NASA to Launch Solar Sail

arbitraryaardvark writes "Physorg reports that NASA will launch a solar sail around the end of July. It'll be the first of its kind; a previous attempt blew up. It's a small proof-of-concept gizmo, not a full-on spaceyacht. Solar sails operate on photon pressure from sunlight. They are well known to science fiction readers, otherwise not so much." C-net has coverage, too.

Comments

Beating against the solar wind?

[DerMatsi]

From TFA: "And like a marine sail, a solar sail could also bring you home. You could use the solar sail to tack your vessel, making it travel "against the wind," back to Earth." I don't see how this would be possible.. sailboats can do this because of a keel which exerts force on the water, which cannot be done in the near vacuum of space. Or am i missing something?