When Cosmos 1 is launched on Tuesday, on an intercontinental ballistic missile fired from a Russian submarine, it will herald a new dawn in space travel. As it reaches orbit, eight triangular sails, each 15 meters long and arranged in a windmill pattern, will unfurl, and the world's first "solar sail" will take place.

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the official website:
http://www.solarsail.org/

sounds awsome, hope it works, this could open up so many doors...

That is cool s***, but f*** it will take a long time.

heh dookus ship from episode2 used a solar sail

Theres some torrents on the net that are connected to that guy: cosmos theyre called. 13 episodes

spoilers for series 3 of the o.c. :

seth runs away to mars and lives with luke and his dad who it turns out isn't just fag but also an alien

It's a one way ticket though. You'd be stuffed if you forget something important. "Let me just swing back and pick up my dvd collection of BB... "Oh noes! The sun's in front of me and it's pushing me backwards! I'd kill for a rocket now! Damn tree-hugging hippies worried about space pollution!"

its not about space polution :P it's just about having as little a feul payload as possible on board the craft. also... once you have gained enough velocity from your solar sail you could use gravitational slingshots to go back in towards the sun :)
anyways... all is not well by the looks :P this is actually the third experimental solar sail craft that has been deployed in orbit & by the looks at the moment... the third failure :(

Coming soon: Space Pirates!

Yarr, raise the solar sail, thar be treasure on them thar uninhabitable planet #53457020100

the third failure

very disapointing....maybe if they had used an actual rocket insyead of a converted missle might have had a better chance....oh well..awaits NASA to steal the idea and use its far supirior rockets

Yeh ICBM (Inter Continental Ballistic Missle) doesn't equal rocket going into orbit does it?

actually, ICBM's leave the atmostphere breifly during their path

Cool I didn't know that.

eh ICBM (Inter Continental Ballistic Missle) doesn't equal rocket going into orbit does it?

i dont know much about the differences
but seems to me ICBM's are designed to carry warheads accross continants, they baiscly do leave the atmospher for a bit, then drop back in and fall on the contry they were fired at....some how i dont really think they work very well wen it comes to putting a atalite in a presise(sp) orbit..
edit: removed the link after i read the rest

last edited by Irhabi at 11:14:17 22/Jun/05

using a ballistic missile to put the craft into space should be fine as long as the craft payload isn't too heavy for the missile. icbm's usually fly part of thier journey in space. that is because a typical ballistic trajectory is an arch about a fourth as high as it is long. even a missile with a range of 160 kilometers has to climb to over 38000 meters, which put it out of the atmosphere & into space. basically.. if the missile with payload can reach a speed of about ~40000kph then it can get into orbit.
heh @ nasa stealing the idea :P the first failed solar sail was a nasa effort :) & the original idea comes from circa 1910 science fiction!

edit : it seems they are still hopefull that cosmos-1 is in orbit... just not where they thought it should be. :P hopefully with some help from nasa they will be able to get the comms going & see if the craft is ok.

stealth edit#2 latest news gives a 1% chance that the craft reached any kind of orbit. most likely scenario is that the primary booster rocket in the russian icbm failed & it crashed into the pacific ocean.

last edited by demon at 11:36:44 23/Jun/05

its all good they got a signal from itit...IT'S ALIVE!!!11ONEONEONE

PASADENA, Calif (Reuters) - Cosmos 1, the first solar sail-powered spacecraft, appears to be "alive" and sending signals to tracking stations but could be in a lower orbit than planned, said mission experts in Pasadena, California late on Tuesday.

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last edited by Irhabi at 17:18:07 22/Jun/05