Planetary Society Wants To Launch a Crowd-Funded Solar Sail 52
jan_jes writes to note that The Planetary Society is attempting to crowdfund its own version of the light-powered space-craft popularized by Carl Sagan as a "solar sailer." (YouTube video, with the Society's CEO Bill Nye.)
The current model is a CubeSat no bigger than a breadbox with four sails. If the team manages to raise enough money, LightSail will be sent to orbit aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket in 2016. LightSail will be released into an orbit with an altitude of 720 kilometers (450 miles), high enough to escape most of the planet's atmospheric drag.
Their crowdfunding goal has been far surpassed (more than $476,000 at this writing), but more can't hurt; maybe NASA could use some of the surplus.
breadbox measurements (Score:3)
Happy and sad news (Score:1)
Happy because people can get together and do something meaningful.
Sad because bureaucrats can't be convinced this is a meaningful endeavor.
NASA could have being a driving force in all this kind of apparently crazy experiments. But is struggling with the quantity of pork distributed by politicians from the meager budget to their home states.
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Why, because you don't agree with scientific exploration? It's a real world proof of concept and will give a real basis to build upon this technology and technique. Besides, those 3 cubesats in it are more than just com systems, though the data from even that has some value. As far as satellites and probes go, this is small and cheap, so it's bang for the buck is better than most.
"bureaucrats"
You mean the old sods that can't figure out the value of anything other than bribes, err, campaign contrib
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Trash? Why, because you don't agree with scientific exploration? It's a real world proof of concept and will give a real basis to build upon this technology and technique. Besides, those 3 cubesats in it are more than just com systems, though the data from even that has some value. As far as satellites and probes go, this is small and cheap, so it's bang for the buck is better than most.
I don't agree with scientific exploration just because i think that this is already proven and tested concept (from NASA and other national space agencies)? What new "data" this will provide? Did you read something i didn't?
"bureaucrats" ...
You mean the old sods that can't figure out the value of anything other than bribes, err, campaign contributions, and pork, err, vote buying by spending money on local though dubious projects? Yeah, that means nothing. In case you haven't noticed, our current crop of politicians are lucky they can read.
Please dude, i am Greek, i don't pay for NASA, but it was those "bureaucrats" (with USA's citizens money) that also helped advance space/scientific exploration, benefiting the whole world.
not a meaningful "experiment" Great, just tell me what the actual acceleration it would achieve is, and what all the data it's other sensors (whatever those will be) will send back, and I'll accept that statement of yours. You can't? Well of course not, that's why we do these kinds of things. We can make mathematical models and analyze those all we want, but until we get realworld data, we just don't know if there's anything else out there to mess with the results. Did you know there has been anomalous thrust on the pioneer and voyager probes? Funny how we would have no idea something like that could happen until we actually sent those probes for real. By the way, they are still studying that data, and they think they've figured that mystery out, but it's not up to the whole seven sigmas thing yet.
what new "data" this will provide? did you read something i didn't? what "sensors"???
NASA does not waste its limited budget I'm glad you recognize NASAs budget limitations and understand that at the current funding levels and lack of appropriate launch vehicles they can't even keep up with their current orbital responsibilities. You do know that our network of both communication, weather, and GPS satellites is in poor repair and greatly in need of new satellites? Well it's true.
Of course i rec
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Thank God, NASA does not waste its limited budget by sending trash to orbit!
It shouldn't have limited budget! It's our future!
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"I am Greek..." and "...and there is not such thing as 'UN-limited budged' for anything..." appear to be contradictory. Your economy appears to have run as if it was unlimited...
Once again we Greeks educate the barbarians - so: this should be a lesson for the rest of world...
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putting saran wrap in space
They ended up putting it on people's windows boxen [microsoft.com] instead.
Sagan? Don't you mean Clarke? (Score:4, Interesting)
With a 1963 SF story in the Scouting magazine "Boy's Life", I believe that Arthur C. Clarke beat Carl Sagan to the "solar sail" idea by a decade or so.
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Hence "popularized" not "invented." It really wasn't one of Clarke's best-known shorts, and though I'm just guessing, I'd imagine that a visible celebrity like Sagan, on a then-popular show like Carsons, got more awareness for the idea.
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The story was a good one and was anthologized in several collections. But Clarke was a real genius, where Sagan only talked a good game. If Clarke had patented all the innovative ideas that he wrote stories about - like geosynchronous communications satellites or ground-controlled approaches in bad weather - he'd have been richer than Bill Gates and Warren Buffet combined.
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- like geosynchronous communications satellites
Fewer than a dozen communications satellites were launched before his patent would have expired, and some of those were Soviet, and only two of them were geosynchronous.
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Predating Clarke's story, Planet of the Apes, also from 1963, featured a solar sailing interstellar ship.
Clark? Don't you mean Cordwainer Smith? (Score:2)
I'll throw in if we name it Planet Pluto (Score:2)
Just sayin'
Carl who? (Score:1)
Carl sagaN perhaps?
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That's the new POS freemium game: "The Carl Crush Saga"...
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Carl Saga was a legend in his own time...
Solution to Global Warming? (Score:1)
Does anybody else think that this could be a solution to global warming? If we can mass produce these and send them up using SpaceX re-usable rockets the cost should be relatively low. They could reflect as much or little sunlight as needed. They could even remove heat over hurricanes to mitigate damage. We could even reduce temperatures at the equator and increase temperatures in the northern/southern latitudes if desired. In the long run it would be a good way to heat up mars, cool off venus, and ma
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i think painting all the roads and parking lots to reflect light would work better.
A yes, a perfect plan, with no draw*CRASH*
It helps to be able to see while driving.
Cars suck and roads need to go.
Eff that... (Score:1)
I want to see an EM drive go into space.
I'm 95% sure it won't work... but can you imagine if it does.
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Science fiction writers Jerry Pournelle and Larry Niven often have "real scientists" run the numbers on their stories. Pournelle believes that a big enough laser could launch satellites from the ground into orbit.
Only part of the thrust would be light pressure; a volatile "fuel core" being vaporized by the ground-based laser would provide much of the blast-off thrust. But you'd still have the advantage of having your "engine" here on Earth, being able to repair or replace it as needed, and eliminating ha
useless.... (Score:1)
Massive liability. You can't afford to have a few small asteroid piercing holes in that while flying in space.
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Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind- bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.
Re:slush fund (Score:4, Informative)
No clue? Their Kickstarter page currently has stretch goals listed covering up to $1 million. Their site (linked from the Kickstarter) explains they estimate needing $5.45 million for the entire project - which I assume includes the parts they've completed, including the test launch this month - and that they have raised $4.2 million of that so far. They seem to have a handle on what they want to do with the money. They aren't building a mysterious slush fund.
It's hard to guess at how much they will raise in the end, but complex projects often go over budget or suffer technical issues. Any extra money not accounted for by their stated goals will likely go towards those things.
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I don't think Mike Tyson would make a very good president.
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First Launch (Score:1)
When for actual exploration? (Score:1)