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First Controllable Solar Sail Launched Today

Posted by timothy on from the now-for-obedience-school dept.

clustermonkey writes "The first controllable solar sail was launched earlier today from a Russian sub in the Barents Sea. The Planetary Society, founded by Carl Sagan, organized the project and were funded by Cosmos Studios, founded by Sagan's widow. There have been 2 other solar sail deployments by others, but this will be the first to attempt controlled flight. The sail is scheduled to deploy June 25." All may not be well, though: Snot Locker writes "The Cosmos 1 Weblog is showing that, although the launch initially looked successful, they can't seem to find it or hear it. Bummer. Previous Slashdot coverage on the Cosmos 1 Solar Sail mission can be found here."

2 of 237 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Interstellar - no solar wind or enough protons? by TripMaster+Monkey · · Score: 0, Troll


    Worst. Analogy. Ever.

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    ~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey

  2. Re:Did they program it in miles again? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

    America is the worlds largest Superpower. We'll do what we want. You can keep your damn metric system. We'll keep doing just fine running things our way.

    Call is sour grapes if you will, but I'm proud to be an american. Besides, we are forced learn metric in school from the time we're young. We "choose" to be different.