

Using Lasers and Antimatter to Trek to the Stars - mathewsanders
http://news.discovery.com/space/varies-interstellar-antimatter-lasers-icarus-120716.html

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pygorex
_For a laser intensity greater than some critical value, pair production is
generated via a 'break-up' of the vacuum polarization. While the electric
field strength necessary to accomplish this is immense, to say the least,
recent experimental advances have raised hope that lasers may soon achieve
field intensities on the order of this very critical field intensity._

As a layman this seems to me to be the crux of the matter. First, there's the
the energy costs required to generate a laser that will in turn generate anti-
matter from the "void". Will the energy released by the anti-matter fuel cover
the costs of generating the laser?

If so, this technique would also provide a way to generate a perpetual source
of energy. The laser costs X energy but produces an explosion of >X energy.
Who says this energy can only be used for propulsion? You could feed some of
this energy back into the laser, covering the continuous operating cost of the
laser, then dissipate or distribute the remaining energies.

Of course, I'm just a layman, so I might be completely off base on proposing
this perpetual motion machine :)

There's also the problem of sequestration and storage. How do you keep the
proton-antiproton pairs from immediately colliding with each other? Isn't this
the basis of the fuel? Colliding matter/anti-matter pairs? For long-term
storage how do you keep the anti-matter suspension intact until you're ready
to ignite it?

