Star Wars - does it have a future?

[Anomalocaris]

'Rocket fuel' is actually 'Reaction mass'.

It's the actual action of the mass leaving the vehicle that imparts the motion to move in the other.

An astronaut with a pistol/gun would be under the same eftect. As the bullet and gases go one way the astronaut and gun go the other.

The same (Just different acceleration velocities) with a power supply + laser going the opposite direction to the photons leaving the lens.

Please, go and check out Scott Manly's vids. He can explain it much more entertaingly (And with pictures!) than I.

Indeed.


Also, the amount of energy it takes to actually blow a earth sized planet apart, as in blowing a planet apart with more energy than the planet’s mass can absorb with its own gravity, not just sterilize it or melt it, is actually mind blowingly huge.    It’s about 10E32 joules.   It’s roughly equal to the total energy earth’s sun puts out in a week.

Death star’s superlaser seems to deliver that energy in one second or less.  So Death star’s peak power output when firing on a planet must be at least 10e32 watts (that’s roughly a million times the peak power output of the sun for those of you counting)

Now, how much thrust does firing photos at a total power 10e32 watts generate?

I believe the formula is F=P/c.   So recoil force of Death Star’s super laser at the moment of firing is 3.33e24 newtons.   That’s equal to, oh, like, one quintillion times (like a trillion times, but a million times more) the thrust of the Saturn 5 rocket that launched Neil Armstrong to the moon.

So I would say the Death Star would shake and rattle.

Now for added ludicrousity, calculate how many Gs the Death Star would experience if pushed by such a recoil thrust.  Hint, grand moff Tarkin would be a sticky paste on the deck of the Death Star.