocket . One of the key difficulties of harnessing the energy from matter/antimatter collisions is that most of the energy released by them is in theX-ray andgamma ray spectrum. The redshift rocket proposes to useparticle beam s, such as those produced by ultrafastlaser pulses. Both the matter and antimatter would be accelerated to near light speed away from the spacecraft before colliding in the reaction chamber. This would lead to the radiation that reaches the spacecraft beingredshift ed. If the speed of the particle beams is great enough, the radiation that hits the spacecraft will be of a frequency that can be reflected. Energy absorbed by the spacecraft could be used to help power the particle beams.But as a result only a very small fraction of the matter/antimatter annihilation reaction would contribute to the propulsion and the main source of thrust would be the particle beams themselves, which must be generated by other means.
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