Electric propulsion using high power laser beaming makes way more sense outside the atmosphere for non-launch use cases, where thrust requirements to achieve desired delta-V usually aren't measured in kN and the mission longevity implied by higher Isp matters so much more and there isn't a pesky atmosphere in the way of power beaming or any concern about accidentally ablating airliners.
Numerous startups are tackling the power beaming issue with relatively short timelines and in some cases a lot of funding, but the scale of what's actually been publicly demonstrated with lasers is unimpressive...
replies(3):