Concepts, Problems, & Opportunities

Propulsion Uses	Power Generation	DEW Uses	Other Uses
Very broad technologies Exhaust velocity range 10 Ł V_e `<` 100 Km/sec (T/W 1) V_e ~ up to C (T/W `<<` 1) Opens many new mission possibilities Replacement for current missions depends on product cost	Orbital prime power, for engagement role Simplest scheme has technology commonality with simplest propulsion scheme (use heated working fluid)	Light weight systems Hard kills Particle beam, or pumped lasers relying on very short duration energy release Some attractive special/unique phenomenologies	Classified additional special weapons roles Generalized portable stored energy Product availablity can raise still further uses

Reasonable applications of antimatter and annihilation energies tovarious interesting uses outside the current use in very high energyphysics generally presuppose the solution of basic production andstorage problems (these will be further discussed later).

If these basic problems are resolvable, a very wide range ofpotential applications exists. Most of these applications can begenerally discussed on an unclassified basis.

Of special interest are, e.g., propulsion applications. Usingannihilation energies gives us means for accessing effective exhaustvelocities from, say, 10 Km/sec to a major fraction of light velocity(of course the conceptual engine designs will be varied and will reflectthe exhaust velocity ranges sought). Studies exist on variousimplementation schemes. Basically, the promise of antimatter can herebe very simply illustrated by considering a "mix ratio" r = amount ofnormal matter/amount of antimatter and calculating the effectiveattained temperature of the mixture as ~2 GeV/r (so that, e.g., mixingone metric ton of normal hydrogen with one milligram of antihydrogengives an upper mixture temperature of ~2 eV). Naturally, ensuring thatthis mixing produces high temperatures and that the energy does notlargely escape from the mix is part of the art of utilizing annihilationenergies.

These considerations and implementation strategies can be (and arebeing) gone through much more carefully. It is already clear, forexample, that we can in principle perform propulsion missions which areotherwise "impossible" (because the customary exponentially increasingtotal mass/payload mass ratios are very dramatically reducible throughuse of antimatter). If, for example, we consider a very demandingmission for conventional propulsion systems requiring a velocityincrement which is a large multiple of the exhaust velocity obtainableby conventional means, the exhaust velocity obtainable from annihilationenergies in practical systems can be such that for the same mission theratio velocity increment/exhaust velocity is substantially below unity.

ANTIMATTER ISSUES - PROGRAMMATIC ASPECTS