Method of providing impact in vacuum

摘要

In space, a linear accelerator firing charged pellets can be situated at a large distance from a target at which the pellets are aimed. The accelerator can fire a graduated-speed train of pellets over a period of seconds or longer which arrive at the target simultaneously, and impart a large pulse of energy. An accelerator of modest power can thus provide a pulse in the megajoule range, sufficient to ignite fusion. It is necessary to provide course corrections to the pellets, to bring them together with very high precision as they approach the target. An ideal siting is to place the accelerator at the Earth-Moon L1 or L2 Lagrange point, and the fusion target at a point on the surface of the Moon where the pellets will strike at grazing incidence, i.e. on a great circle intersecting the lunar poles. Length of the particle trajectory is over 60000 km.

主权项

1. An apparatus for providing an impact on a target comprising:
an accelerator configured to launch a multiplicity of positively charged pellets; a target; an interval of vacuum separating the accelerator from the target; wherein the accelerator is configured to launch pellets at times and with velocities such that at least some pellets catch up into close proximity with earlier launched pellets during transit of the vacuum interval to strike the target as a group; at least one measurement station configured and adapted to measure the positions of individual pellets at one or more points along the interval of vacuum after leaving the accelerator, the measurement station comprising a computerized system configured to assign a coordinate value to each pellet, the assigned coordinates usable to determine any course adjustment required for each of the plurality of pellets; at least one adjusting station positioned downstream from at least one measurement station, the adjusting station configured to individually adjust the courses of pellets after measurement at the measurement station.