JPL Accomplishes Laser Sail First

Keith Gabryelski writes, "space.com has an article on how, in late December 1999, engineers at JPL used a laser beam to move extremely lightweight material using only the pressure of light." For those of you who haven't been keeping up with your science fiction, the idea is that with a tremendously large and incredibly thin sail, you could launch a spacecraft that would be propelled away from the solar system by the miniscule impact force from the light of the sun/gigantic lasers/mirror-focused light striking the sail. The theory is simple enough, but the execution is, shall we say, non-trivial.