Solar Sail News and Upcoming JPL Missions

abkaiser writes "I had the opportunity to interview a supervisor at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The JPL is putting together several missions utilizing solar sail technology. The interview and article detail where NASA and the JPL are in using solar sails for applications and research.You can read the article or skip ahead to the cool pictures of prototype and proposed solar sails. The article addresses NASA's JPL solar sail missions, but not other commercial or private projects like Cosmos 1."

Comments

Solar sails myth

[stud9920]

Come on ! The flawed principle of so called solar sails is that photons have a (very tiny) momentum. That momentum is supposed to be transmitted to the sail that will therefore accelerate.

There is one big detail these amateur scientists have not accounted for : space is full of stars. For any photon coming from the sun, there are millions that come from the exact opposite direction. Why do you think it's dark outside ? because those photons anihilate electromagnetically against each other.

This is also the reason a solar sail cannot work: the photons also anihilate mechanically. A solar sail would as much be pushed by the sun as it would be repelled by the stars.

Jeesus, good luck finding financement for such a stupid idea...

Re:JET Propulsion Laboratory

[skoaldipper]

Same here. I wonder just how much time some moderators actually spend reflecting on a post before plopping down some points (plus or minus). The parent was at least mildly on topic; apples to oranges maybe, but surely not apples to "Cheney thought Harry had the avian flu" type posts.