Patent Number: 
Section: abstract

In space, a linear accelerator firing charged pellets can be situated at a large distance from a target at which the pellets are aimed. The accelerator can fire a graduated-speed train of pellets over a period of seconds or longer which arrive at the target simultaneously, and impart a large pulse of energy. An accelerator of modest power can thus provide a pulse in the megajoule range, sufficient to ignite fusion. It is necessary to provide course corrections to the pellets, to bring them together with very high precision as they approach the target. An ideal siting is to place the accelerator at the Earth-Moon L1 or L2 Lagrange point, and the fusion target at a point on the surface of the Moon where the pellets will strike at grazing incidence, i.e. on a great circle intersecting the lunar poles. Length of the particle trajectory is over 60000 km.