/sci/ - Science & Math

>>15113851
>where the change in energy was positive
Only if you cook the books by ignoring how much energy it took to run the laser, and only count the energy in the laser beam itself. And I recall hearing that they were still doing creative accounting on even that.
It's literally useless as a source of nuclear power, I have never heard even a half-decent hand-wave on how they plan to capture use the released energy. What it actually is, is a way to test nuclear bomb tech in miniature. Not that there's a problem with that, it just has no relation to how you build a power plant, much less a rocket engine.
>What does this mean for space flight?
ABSORUTERY NOTHING!
Do you really think they can cram a building full of 200 lasers into a space ship, and still have anything left but a crater in the ground for a mass budget? Alpaca has nothing on that kind of negative mass budget.