Solar Sail launch

South China Morning Post ^ | 4 Apr 02 | staff

[darth]

I hope they get their solar sail launched successfully. I remember writing a $100 check to the non-profit group that started this effort back in 1982.

[Arkie2]

This info discusses the NASA Solar Sail project and what they think it might be used for.

"Our goal is to perform a flight demonstration of a solar sail," said Gavit. "We're hoping we could do a flight demo in the 2005 timeframe to prepare for the Interstellar Probe, a sail-propelled craft that's slated for launch about 5 years later."

The goal of the Interstellar Probe is to travel beyond the nine known planets.

"This will be humankind’s first planned venture outside our solar system," said Les Johnson, manager of Interstellar Propulsion Research at the Marshall Space Flight Center. "This is a stretch goal that is among the most audacious things we've ever undertaken."

Above: Several NASA spacecraft are searching for the boundary between interstellar space and the heliosphere (a giant bubble blown by the solar wind). The solar-sail propelled Interstellar Probe could overtake all of them if it is launched in 2010.

Nearly half a kilometer wide, the Interstellar Probe's delicate solar sail would be unfurled in space. Continuous pressure from sunlight would ultimately accelerate the craft to speeds about five times higher than possible with conventional rockets -- without requiring any fuel! Zooming toward the stars at 90 km per second, it could cover the distance from New York to Los Angeles in less than a minute. That’s more than 10 times faster than the Space Shuttle’s on-orbit speed of 8 km per second. An interstellar probe launched in 2010 would pass the Voyager 1 spacecraft, the most distant spacecraft bound for interstellar space, in 2018 going as far in eight years as Voyager will have journeyed in 41 years.

Johnson says transportation is quite possibly the toughest challenge with interstellar missions because they have to go so far, so fast. "The difficulty is that rockets need so much fuel that they can't push their own weight into interstellar space. The best option appears to be space sails, which require no fuel," he said.

[zog]

BOYS LIFE! dang if that ain't where I read it! thanks! wish I still had all my copies, them and my comic books.

[zog]

The other deal I read and heard an interview on was this proposal to use space shuttle fuel tanks as space stations and start linking them together, hilton hotels I believe is part sponsor of the studies.

One of the Apollo astronauts (Buzz Aldrin?) is pushing that idea. It makes sense to me.

--this is such a neat thread, be right back, more googlin.....

here's a link to buzz aldrin and space hotels and stuff

there's another guy who has been on artbell pushing this idea as well, but all of arts audio archives cost cashola anymore so no links to it. I quit listening to him altogether when he went to pay per listen on the net. Was phasing out anyway, there were less and less interesting guests. I always would pick and choose and it just never was the same after he kept coming and going off the air, it just changed. I like rense much better for off the wall stuff, you got up to date politics to bigfoot to choose from, quite the range.