Hilton Head High School sophomore Ben Rosenberg shows off his laser beam propulsion plane. Rosenberg's experiments with laser beams have earned him a trip to Japan.
The Island Packet
Published Sunday, September 14th, 2003
...because of his experiments with laser propulsion, young Rosenberg has been invited by the Tokyo Institute of Technology to an all-expenses-paid trip to Japan in October. Once there, Rosenberg, who turns 15 today, plans to continue experiments using lasers to set objects in motion -- experiments that could help change the way spacecraft and airplanes are fueled and experiments that Rosenberg began last year, before his 14th birthday.
He will work in the institute's labs for two weeks with Takashi Yabe, a professor and chief laser researcher, who is looking at ways to use lasers to propel spacecraft and airplanes. Toward the end of his stay, the young man will present a paper about his work to a group of scientists at the second International Conference on Beamed Energy Propulsion in Sendai, Japan.
Yabe, who has never invited a high school student to work with him before, said it was also the first time the Japanese government has paid the expenses of a high school student to work as a researcher....
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