Comment by einpoklum
19 hours ago
What's the key point regarding how we would get a bajillion times more anti-matter than we can now generate, and without expending all the energy we now expend on getting it?
19 hours ago
What's the key point regarding how we would get a bajillion times more anti-matter than we can now generate, and without expending all the energy we now expend on getting it?
His point seems to be that we haven't yet seriously tried optimizing for energy efficiency of producing antimatter. It's a call to action. If we actually tried it's plausible that we could get to a level that, while still fantastically inefficient in an absolute sense, would still be worthwhile for spaceflight propulsion, where energy density is vitally important. As far as I know, antimatter is the most energy dense fuel possible in known physics by many orders of magnitude.
Also he proposes a few ways that antimatter could be practically used for propulsion, including as a catalyst for fission which seems interesting.