Quote:
Originally Posted by Cyclone
Per second, yes. The laser sails are only fired for a few minutes, though - they're supposed to hit accelerations of 100 km/s^2, and are shot at very tiny drones, so they don't need to fire for years. Assuming you launch one per day, and each launch requires 10 minutes, .
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Eek! That's over 10,000 Gs and for 10 minutes means it has to be handled as a static load.
Thermal issues might be worse though. Even if your sail is .98% reflective it's still absorbing the rest. 2% of 4 TW is 80 GW and you have to absorb and re-radiate all of that for 10 minutes without your sail melting. You'd need a big sail to be able to spread your laser thin enough to avoid that melting and that would probably make your sail mass too much to get those accelerations.