Many geeky people of my generation (wow! I'm 35 already?) were influenced by the PBS series
Cosmos, written and hosted by astronomer Carl Sagan and first broadcast in 1980, and I do not doubt many a seed to pursue a career in the sciences were planted by it. A survey of history, astronomy, physics and origins of the universe, the show intelligently and entertainingly (at least for geeky 10 year old me) discussed the history of astronomy and physics (very much inexorably linked) up to the present day (well, 1980 present, anyway).
The Planetary Society (founded in part by Carl Sagan) and a TV production company will soon take the first step to make solar sails a reality.
Jump with me...
I recall one of the
Cosmos eps focused on future space exploration, and the different vehicles that could finally take us to the stars. Among fusion drives and big cosmic ram-jets, there was the simple solar sail, catching light itself on gossamer wings, perhaps miles across, harnessing the tiny incident inertia of photons to provide forward momentum. Building speed slowly, the craft would continue to accelerate to speeds unachievable by simple propellant rockets for the simple reason that you could never carry enough fuel. Carl Sagan spoke wistfully about this craft, hoping that it's construction would come to pass, thinking it quite proper that humans would explore the Cosmos in the same fashion that humans explored our own little blue ball - where in previous days our species used wind, future generations would hitch a ride on light itself.
From the WaPo, we learn...
Tomorrow, barring delay or mishap, a U.S. filmmaker, an international association of space buffs and Russian aerospace organizations will use a leftover Soviet ballistic missile to put the first "solar sail" into orbit.
This unusual device, which looks like a 6,500-square-foot flower with eight triangular, mirrorlike petals... it hopes to show that sunlight's gentle push might one day enable a spacecraft to reach speeds far greater than anything achieved by a mere rocket. Deployed, the petals are about 1 1/2 times the size of a basketball court.
Bankrolling this venture is a TV production company, which happens more often than you would think (dino digs, looking for giant squid, lots of science is being funded by the info-tainment industry : I don't know if this is a good thing or bad...). Anyway,
In 1980, Friedman joined planetary scientist Bruce Murray and astronomer and author Carl Sagan in founding the Pasadena, Calif.-based Planetary Society, an international advocacy organization dedicated to space exploration. Sagan, who died in 1996, was the Society's first president; Friedman is its executive director.
The Society is leading the solar-sail project, bankrolled by Ithaca, N.Y.-based Cosmos Studios, a scientific documentary film and entertainment company headed by Sagan's widow, Ann Druyan. "We allotted $4 million for the project," she said in a telephone interview. "We are still under budget."
Here's what I think is really exciting...
Each sail segment is held rigid by inflatable struts, which unroll "like one of those New Year's Eve noisemakers you blow into" when they are pumped full of nitrogen, Schurmeier said. A successful deployment is the mission's first goal.
The second is to move the sail. Once deployed, the spacecraft's orbit should grow larger as the sail adds speed. Friedman said the Cosmos 1 team will know whether this happens from micro-accelerator readings inside the spacecraft. People everywhere on Earth might eventually be able to see the sail with the naked eye, but chances will be better the further south one is.
Not to geek out too much, but how cool will that be?