Solar Sails
Solar sails, a proposed method of spacecraft propulsion, would use radiation pressure from the Sun as a motive force. Private spacecraft Cosmos 1 was to have used this form of propulsion. The idea was proposed as early as 1924 by Soviet scientist Friedrich Zander.
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) has successfully unfurled a solar sail in space which has already succeeded in propelling its payload with the IKAROS project.
Read more about this topic: Radiation Pressure
Famous quotes containing the words solar and/or sails:
“Lincoln becomes the American solar myth, the chief butt of American credulity and sentimentality.”
—H.L. (Henry Lewis)
“Fair stood the wind for France,
When we our sails advance,
Nor now to prove our chance
Longer will tarry;”
—Michael Drayton (1563–1631)