The LightCraft is a concept for a laser-powered launch system that was originally the brainchild of scientist Leik Myrabo and his students at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. It was originally proposed in two forms or generations of technology using the same propulsion principles but very difference energy sources and radically different vehicle designs. The first-generation LightCraft employs infrared laser energy to propel a capsule-like vehicle in the manner of a thermal-driven jet engine coupled to a radial aerospike rocket engine, the capsule featuring a conical reflector on the bottom surrounded by a reflector cowl which together confine the energy of a laser beam to a ring just inside the cowl that superheats air to an explosive plasma. By optically controlling the profile of the p