NASA Will Launch A 13,000-Square-Foot Solar Sail Next Year

A cosmic kite strung out of notary dead people, omg!

Foot, feet, pounds, miles, microns? Sorry, don't you have microinches somewhere in the closet? I think it's about time to get the metric system introduced everywhere, so that your "seudo-scientific" articles get readable?

What's psuedo-science about a project NASA has planned for the near future? Why complain about the standard we Americans use while reading an American publication?

Hang on, if this is propelled by photons, how is its target located toward the sun instead of away from it?

I'm pretty sure NASA is using the metric system themselves.

@kflotlin: I'm not sure if the solar sail works exactly like a sail, but sailboats can go towards the wind, I think it's called either "beating" or "windwarding" in English.

Gotta love windsurfing on such a scale. Things will be better when we've moved up to surfboards with The Power Cosmic. We should make a Cup Race soon. Think about it. With the cash outlay on a modern typical 40 meter America's Cup yacht and team support and logistics, it could be done today.

This will be very practical for lunar towing missions in that stretch of space between Earth and the moon.

Is this the same project that the Planetary Society directed by Bill Nye is a part of?

It is a little odd that the solar sail is heading to a point BETWEEN the earth and our sun. So it is, supposedly, heading towards the sun.

The only direction photons head in space is AWAY from the sun and, unlike sail boats here on earth, a solar sail cannot exactly tack against the solar wind.

To my knowledge, The Bernoulli Effect does not apply to photons. It is a phenomenon that manifests itself soley in a gaseous environment.

I am guessing that the only way they can get it to where it needs to go is to have it slingshot around several of our planets in a carefully orchestrated trip.

Once it has the momentum it needs, I suppose gravity will steer the ship.

As much as I think this is cool, I don't see too much practical use for interstellar flight. By the time a solar sail gets to Pluto, it is experiencing maybe 1/1000 the force that it is here near earth.

This may be useful for interplanetary travel, but I think the speed of the ship is limited by how much momentum the solar wind can impart to the ship and by the amount of energy our largest planet can impart to the ship in a gravity slingshot.

How to tack towards the sun

http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~diedrich/solarsails/intro/tacking.html

I suppose that is "space tacking" ... but then you'd have to think of any of our spacecraft coming back to Earth as tacking towards the planet as they enter the atmosphere.

@ Far Out Man; Taking this sail exactly what it is, but adding technologies changes your potentials, yes? The sail is great because you can also make one to store and redirect the particles in the wing, or you can link with the physics of a hotsource and charge them as well.

Ok, you read the latest issue here? You got the MIT prof that's working in box folds. The other one in Japan offered up that space jellyfish idea too. That jellyfish is cool, because as you go through space, you are actually going through less space, comparatively. Because you get to flow right up in your fuel stream, in a natural eating motion.

The box folds are significant because they are simple, with only limited counterforces for their natural tendencies as folds. Now envision a fine boxchain necklace, with a low reactive metal component that is light as a mesh for the overall boxchain link form, made of a nice custom HO mix from the moon, and your necklace strand as part of a wing, and viola. Your solar sail can now upgrade as a craft in self guidance because it is now your fuel source, and what you are eating as supplement is a product of magnetic self guidance based on your locale and choice. Basically, change course with angular deflection, otherwise, get on a stream and leave it alone for efficiency. Use the particle densities to model gravity, as typical. Theoretically, that environment is only limited by scale. The bigger your craft, the more capabilities and principle controls you add, and eventually you get a spacefaring colony craft.

Thank you, Salopianjerel for your response.

I can see now how the sail will get closer to the sun.

By slowing the orbital velocity of the sail, the centripetal acceleration of the sail diminishes and the sun's gravity pulls the sail inward.

Clever.

As an American, we need to ditch our stupid system and transition to metric. I launched a weather balloon today and most of the confusion was caused by fractions of inches, pounds, and ounces. Metric is in increments of 10's before a unit changes it's prefix, and most of the time you go by thousands(oh, such a big scary number!),such as 1000 grams in a kilogram. It is much easier than counting in 32nds of inches, 16 ounces being equal to a pound, and 4 cups in a pint(I had to look up what unit was after the cup because I couldn't even remember!) Just admit it... "our" system is cumbersome. I am VERY patriotic and I think our system is antiquated, obsolete, and most of all stupid! Unit conversions in metric are also a breeze! Usually, decimals are SO much easier than fractions.

@gps93
your lack of math skills has no bearing on what the rest of the US should or should not be doing. Fractions are just as easy to use and can be easier then dealing with a tens based system.

One example... How many grams is a third of a kilogram. A third of a pound is exactly 1/3, I can continue doing calculations with that number without any generational degradation. 1/3rd of a kilogram is approximately 333.33 grams, rounded to your preferred precision. That is always imprecise, and given enough generations will result in error.

Knowing the units of the english standard system is no scarier then knowing the terms of the metric system. 100 grams is a kilogram, how many makes a metric ton? Is that 100 kilograms or 1000? ..how does that relate to a megagram? How does any of that relate to an MTU (metric ton unit)?

If you know your system well enough to be a professional dealing in a given area you should be well comfortable with the units and their conversions. If you arent, then you aren't qualified to be in that field and you're just play acting.

sorry above 1000 grams is a kilogram not 100. huh.. guess just because I was writing in metric it didn't make me immune to errors. Go figure.

For those of you who would like more information (technical as well), please see following link to my thesis work on solar sails. (Info in metric system :) )

https://engineering.purdue.edu/people/kathleen.howell.1/Publications/masters/2012_Sood.pdf

R. Sood, "Solar Sail Applications for Mission Design in Sun-Planet Systems from the Perspective of the Circular Restricted Three-Body Problem," M.S., December 2012.