Jarvitä
New member
So, an electron and a positron colliding at low energies (ie, relatively slow, not in a particle accelerator) tend to produce two photons at gamma-ray energy levels (511 keV). Could this reaction be leveraged for spacecraft propulsion? Consider the following, even a miniscule amount of matter-antimatter (in terms of mass, not current production capacits) - a kilogram - would impart on the spacecraft a momentum of ~150 million kg m/s - a delta-V of 14 km/s for a 100 ton spacecraft, from a single kilogram of propellant, no reaction mass required.
Is there anything obvious I'm missing, other than the fact that we just don't have a way of producing this much antimatter yet?
Is there anything obvious I'm missing, other than the fact that we just don't have a way of producing this much antimatter yet?