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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!
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
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.
Posts: 8501 | Registered: Jul 2001
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how does one harvest antimatter exactly? I thought it couldn't come in contact with matter or something?
Posts: 832 | Registered: Jan 2005
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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.