It seems that NASA has decided that solar sails are tres kewl again. NASA Glen is testing out some solar sail material developed by ATK. I fell in love with solar sails back when I was in high school. It was because I discovered the book by Louis Friedman (cofounder of The Planetary Society) on the subject matter: Starsailing.
I foolishly tried to get involved with the Columbus 500 Space Sail Cup (or whatever its name was) while still in high school. It was a great idea a little before its time and I was a very young and foolish kid that really didn't know up from down there. Friends and I rolled a proposal that was technically a mess and moderately incoherent. We never made it very far and hopefully the technological review panel didn't laugh too hard when reading it. I did get to communicate with Dr Friedman though about it and being a kid I was delighted with the contact. Right now The Planetary Society is pushing through the Cosmos 1 solar sail. It launches on May 31st of this year! I really wish I was a participant.
I never quite understood why the technology didn't get adopted wholesale and sooner than now. I mean, you can get 'clipper ships' in space, damnit! It's also not uber high tech nor very expensive. I think that successful development of this is almost as important as the now moderately infamous CATS (Cheap Access To Space). Think of it as cheap access to the inner solar system for unmanned payloads. It seems like the ideal transportation method for asteroid mining.
Think of it as yet another technology on my Important To Develop list.
I foolishly tried to get involved with the Columbus 500 Space Sail Cup (or whatever its name was) while still in high school. It was a great idea a little before its time and I was a very young and foolish kid that really didn't know up from down there. Friends and I rolled a proposal that was technically a mess and moderately incoherent. We never made it very far and hopefully the technological review panel didn't laugh too hard when reading it. I did get to communicate with Dr Friedman though about it and being a kid I was delighted with the contact. Right now The Planetary Society is pushing through the Cosmos 1 solar sail. It launches on May 31st of this year! I really wish I was a participant.
I never quite understood why the technology didn't get adopted wholesale and sooner than now. I mean, you can get 'clipper ships' in space, damnit! It's also not uber high tech nor very expensive. I think that successful development of this is almost as important as the now moderately infamous CATS (Cheap Access To Space). Think of it as cheap access to the inner solar system for unmanned payloads. It seems like the ideal transportation method for asteroid mining.
Think of it as yet another technology on my Important To Develop list.
No comments:
Post a Comment