Photon Rocket

This is it - the be-all and end-all of reaction drives. No other drive competes with a photon rocket's metrics of output, efficiency, and complexity. Effectively a flashlight of sufficient power to generate practical thrust, the photon rocket is of the same species as chemical and nuclear rockets, but evolved beyond either. Instead of chemical bonds or nuclear fusion and fission, a photon rocket uses one-to-one antimatter-matter annihilation to convert the fuel's mass into radiation. Directed in a single direction, this light is sufficient to create thrust.

Introduction

Reaction drives are all about energy and efficiency. The more energy you can extract and apply to a reaction mass, the greater your efficiency, the mightier your rocket. A chemical rocket might combine two compounds, burning them, and using the released energy to eject the fuel's mass as fast as possible. A nuclear rocket extracts that same energy from nuclear fusion or fission, and due to the nature of nuclear reactions, manages a much greater energy density potential. For example, in the case of hydrogen-hydrogen fusion, 0.645% of the reaction's mass is carried away in the form of radiation - less than a percent of the mass in play becomes light.

A photon rocket converts 100% of its fuel into energy. Reacting 0.5 grams of antimatter with 0.5 grams of matter results in 0 grams of either, and ~9×10^13 Joules (21.5 kilotons-equivalent) of energy. A nuclear bomb's worth of energy is generated with the mass as an average pen cap. Where batteries, chemical fuels and nuclear bombs all store energy in their mass, antimatter is the ultimate battery, because the entirety of its mass is the energy potential in play.

Some designs choose to apply that energy to accelerating matter, ejecting it to create thrust. Instead, a photon rocket uses the generated radiation directly, reflecting it off the rocket's drive and casting into one direction, thrusting the craft the other way. No mass is ejected, just a cone of radiation. It's an elegant, efficient, and incredibly complicated method - after all, we need to reflect that radiation without absorbing almost any of it, lest we become hot, expanding plasma. The radiation in play is of a vast variety, up to and including gamma and neutron radiation that penetrates meters of lead and water, although workable designs strive to generate as little of those as possible. We also need to store antimatter without allowing it to touch matter, for many months or years, in a acceleration-resistant and secure way that doesn't have the crew constantly fearing an instant and unexpected death.

Theoretical Performance

The exact mathematics of a photon drive depend on its design.