Wow, I'm surprised--I thought a 20th century scientist or science fiction writer thought it up.
Posted by screechowl (Member # 2651) on :
I was trying to think of some stories that mentioned photon sails or something similar.
Did The Mote in God's Eye? The Moties used a laser cannon, but didn't their ships use light sails??? I don't have a copy here.
What were some others?
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
Yes, it was a light sail powered by massive laser cannons.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
Solar sailers have shown up in all kinds of places: multiple Niven books, at least a couple ST novels . . . um, if I had my book collection around, I could find some more.
I always thought they were awesome. And now one is REAL!
Posted by aspectre (Member # 2222) on :
Personally like the idea of harvesting the antimatter that's up in orbit, and using that as the lightsail propellant. And nope, that ain't StarTrek fantasy, or even as much of an engineering challenge as the petaWatt laser ala The Mote in God's Eye. Cosmic rays coming from the universe colliding with hydrogen in the solarwind going out from the Sun produces antimatter.
Posted by 0range7Penguin (Member # 7337) on :
how does one harvest antimatter exactly? I thought it couldn't come in contact with matter or something?
Posted by aspectre (Member # 2222) on :
quote:Cosmos 1, a disc-shaped craft whose two segmented sails suggest flower petals, is set to blast off from a submerged Russian submarine in the Barents Sea at 12:46 p.m. PDT (1946 GMT) on Tuesday.