Last week college professor Andrew Pakhomov was found guilty of murdering his wife, Yelena Zakin. She was strangled and her naked body was found in the Tennessee River in June 2006. But Pakhomov was not some dusty academic. He worked at the cutting edge of military technology, working on laser-powered propulsion for space launches.
The case itself is complex enough. According to the Decatur Daily, the week before Zakin disappeared, she assaulted Pakhomov and Melissa DeHollander, having allegedly discovered them together in Pakhomov's office. Zakin was charged with assault and criminal mischief. Decatur police later charged DeHollander with perjury for having lied about the extent of her relationship with Pakhomov.
Two days after Pakhomov reported his wife's disappearance, her body was found in the river. A leather belt around her neck was attached to a travel bag filled with rocks in an obvious attempt to sink the body. Despite his conviction, Pakhomov has maintained his innocence. After the verdict was issued, he told reporters, "I didn’t do it." Asked who had killed Zakin, he said, "I don't know. I have no idea."
Pakhomov is President of the American Institute of Beamed Energy Propulsion, which offers this layman's description of the technology on their website: "Rockets have to carry onboard their fuel (hydrogen), burning agent (oxygen) and everything else that is needed to burn hydrogen and maintain motion in the desired direction (tanks, cryogenics, combustion chamber, fuel lines etc.). This is a heavy burden, and it brings a big downside: the price of cargo gets enormously high … If we could separately provide the propulsive energy for a rocket, we would be rewarded with a gigantic increase in efficiency!"
In Beamed Energy Propulsion, a laser or other high-energy beam is focused on solid fuel, causing it to expand rapidly. Because the laser and power supply are on the ground, the launching process is far more efficient. Pakhomov quotes independent analysts who have shown that laser propulsion will be around a hundred times cheaper than conventional propulsion for launches to low Earth orbit, bringing the price down from $10,000 a pound to $100.
Pakhomov was working on applying this technology under this contract with the Air Force as a means for launching microsatellites (generally defined as weighing between 10 and 100 kilograms) . This would be "a responsive, low-cost launch system," one that would be available to launch satellites – or other payloads – whenever needed. Pakhomov's plan was for the satellite to be launched from electromagnetic gun and then boosted on its way with laser beam propulsion. The plan was for this technology to be experimentally demonstrated during Phase II of the program, which was scheduled for completion at the end of last year.
There have been plenty of plans for "space cannon" of one sort or another; Danger Room previously looked at Darpa's under-rated Slingatronand in 2006 the Air Force asked LaunchPoint to look at a magnetic launch ring capable of hurling 10-kilo satellites into orbit. But Beamed Energy Propulsion looked like a promising candidate.
Satellites are getting much smaller and more capable; these days one the size of a fridge can do more than previous models the size of a bus – a trend I recently examined for the U.K. edition of Wired.com. Problem is, there are no small rockets for putting up a single small satellite. A space launcher like the one Pakhomov proposed would be a major asset for providing instant satellite coverage wherever and whenever needed. It could -- potentially -- deliver a small package to any point on Earth quicker than FedEx.
Pakhomov will be sentenced in October, at which point an appeal is likely to be launched. And despite the verdict, the 6th Annual Symposium on Beamed Energy Propulsion is proceeding as planned in November.
[PHOTO via AIBEP.org]
