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Solar Sail to be Launched This Year
mad_goldfish writes: "Spaceflight Now is reporting that the Russians are preparing a Solar Sail for launch sometime after September aboard a Cosmos 1 rocket. Apparently most of the components have now been tested and they are getting ready to integrate all the flight components. Just the camera, S-band radio and main computer are yet to be completed."
so can we sail from here to Cardasia using one of those Sails? I mean the Bejorins did it.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
This site is a great one for more info about solar sails. Exciting technology, I remember watching Cosmos and Segan talking about it.
You know what, I first heard of this and I thought, "Geez, America is getting behind in the Space Race", but you know what? I wish them the best of luck because ultimately the quest for Space Knowledge with benefit the whole planet.
Good Luck!
42 - So long and thanks for all the fish.
This is the cheapest, simplest form of probe there is. It rides a fundamental law of quantum mechanics that reflected photons transmit more force than absorbed ones. Unfortunately, it will take quite awhile to go anywhere significant.
So long and thanks for all the fish . . . !!!
Here is the co-organisers (Planetary Society) website (deeplinked to avoid crappy flash front page). It's done in conjunction with Cosmos Studios.
There is much more in-depth information and some pictures on both of those sites.
There is more info on the Spacecraft here on the Planetary Society Website.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Talk about Crazy Eddie.
I don't mean to be obnoxious, but what are their goals here? I read the article and all it talked about was the mission, not about what the Russians hope to gain out of solar sail. I know in general what solar sails in general would theoretically enable, but what specifically are the Russians preparing?
My only question is whether the "kick rocket" will enter orbit with the spacecraft.
You know it's just the first step, next there'll be...
Solar Surfboards ("Dude, killer photon streams today!")..,
Solar Beach Parties ("Hey, wicked tan in only 2 seconds!")...
and of course, the ultimate insult, Solar Jet Skis (but at least you can't hear the noise from the engine).
modern choral music...
September is going to rock! Solar sailing space craft AND new Dragonball Z on cartoon network. Yup, that's my life, space and cartoons...
If Mr. Edison had thought smarter he wouldn't sweat as much. --Nikola Tesla
"aboard a Cosmos 1 rocket." No, the name of the mission and the solar sail craft itself is "Cosmos 1," not the rocket.
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Stupid people suck.
Here's an abstract from a paper that discusses colonizing Mars in some detail. Very interesting.
"The economic viability of colonizing Mars is examined. It is shown, that of all bodies in the solar system other than Earth, Mars is unique in that it has the resources required to support a population of sufficient size to create locally a new branch of human civilization. It is also shown that while Mars may lack any cash material directly exportable to Earth, Mars' orbital elements and other physical parameters gives a unique positional advantage that will allow it to act as a keystone supporting extractive activities in the asteroid belt and elsewhere in the solar system. The potential of relatively near-term types of interplanetary transportation systems is examined, and it is shown that with very modest advances on a historical scale, systems can be put in place that will allow individuals and families to emigrate to Mars at their own discretion. Their motives for doing so will parallel in many ways the historical motives for Europeans and others to come to America, including higher pay rates in a labor-short economy, escape from tradition and oppression, as well as freedom to exercise their drive to create in an untamed and undefined world. Under conditions of such large scale immigration, sale of real-estate will add a significant source of income to the planet's economy. Potential increases in real-estate values after terraforming will provide a sufficient financial incentive to do so. In analogy to frontier America, social conditions on Mars will make it a pressure cooker for invention. These inventions, licensed on Earth, will raise both Terrestrial and Martian living standards and contribute large amounts of income to support the development of the colony."
DS1 is the name of the ion-drive probe that was launched in 1999 (I think). It's real and is now the fastest moving man-made object in space.
It's only science fiction to you due to ignorance.
NASA has been working on an alternative to the Solar Sail. The Solar Sail has one major draw back in its design (other than being technically difficult to implement), and that is the farther out in space it goes, the less force is transmitted to it by the solar wind. (Inverse square law.) A geophysicist is currently working on the idea of using a magnetic bubble as a solar sail. The advantage of this approach is that the mag bubble grows as the solar wind decreases. This creates a force that would be relatively constant until the heliopause (the end of the solar winds effective range) is reached.
You can park a submarine at the equator, which makes it easier to launch. It doesn't require a special facility, and it gives the Russian Navy something to do.
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
It's really interesting that they'll launch it from a submarine. I wonder if a submarine launch is in any way better than a regular one, or if they do it just because they have some spare ballistic missiles to use.
The Volnas (demilitarized SS-N-19s) are launched from late '80s/early '90s-vintage Delta IV subs, all of which operate with Russia's northern fleet. I suspect that they're using subs as a launch platform because they're very, very mobile and probably cheaper to use than land-based facilities.
The magnetic bubble approach uses less mass, is possibly more energy efficient, has a more flexible design, has a much greater operating range, and offers the wonderful bonus of sheilding the craft from the solar wind. Although since it can't capture the energy from photons, only ionized particles, the motive force is fundamentally different.
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
Any of you astronomer types out there able to give a rough guess as to the intinsic brightness of this thing? Will it be a naked-eye object? Perhaps only at certain times of the year, when Earth crosses it's reflection path. Inquiring minds (and lazy slashdotters) want to know.
Do not confuse duty with what other people expect of you; they are utterly different.Duty is a debt you owe to yourself.
well.... the way things are now, the biggest hardware cost for space flight is the launch vehicle. you need like 7.5 kilometers/second to get into Low Earth Orbit, this generally sets you back $5K to $10K per kg into LEO (or like a factor of 3 or 4 higher for Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit, which is used for comm sats).
http://www.faqs.org/faqs/space/launchers/
then you need like another 3 or 4 kilometers/second to get to the rest of the solar system (and you can do tricks like gravity assist etc once away from earth)
so the problem isnt using a chem. rocket to go to mars, jupiter, etc but hauling that rocket's fuel up into LEO...
solar sails require zero fuel. other futuristic space propulsion types all consume LOTS of power, which means bigger launch vehicle, bigger costs
SUV's support terrorism !
They just got about $20 Million off Mark Shuttleworth, to fill an empty seat. If they can do this often enough, it'll go some way towards funding stuff.
"Information wants to be paid"
Red Mars
Green Mars
Blue Mars
I found Red Mars to be the best, followed by Green Mars. These two gave the best presentation of what it would be really like to colonize Mars that I've ever read. Cool books.
"We're sorry, but the website you're trying to reach has been disconnected."
right here - current conditions:
Solar Wind speed: 512.9 km/s
density:3.5 protons/cm3
plus more.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
That the Russian economy is definitely on the upside. Just read a bit about their new tax laws and the results. Should be required reading for all taxpayers.
3 1- 00.shtml2 2102.html3 2102.htmlm ent/comment -mitchell032202.shtml
http://www.theglobalist.com/nor/gdiary/2000/05-
http://www.russiaeconomy.org/comments/0
http://www.heritage.org/views/2002/ed0
http://www.nationalreview.com/nrof_com
For more, just hit google.
Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement.
- W. Wriston, former Citibank CEO
Reminds me of Deep Space 9, Season 3, Episode 22, "Explorers", which I just watched this morning. Sisko and his son pilot a reconstruction of an ancient Bajoran solar-sail spacecraft to Cardassia. They run ino some difficulties with "tachyon eddies" ripping their sails off.
Wonder if there really are some kind of particle eddies which would damage the sails?
Well, it's not so much that solar sails require zero fuel, it's just that the fuel they need isn't being provided by us.
And yes, that's a big advantage.
The big disadvantage, of course, is that solar sails are freaking slow. And freaking big. Freaking big means there's a lot more things to go wrong. Freaking slow means that you have to be able to wait a long, long time for any data from the sail. The other problem with freaking slow is that if it's too slow then it's likely to be passed in transit by some newer technology that isn't freaking slow.
Using solar sails for in-system transit would take years to go places (which may be ok for unmanned ships). Using them for interstellar voyages without some kind of powered assist (e.g. - space based microwave power station) makes it so slow that you'll either get passed or whatever agenda sent you is long gone by the time you get to your objective.
Solar sails are definitely neat, but they aren't a panacea to space travel problems.
But the name would have been so much more appropriate for a launch platform if they had used Delta V subs.
"Prefiero morir de pie que vivir siempre arrodillado!"
C'mon, be realistic. How far are you really gonna get burning those?
Eloi are stupid, throw morlocks at them!
So here's a question for you - if a solar sail is reflective on one side, and absorptive (black) on the other, shouldn't it be possible to sail on ambient light (including starlight, slowly) alone? If I'm not mistaken that's the same principle as those little whirling light bulb toys.
Does the russian design exploit this property?
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
Sigh...the spacecraft is NOT repeat NOT Russian. It is a creation of the Planetary Society, a non-profit NGO founded by Carl Sagan. The Russians are merely providing an inexpensive launch vehicle, no more.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
"Inexpensive" is relative. I'm sure the cost is at least hundreds of thousands of dollars. Any idea how much the Russians are charging for this? And is the Planetary Society paying for it?
very very excited by this launch but I hope it works in ways I don't normally worry about launches. whats the chance that NASA would try a solar sail if the russians fail? and the russians don't strike me as being pioneers anymore. ok this is pioneering but they don't strike me as being successful pioneers of late. good luck ruskies.
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"whats the chance that NASA would try a solar sail if the russians fail? " - almost certain.
... i doubt NASA will touch solar sails in a loong time. No politician wants to pay for the honor of trailing the russians.
Having good american engineering succeed where the Russians failed should be just the kind of story that NASA could use to get funding from politicians.
Now if the Russians were succesful
Not true. You can also derive hydrogen from natural gas, fossil fuels, bacteria, or mine it from the Earth's crust. There are probably other ways as well that haven't been discovered yet.
Since solar and wind are too expensive for the forseeable future
Says who? Tcost of wind power has been dropping dramatically over the last few years. Currently it's only a little bit more expensive than the going rate. Given some more refinements of the technology and economies of scale, it will quite likely become the cheapest form of power generation. Besides, once you've factored in the cost of nuclear waste disposal, guarding against terrorists, mining uranium, environmental cleanup, etc, nuclear power isn't all that cheap either.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
Um, yes you can sail towards the sun, by tacking against the sunlight to reduce orbital velocity around the sun, thus dropping steadily towards the sun. Um, think of a shrinking spiral.
Reverse the process by tacking to increase orbital speed, and you move away in an increasingly large spiral.
but it sure would be nice if it regenerated a little interest in the general public.
I dont think the general public is particularily interesting or worth generating interest in myself.