Lightcraft Flight Handbook LTI-20
by Leik Myrabo and John S. Lewis. Apogee. 2009. 284 pages. Paperback. $29.95.
Jet airplanes and rocket-propelled spacecraft are profligate fossil-fuel burners and carbon-dioxide emitters, according to aerospace engineer Leik Myrabo and planetary-sciences professor John S. Lewis. They look forward to the debut—possibly by 2025—of carbon-free “lightcraft.”
These up-and-comers, the authors explain, wouldn’t use rocket boosters or combustion engines. Instead, they would run on electromagnetic waves beamed to them from remote satellite power stations.
The lightcraft will not only be cleaner, but also immensely cheaper. Average consumers might finally be able to afford to travel to space. National and international space programs could ferry personnel and supplies continuously to bases on the moon or to space stations in near-earth orbit.
Non-space flight will be easier, too, the authors explain. These lightcraft will be fast enough to fly passengers from one hemisphere to another in under an hour.
Myrabo and Lewis describe present-day lightcraft technology and detail how, with further development, it could evolve into the components of lightcraft spaceplanes.
Engineers and astronomers will enjoy this book, as will many nonscientist readers—provided that they are so excited by the prospect of cheap space flight that they are not daunted by many pages of technical jargon.
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