User: Omasu.of.Travar

Save the Pluto Missions!

On: More on the Pluto-Kuiper Express

If you want to help save the Pluto and Europa missions, sign the petition the Planetary Society is currently heading.

Here's the URL: https://planetary.org/petition2/index.php

Straight from Sagan's Crew in Pasadena

On: Solar Sail to be Launched This Year

First off, thanks to Gibby's Box of Trix, Alien54, europrobe, IAmSanco, DNS-and-BIND, and anyone else I may have missed for straighening out some of the posts mistakes.

Allow me to officially clarify a few things...

The solar sail vessel being launched this September is, as DNS put it, NOT a Russan project, but a privately funded project of the Planetary Society and Cosmos Studios. You can read more about the project here: http://www.planetary.org/solarsail/index2.html

Also, the Society is using a converted, submarine-launched Volna ICBM (a Russan missile) to launch the solar sail into orbit. Additionally, the solar sail is being built at the Babakin Space Center in Russia, under contract to the Planetary Society.

Finally, the sailing vessel's name is "Cosmos 1."

If you want to learn more about the project's progress, I suggest you subscribe to our SolarSail newsletter at http://www.planetary.org/solarsail/index2.html

Darrin Dennis
Web Marketing
The Planetary Society