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Solar Super-Sail Could Reach Mars in a Month

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the check-out-that-stylish-new-icon dept.

ti-coune sent us a story running on newscientist describing solar super sails and how they could one day get us to Mars in a month. The key is a special new paint. The cast of Trading Spaces is unavailable for comment.

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  1. Re:Cast? What cast? by Jonathan_S · · Score: 5, Informative
    "The feat would require a 60-megawatt microwave beam with a similar diameter to the sail. It would also have to be capable of tracking the craft as it accelerated away. But this power level could not be delivered by any existing microwave transmission system. The deep-space communications network that NASA uses to communicate with Mars rovers and the Cassini probe now orbiting Saturn can only manage half a megawatt. The Benfords say the power could be ramped up in future and hope to persuade NASA to consider doing this as part of a future upgrade to the network.

    So basically NASA's currently-used equipment is 1/120th of the power needed to get this sail to Mars. I would say this idea is not in our near future for sure.
    Um, NASA's current communications system puts out 1/120th of the power needed for this sail.

    That's like saying since your cell phone can only put out 1/2 a watt it's impossible to heat things in your microwave.

    A couple of points of reference, the radar mounted on US Aegis cruisers can put out 4 MWs and the stationary Cobra Dane early warning radar that went online in 1977 puts out 15.4 MW.

    I don't think we are that far away from building a 60 MW transmitter now that we have a reason to.