Light Sails

[douglas_clark]

Has this been posted before, if so. apologies, I missed it:<br /><br /><font color="yellow">Space yacht rides to stars on rays of sunlight <br /><br />Robin McKie and Nick Paton Walsh in Moscow<br />Sunday February 27, 2005<br />The Observer <br /><br />A spacecraft that flies on sunbeams is about to begin its travels across the solar system. A group of American and Russian scientists are preparing to launch a probe with giant, wafer-thin plastic sails that can catch sunlight just as a yacht's sails fill with wind. <br />Cosmos-1 has been designed to tack across space without using rockets and could form the forerunner of a network of solar observatories that would hover over the sun to provide early warnings of disruptive magnetic storms, or deliver instruments to remote space stations and planetary exploration teams. <br /><br />The probe, to be launched from a Russian nuclear missile submarine, is made up of a fan of eight 15-metre sails, each thinner than a dustbin bag but stiffened and coated with mirror material. <br /><br />The technology is the product of years of collaboration by the US Planetary Society, a group of private space enthusiasts; the Russian Academy of Sciences; and Moscow space industry designers Lavochkin. <br /><br />'Cosmos-1 will be blasted into space by conventional rocket technology but once in orbit above earth, solar sail technology will take over,' said Susan Lendroth of the Planetary Society. 'We will be able to move each one of Cosmos-1's sails individually and so direct the craft in whatever direction we wish. The aim will be to get it to higher and higher orbits.' <br /><br />Solar sail technology exploits the fact that photons have momentum and apply pressure to surfaces. A comet's tail is the result of solar photons battering its surface, for example. But this pressure is still relatively meagre and only recently - with the development of micro-electronic circuits that allow tiny spacecraft to be constructed - has it become possible to consider po</font>

 

[vogon13]

Would like to see a Mercury mission with a light sail. As craft approaches sun, sail produces more thrust. Handy for orbit modification once in orbit around Mercury, too. All the mass saved on fuel can go towards more advanced instrumentation. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#ff0000"><strong>TPTB went to Dallas and all I got was Plucked !!</strong></font></p><p><font color="#339966"><strong>So many people, so few recipes !!</strong></font></p><p><font color="#0000ff"><strong>Let's clean up this stinkhole !!</strong></font> </p> </div>

 

[grooble]

Imagine the whole of mercury was used purely for solar power generation.