POWER FROM LIGHT

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27112, 7 August 1953, Page 6

POWER FROM LIGHT

SUGGESTED USE OF ATOM FLASH (N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) ZURICH. August 4. A method by which the blinding light produced by atomic explosions may one day be harnessed to propel rockets and space ships was outlined by Dr. Eugen Sangar at the fourth international Astronautical Congress at Zurich today. Dr. Sangar, the German scientist, who 10 years ago drew up for Hitler plans for a rocket-propelled bomber, a supersonic aeroplane that would ricochet around the world’s atmosphere like a flat stone on the surface of a pond, spoke of likely developments in the next 100 years or so. He emphasised, however that the idea "was purely theoretical, and depended on the solution of several problems which had so far proved impossible. “There is no reason to think that they will not be solved eventually,” he said.

One of these is the achievement by scientists of the fusion under controlled conditions of hydrogen atoms to form helium, the reaction by which the sun is thought to gain its energy. The device described in Dr. Sangar’s naper is known as the “PhotonRocket,” because it is propelled by a stream of photons, that is. individual light particles. A ray of light exerts its own infinitesimal amount of pressure on any surface it touches. In the case of the sun’s rays, the amount of this pressure is still too small to be measured easily.