Solar Sails And Space Propulsion

Doomie writes "The Economist has an interesting article about solar sails. It talks about the Russian ICBM that will launch Cosmos 1 (mentioned previously on /.) 'The first craft powered by solar-sail technology to orbit the Earth', and the link between this technology and interplanetary travel. Cosmos 1 will orbit Earth starting on June 21st and could, in theory, reach '200,000kph after three years of acceleration' due to the fact that 'particles of light, or photons, that strike a surface give it a tiny push'. The official homepage of the project has more details." Update: 06/18 18:57 GMT by Z : While space trains would be cool, that wasn't the intent of the story. Changed rails to sails.

Comments

Sailing Away

[Doc Ruby]

The Planetary Society has contracted the Russians to launch the solar sail on an ICBM. Not just because the Russians have lots of old ICBMs, and need money. But because the Russians have been launching solar sails, gaining the lead in global experience. That's a great asset - at least someone has the skills to move this tech forward.

But why doesn't, say, America have competing contractors? Because our aerospace industry has been pouring time and money into the ISS boondoggle. Which was a worthwhile project, boosting our own experience in that area. Except that we've had to cover much more time and money, taking up the slack for our Russian "partners", whose contributions have routinely failed and held up the project for its entire duration. They've ignored the ISS partnership, handing us an anvil, while racing ahead in the competition for solar sail experience. And now we're seeing that the US can't actually carry the ISS on our own, with the Space Shuttles being cancelled before completing the station. How do you say "checkmate" in Russian?