That's the question I have. I presume they mean the speed of sound at sea level, which would most likely be many times greater than the speed of sound in space.
I haven't read the paper, but it appears they're proposing to use the ablative lasers only to shape the flow of supersonic gas through a thruster nozzle.
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[ 4.7 ms ] story [ 25.0 ms ] threadhttp://www.osa.org/en-us/about_osa/newsroom/news_releases/20...
I haven't read the paper, but it appears they're proposing to use the ablative lasers only to shape the flow of supersonic gas through a thruster nozzle.