Laser Propulsion!

I worked on R&D for Laser Propulsion many years ago. I was looking through YouTube and found these clips of Leik Myrabo’s* Apollo Lightcraft. He was a competitor, using a different system than ours, but he kept at it. I used to see him and talk with him at conferences. He co-authored a book on laser propulsion with SF author Dean Ing (who later based a novel on the concept, The Big Lifters). as far as I know, this hasn’t been pursued far beyond whst’s shown here. But I could be wrong.

I pointed out to Leik that his Apollo Lightcraft looked suspiciously like one of the UFOs pictured in Donald Menzel’s (skeptical) book The World of Flying Saucers.

*The name is pronounced as if it were spelled “Lake Mirabo”. It sounds like a geographical feature in East Africa.

More on Myrabo from CNN:

http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/cold.war/experience/the.bomb/route/04.white.sands/

Can’t tell what he’s up to now. His site’s down. And apparently he’s almost finished a second book on it.