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An artist’s rendition of a solar sail spacecraft!
The Planetary Society is a club which believes we should spend more resources exploring space. I used to be a member back in the halcyon days when I could afford their annual dues, but alas, I have merely been following their exploits lately. Mostly they are a political action committee: they use their money to hire lobbyists to remind recalcitrant leaders of the many, many benefits of space exploration. Also they showcase celebrity explorers, scientists, and astronomers (or other famous folk) in order to popularize space research to the fickle and forgetful public.
Well, that’s what they do most of the time…Sometimes they spearhead astonishing James Bond schemes of their own. The most recent of these grand plans involved buying a converted Soviet ICBM and using it to launch a solar sail into outer space! Sadly (yet somehow predictably) the Russians sold the Society a dodgy bum missile which failed after a minute and a half of flight and exploded over the Arctic Ocean. This happened ten years ago, and despite the abysmal failure, I felt honored to be part of it! When did you last cooperate on a project which would make Blowfeld jealous? (I exempt mention of my tax dollars which go to NASA—you federal scientists are awesome and I want you to keep it up, but I am talking about a private club right now).
A Delta-class Submarine Firing a SS-N-18 (of the sort that failed)
Anyway I bring all of this up, because the Society has scraped together enough pocket change to try again (even without my annual $37.00 membership fee). In five days they are launching a test flight which will pave the way for a full-fledged solar sail launch in 2016! The Society learned certain things from the failure a decade ago, most notably “do not trust the Russians” (a lesson which is written upon the very landscapes of Eastern Europe and Central Asia to the extent that it is visible from space, but which was still somehow lost on the Planetary Society until they actually purchased an ICBM).
The Planetary Society’s LightSail spacecraft, with its four sails deployed, undergoing tests in Sept. 2014. Credit: Justin Foley/The Planetary Society.
This time they are buying aerospace capacity from more reputable sources—the US Air Force (for the upcoming test flight) and SpaceX for the full mission. I mention all of this in order to direct your attention to the test flight on May 20th (EDT) which Ferrebeekeeper will definitely revisit and to also point you toward the Kickstarter funding project for next year’s full fledge flight! If you have some money burning a hole in your pocket, you could always spend it launching a high tech sail the size of a New York apartment into space (well, maybe the actual spacecraft will be larger than that once it unfurls from its breadbox size cubesat). Aside from buying stunning original artwork, what could be a better use of your petty cash?
ferrebeekeeper 