The solar sail

[maerson]

The idea of a solar sail was thought up more than half a century ago. It was being used as a plot device starting in 1960.

And now it's actually proved successful. It's amazing to me how this kind of thing progresses and results in... Well, a 700 pound probe accelerating through space with no use of fuel.

Comments

[sirvalence]

I did a science report on solar sails in junior high. I wonder what took them so long to deploy one!

[maerson]

They're exceptionally fragile and hard to engineer. The first Japanese attempt failed due to some minor issues that resulted in the deployment process completely destroying the sails. That was a couple years ago. Took a while to re-work it, I guess.

And... Thanks for posting, as I hadn't noticed the screwed up HTML until I came back in to read your comment. *sigh*