solar sail – Techdirt (original) (raw)

Stories filed under: "solar sail"

DailyDirt: Beyond The Door, There's Peace I'm Sure…

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

We’ve mentioned some interesting ways to rest in peace before — turning your body into diamonds or sending your ashes into orbit. It may be a bit morbid, but some space fans really want to get off this planet even after they’ve died. If you want to leave this world (after death), you can get a ticket on more than one kind of spacecraft headed off beyond the Earth.

• A startup called Elysium Space will launch your ashes into space — and even get cremated remains to the moon. The first 50 buyers will get an early bird price of 9,950togotothemoon,andafterthat,it’llsetyouback9,950 to go to the moon, and after that, it’ll set you back 9,950togotothemoon,andafterthat,it’llsetyouback11,950. Just burning up in orbit (aka the Shooting Star option) costs just $1,990. [url]
• The ashes of Clyde Tombaugh, the guy who discovered Pluto, are flying out of our solar system into deep space. Tombaugh’s remains (just an ounce) were packed on NASA’s New Horizons probe to investigate Pluto, along with a few other trinkets. That spacecraft is coasting beyond Pluto now, making Tombaugh the human body that’s traveled the farthest. [url]
• The ashes of Gene Roddenberry and his wife — as well as Arthur C. Clarke and James Doohan — were planned to be put into deep space, too. However, the Sunjammer mission was cancelled, so their ride on a solar sail spacecraft might have to wait. Celestis, the company behind this space memorial, has sent some of these ashes into space before, so it’ll probably try again on another mission (or if Sunjammer is revived). [url]

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Filed Under: arthur c. clarke, ashes, clyde tombaugh, funerals, gene roddenberry, james doohan, memorials, new horizons, pluto, solar sail, space, spacecraft, sunjammer
Companies: celestis, elysium

DailyDirt: Riding Through Space On A Beam Of Light

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

If you’re looking forward to watching The Martian movie, you probably enjoy watching rockets blast off into space and seeing big explosions. However, really long distance space travel could be much less entertaining without rockets unless you like looking at the glow of an ion thruster. Spacecraft using the momentum of light won’t even glow, but they could be part of more and more space ships. Check out a few of these projects.

• A yet-unexplained phenomenon creates propulsion when a laser hits a sheet of graphene sponge in a vacuum. A complete understanding of the momentum of light isn’t too far off, and if this kind of propulsion can be harnessed, it could make some satellites much more useful. [url]
• Microwave propulsion technologies have been tested a bit. Microwaves might also be used for energy transmission to various kinds of vehicles, but it could be a while before anyone is powering drones or satellites with microwave signals. [url]
• The Planetary Society has successfully deployed its first LightSail cubesat to test its solar sail technology before it launches another LightSail cubesat next year. This test ran into a few glitches along with way, so hopefully, they’ll work out all the bugs before the next mission. [url]
• Ikaros (Interplanetary Kite-craft Accelerated by Radiation Of the Sun) is a Japanese spacecraft that successfully used a solar sail in 2010. More solar sail spacecraft could get into space, as long as the demonstrations of the tech continue to work (and aren’t cancelled). [url]

After you’ve finished checking out those links, take a look at our Daily Deals for cool gadgets and other awesome stuff.

Filed Under: cubesats, graphene, ikaros, lightsail, microwaves, propulsion, solar sail, space, space exploration, spacecraft
Companies: planetary society

DailyDirt: Sailing Through Space Without Rockets

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

One of the problems with space travel is that the chemical fuels required to get around in space.. really limit how far a spacecraft can go. A spacecraft can only carry around so much fuel, and then once that fuel is gone, the ship is basically drifting in space. There are some creative solutions to this challenge, though. If you aren’t in a hurry, you can try to propel an object with the momentum of light. Or you can shoot very small atoms at high velocity to create thrust. But you cannot change the laws of physics!

• The Planetary Society is constructing a cubesat with a LightSail — a 32-square-meter Mylar sail that will capture the momentum of sunlight for propulsion. This Kickstarter campaign will help fund the $5.45 million project to build a spacecraft that will be ready to launch in 2016 (on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket) along with another satellite that will inspect the LightSail and its performance. [url]
• NASA is still trying to verify the feasibility of “EM drive” technology — that shouldn’t work at all if the universe obeys the conservation of momentum. No peer reviewed papers on this kind of propulsion exist because no one understands how to fully explain the impossible (or merely erroneous) thrust that has been detected from it. [url]
• Electrically-driven satellites using ion thrusters do actually exist, and Boeing has built two of them. These satellites with xenon-ion thrusters are already in space and will move into their operational orbits by November. A few other electric-propulsion spacecraft from Airbus and Thales Alenia Space will join these satellites in space in the near future, too. [url]

After you’ve finished checking out those links, take a look at our Daily Deals for cool gadgets and other awesome stuff.

Filed Under: em drive, ion thrusters, lightsail, planetary society, propulsion, rockets, satellites, solar sail, space, space exploration, spacecraft
Companies: airbus, boeing, kickstarter, nasa, spacex, thales alenia space

DailyDirt: Spaceworthy Engines That Will Take Us 'To Infinity And Beyond!'

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Humans — not content to be stuck on this planet and itching to find alien life — are hard at work developing better ways to send satellites and spacecraft into orbit and outer space. If we actually want to colonize Mars by 2023, then some new propulsion technologies might be in order. Here are a few examples of various efforts going on around the world.

• MIT researchers have developed a penny-sized rocket thruster that runs on jets of ion beams. The thruster is flat and square, like a computer chip, and covered with 500 microscopic tips that emit ion beams strong enough to propel a shoebox-sized satellite. Placing several of these thrusters on a small satellite could enable it to move to change its orbit, as well as turn and roll. [url]
• Engineers in the UK are testing some key technology for a propulsion system that could one day take a spaceplane, like the Skylon vehicle, straight into orbit without all the multiple propellant stages required with current throw-away rockets. The Sabre propulsion system, which is part jet engine and part rocket engine, burns hydrogen and oxygen to provide thrust. [url]
• Researchers at The Australian National University are working on a plasma thruster that could eventually be used to send satellites to Mars. The plasma thruster could be ready by 2014, and initial missions will attempt to send old satellites into “graveyard” orbits using the thruster. [url]
• The Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency and NASA are both testing solar sail technology as a form of primary propulsion for spacecraft. The solar sail technology relies on the concept that surfaces exposed to electromagnetic radiation will experience “radiation pressure,” which exerts a small pushing force against the surface. Japan’s Ikaros 27-square-meter solar sail gets only 0.0002 pounds of force due to radiation pressure from the sun, but over a long period of time, incredibly high speeds could be achieved. [url]

If you’d like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post.

Filed Under: exploration, jaea, nasa, plasma thrusters, propulsion, rockets, skylon, solar sail, solar system, space