I remember reading a short story maybe 50yrs ago about the rich playboys having races around the solar system using space yachts with huge solar sails, can't remember much more.
"The world which we perceive is a tiny fraction of the world which we can perceive, which is a tiny fraction of the perceivable world." Terence McKenna
The question is how much damage before the sail can no longer be used. At worst battens may be needed to avoid loosing structural support. It may be able to take a lot of micrometeorite hits before becoming unusable especially if additional structural members such as battens are used albeit at greater mass. Then again, maybe some method could be made to repair the sails enroute.
random theortical thing about solar sails/steam rockets... here is a question...... take a one hectare concave mirrored dish that is focused to a single point,point the dish at the sun, the solar energy at that focal piont is equal to 10,000sm of sunlight, about 1 kw per sq meter, so 10,000kw or 10,000 kilo joules per second, alot of energy, now squirt 1 gram per second of water at 100 degrees through the focal point, calculate the change in temperature of the water, the volume of the steam produced calculate the theoretical thrust assuming that it can work like an enclosed container with a pin prick in it, use the rocket equation, probs check out a steam table or two, then calculate the dela v with a sail weight of two tonnes and a 1 ton of water as propellant. how far can a 5 tonne craft go and how fast? this though experiment has haunted me the last few weeks as when i did the math i go something like 17 days of acceleration at 1G
nice video. One thing I would ask though is that even if these star exploring space vehicles come about, how would we get the information back. I mean radio waves would just take too long and even a laser system would not be practical seeing the amount of power required.
Lightspeed radio communication would still be far faster than the space crafts could achieve. Sure, it may take 4 years to receive data from Proxima Centauri but that would still be nothing compared to the perhaps forty years for the space craft to get there and we've waited decades before just to get photos of Jupiter from Voyager 1 and 2. Broadcasting the data back by radio would still be a huge win. As to stars that are hundreds of light years away, it would equally take far longer to get there even without the need to carry propellant so still a win.
I would like to see some research done on using the sail as a receiver/transmitter for long distances comm. Think Breakthrough Starshot Initiative. For example, The laser beam used for power can be flashed back to the sender in a kind of morse code. No fuel and hardware (the craft needs control of direction anyway).
This idea has been around as long as dreams of atomic fusion, and practical use still eludes everyone for both. They're always 20 years in the future. Let us know when a solar sail actually goes somewhere like the Moon or beyond.
The difficulty was always the strength of materials for the sizes needed. This experiment isn't nearly large enough for interplanetary travel, just enough to demonstrate the concept in low Earth orbit and the mylar use is still a bit heavy and not strong enough for interstellar use though perhaps graphene and carbon nanotubes might be used in the future.
The Boat Ra, Ancient tec proof. Since Ra said he was from the Sirius Star :System' which is only 8 light years away- maybe we should realize the story of Auset (aka Isis) making First Contact. Seriously
Robert Forward had proposed a solar return manned mission to Barnard star about 10 light years away that would take 40 years for the return trip using a laser powered sail craft. It involved massive solar power stations powering lasers anchored by Mercury and involved three concentric sales so that one could be detached to act as a mirror to reflect the laser back onto the spacecraft to decelerate it and again to accelerate it back towards Earth. Keep in mind that both Earth and Barnard star is traveling through space so the thrusts would all be at an angle between a straight line between Earth and the star of choice hence using detachable mirrors works perfectly (that is the argument of how do you slow down and how do you return when the laser source is in our solar system has been addressed so stop asking).
Robert Forward explained how return thrust could be achieved with a laser propelled version when the laser source is with us on Earth (actually the proposal was for it to be on Mercury), simply detach part of the solar sail to be used as a reflector to bounce the light back onto the spacecraft, remember that everything is moving in space so it would all be at an angle so the light would not first strike the spacecraft before being reflected by the detached portion of the solar sail as it would all be at an angle to each other. As far as interplanetary travel is concerned, that's even easier. The space craft is in an orbit around the sun so just use the solar sail to slow down it's velocity to drop to a lower orbit.
I've read that NASA's Solar Sail is ready and you can see it in the night sky! How I can see diffrences of the shooting star and Solar Sail and because scientists wan't to research Oumuamua could we do that with the Solar Sail? We really live INTERESTING Times in the Space science! 😮❤
Ouamuanu has already left the system. You would never be able to catch up with it now unless you built a Project Orion external nuclear pulse drive spacecraft. Somehow, launching a 300 man spacecraft from Coyote Flats by detonating 1,000 low yield nuclear bombs (propulsion units) just to get into low Earth orbit garnered a lot of resistance during the 60's and 70's nuclear disarmament talks. These days, I suspect the massive EMP from high altitude use of nuclear weapons wiping out our grid and electronic devices would garner some resistance today.
Just put it up in earth's orbit to find out want damage would be done by mini asteroids or space junk. There is all different stuff to damage the sails.
To be frank, the proportion of the sail to the space craft in that animation would just be a tiny fraction of what would be needed. Even the NASA solar sail craft only has enough sail area to demonstrate the concept in low Earth orbit. The size needed for even interplanetary use is incredible.
A Corona Mass Ejection would be a lot of sub atomic charged particles traveling at high speeds but hardly at the speed of light. Such a CME could be used for propulsion by a solar sail and a physical sail might not even be needed as a magnetic field should suffice and may cover a larger area, but such "solar winds" are not what solar sails are about, a solar sail is about the momentum from photons, solar wind, CME from solar flares and even cosmic radiation are high velocity charged subatomic particles which is why the Earth's magnetic field can deflect them. We call these radiation because high kinetic energy particles can have similar effects to our biology as electromagnetic radiation such as photons, UV, x-rays and gamma rays but they are not the same.
Even low thrust and hence acceleration can amount to high speeds if it can be applied for long periods of time, which is why ion drives are now used on probes to the Asteroid belt even though ion and hall effect drives are along the scale of a slight breath pushing a tissue. With solar sails, as no propellant is needed, the thrust can be applied indefinitely although the solar intensity drops of with distance from the Sun, lasers and masers have been proposed to increase the thrust of spacecraft further out than Mars where solar intensity is already 1/4 that of in Earth's orbit. The laser sail probe concepts such as project Star Shot are for 70% the speed of light, the thrust may be low but the target speed is not.
The thing about a solar sail is that it reflects light and hence is highly visible. It is also very large. The thing about a kinetic weapon is that you don't want it to be easily detected and you want it to be small at least in cross section. For a ride from god weapon, you want a dark tungsten telephone pole perhaps with tail find in one side, perhaps with an outer shell shaped to avoid radar detection in a highly elliptical polar orbit so all targets in the planet can be targeted and then when it is set to plunge towards a target, a small low energy monopropellent thruster such as just compressed nitrogen or a mass driver to avoid being seen would divert the orbit enough that the orbit itself would strike the target. The kinetic energy itself would be from the orbital velocity not from any additional thrust. The Hollywood concept of a platform from which projectiles are fired from, is ridiculous; the spacecraft itself would be the projectile and the highly elliptical orbit itself would be the kinetic energy and it would be the polar orbit that allows targeting. Yes, that's one shot per satellite though you could bundle multiple units together and have each just detach and alter their orbit to hit their target. A solar sail spacecraft would be the worst possible kinetic weapon, high visibility, low mass, almost circular orbits, low thrust over long periods of time, etc.
@johnwang9914 NASA had a problem with 1 sq cm of paint hitting the space station. Imagine what one of these could do at a good % of light speed. Goodbye proxima..
@@Scott27987 But what is the damage of perforating the sail. Sure if a particle hits the instruments payload, it would be devastating but a perforated sail would continue to function normally. Remember the JWST even had it's mirror hit by a micrometeorite shortly after deployment and it's still in use and that's something that can tolerate far less damage as it's a precision mirror. These spacecrafts are designed to withstand several such impacts before loosing functionality and a solar sail could withstand far more than most space craft components. As to near relativistic speeds. What do you think cosmic radiation is but subatomic particles at near relativistic speeds and our astronauts on the ISS get hit by that constantly, they even see it as flashes of light when those particles passes through their visual cortex or retina, sure they have a lot of energy but for the most part, it just passes through. Punching a hole through a solar sail is just that, a hole in the solar sail even if the object is relativistic and a perforated solar sail would still function as it should till there's too many holes for structural stability which can be prolonged with battens for support. A relativistic particle wouldn't transfer much of it's energy, it would just punch the hole and travel through, we already have an analog of this when the US tried aluminum bullets during the Vietnam war to reduce the weight of the ammunition that the soldiers carried, sure the bullets still had the kinetic energy as they increased the bullets speed and kinetic energy is proportional to the square of the velocity but the bullets transferred little of it's energy unless it started to tumble from an earlier impact so it pretty much passed through the targets. Just having a lot of kinetic energy doesn't mean you'll deliver all of it on impact.
Well that was useless !! No speed and potential speeds !!! Will a laser get it close to light speed ??? Thought there was going to be some basic facts !!! 👎🏿👎🏽👎✌🖖🍁🌻💛💙🇺🇦
السموات السبع والسماء الارض كل سماء له طاقة خاصة مبنية بغير عمد ترونها كل طاقت الكون يتفاعل مع بعض هل تعلم الريح تاتي من السماء الثالثة هل تعلم السحب كيف يتكون لا تعرف
After the sin of Earth is vanquished, "the redeemed of the LORD" will sail the heavens. Those who haven't proven the existence of GOD in their life, pray the prayer of Gideon: "Let me prove, I pray thee, but this once...and God did so that night." Every genuine heart will receive a revelation in accordance with their faith, from a divine providence to an open display of His power.
Thank you so much for this Channel! Science news that never seems to hit TV broadcasters.
I remember reading a short story maybe 50yrs ago about the rich playboys having races around the solar system using space yachts with huge solar sails, can't remember much more.
The birth of Sunjammers!
"The world which we perceive is a tiny fraction of the world which we can perceive, which is a tiny fraction of the perceivable world."
Terence McKenna
All I can think about is the meteorites that will be ripping through that thing undetected 🤦🏿♂️
The question is how much damage before the sail can no longer be used. At worst battens may be needed to avoid loosing structural support. It may be able to take a lot of micrometeorite hits before becoming unusable especially if additional structural members such as battens are used albeit at greater mass. Then again, maybe some method could be made to repair the sails enroute.
Great news! I’m intrigued with the polymer/carbon fiber spars and how they can stabilize the bird without keel/rudder… Cool!
random theortical thing about solar sails/steam rockets... here is a question...... take a one hectare concave mirrored dish that is focused to a single point,point the dish at the sun, the solar energy at that focal piont is equal to 10,000sm of sunlight, about 1 kw per sq meter, so 10,000kw or 10,000 kilo joules per second, alot of energy, now squirt 1 gram per second of water at 100 degrees through the focal point, calculate the change in temperature of the water, the volume of the steam produced calculate the theoretical thrust assuming that it can work like an enclosed container with a pin prick in it, use the rocket equation, probs check out a steam table or two, then calculate the dela v with a sail weight of two tonnes and a 1 ton of water as propellant. how far can a 5 tonne craft go and how fast? this though experiment has haunted me the last few weeks as when i did the math i go something like 17 days of acceleration at 1G
nice video. One thing I would ask though is that even if these star exploring space vehicles come about, how would we get the information back. I mean radio waves would just take too long and even a laser system would not be practical seeing the amount of power required.
Lightspeed radio communication would still be far faster than the space crafts could achieve. Sure, it may take 4 years to receive data from Proxima Centauri but that would still be nothing compared to the perhaps forty years for the space craft to get there and we've waited decades before just to get photos of Jupiter from Voyager 1 and 2. Broadcasting the data back by radio would still be a huge win. As to stars that are hundreds of light years away, it would equally take far longer to get there even without the need to carry propellant so still a win.
I would like to see some research done on using the sail as a receiver/transmitter for long distances comm. Think Breakthrough Starshot Initiative. For example, The laser beam used for power can be flashed back to the sender in a kind of morse code. No fuel and hardware (the craft needs control of direction anyway).
Transparent solar sails would likely be far superior. Could collect a lot of energy that way.
This idea has been around as long as dreams of atomic fusion, and practical use still eludes everyone for both.
They're always 20 years in the future.
Let us know when a solar sail actually goes somewhere like the Moon or beyond.
Are they only near sun orbit?
did not even realize it was an AI voice until 6:50 when he spelled out NASA like that
Like comparing a sailing ship and a steamship.
Great to see carbon fiber in use!
60yr old Technology being built today. Amazing. Sure hope weapons testing on live human wars does not keep using the budget.
The difficulty was always the strength of materials for the sizes needed. This experiment isn't nearly large enough for interplanetary travel, just enough to demonstrate the concept in low Earth orbit and the mylar use is still a bit heavy and not strong enough for interstellar use though perhaps graphene and carbon nanotubes might be used in the future.
The Boat Ra, Ancient tec proof. Since Ra said he was from the Sirius Star :System' which is only 8 light years away- maybe we should realize the story of Auset (aka Isis) making First Contact. Seriously
Robert Forward had proposed a solar return manned mission to Barnard star about 10 light years away that would take 40 years for the return trip using a laser powered sail craft. It involved massive solar power stations powering lasers anchored by Mercury and involved three concentric sales so that one could be detached to act as a mirror to reflect the laser back onto the spacecraft to decelerate it and again to accelerate it back towards Earth. Keep in mind that both Earth and Barnard star is traveling through space so the thrusts would all be at an angle between a straight line between Earth and the star of choice hence using detachable mirrors works perfectly (that is the argument of how do you slow down and how do you return when the laser source is in our solar system has been addressed so stop asking).
Job.Jobs.job.jobs.JOB.JOBS.
“Continuous acceleration “? Note they don’t mention exactly how much acceleration this unit produces for the device.
The solar sail might work for outward bound flights away from the sun, not so good for return.
Robert Forward explained how return thrust could be achieved with a laser propelled version when the laser source is with us on Earth (actually the proposal was for it to be on Mercury), simply detach part of the solar sail to be used as a reflector to bounce the light back onto the spacecraft, remember that everything is moving in space so it would all be at an angle so the light would not first strike the spacecraft before being reflected by the detached portion of the solar sail as it would all be at an angle to each other.
As far as interplanetary travel is concerned, that's even easier. The space craft is in an orbit around the sun so just use the solar sail to slow down it's velocity to drop to a lower orbit.
TRAIN.TRAINS.
I've read that NASA's Solar Sail is ready and you can see it in the night sky! How I can see diffrences of the shooting star and Solar Sail and because scientists wan't to research Oumuamua could we do that with the Solar Sail? We really live INTERESTING Times in the Space science! 😮❤
Ouamuanu has already left the system. You would never be able to catch up with it now unless you built a Project Orion external nuclear pulse drive spacecraft. Somehow, launching a 300 man spacecraft from Coyote Flats by detonating 1,000 low yield nuclear bombs (propulsion units) just to get into low Earth orbit garnered a lot of resistance during the 60's and 70's nuclear disarmament talks. These days, I suspect the massive EMP from high altitude use of nuclear weapons wiping out our grid and electronic devices would garner some resistance today.
Just put it up in earth's orbit to find out want damage would be done by mini asteroids or space junk. There is all different stuff to damage the sails.
Didn't I see one of these in the original TRON movie?!!
To be frank, the proportion of the sail to the space craft in that animation would just be a tiny fraction of what would be needed. Even the NASA solar sail craft only has enough sail area to demonstrate the concept in low Earth orbit. The size needed for even interplanetary use is incredible.
@@johnwang9914 but it's the same concept
ENDING.END.ENDS.,
So a solar flare would be like a big gust of wind on earth.
A Corona Mass Ejection would be a lot of sub atomic charged particles traveling at high speeds but hardly at the speed of light. Such a CME could be used for propulsion by a solar sail and a physical sail might not even be needed as a magnetic field should suffice and may cover a larger area, but such "solar winds" are not what solar sails are about, a solar sail is about the momentum from photons, solar wind, CME from solar flares and even cosmic radiation are high velocity charged subatomic particles which is why the Earth's magnetic field can deflect them. We call these radiation because high kinetic energy particles can have similar effects to our biology as electromagnetic radiation such as photons, UV, x-rays and gamma rays but they are not the same.
Here be dragons.⛵🌌
But, we have to make a propulsion system that is faster than a snail, if we going to seriously going to the Asteroid Belt, and beyond....
Even low thrust and hence acceleration can amount to high speeds if it can be applied for long periods of time, which is why ion drives are now used on probes to the Asteroid belt even though ion and hall effect drives are along the scale of a slight breath pushing a tissue. With solar sails, as no propellant is needed, the thrust can be applied indefinitely although the solar intensity drops of with distance from the Sun, lasers and masers have been proposed to increase the thrust of spacecraft further out than Mars where solar intensity is already 1/4 that of in Earth's orbit.
The laser sail probe concepts such as project Star Shot are for 70% the speed of light, the thrust may be low but the target speed is not.
“N-A-S-A”
Free time issue I think.
Are we not concerned about making a 'kinetic impactor?'
The thing about a solar sail is that it reflects light and hence is highly visible. It is also very large. The thing about a kinetic weapon is that you don't want it to be easily detected and you want it to be small at least in cross section. For a ride from god weapon, you want a dark tungsten telephone pole perhaps with tail find in one side, perhaps with an outer shell shaped to avoid radar detection in a highly elliptical polar orbit so all targets in the planet can be targeted and then when it is set to plunge towards a target, a small low energy monopropellent thruster such as just compressed nitrogen or a mass driver to avoid being seen would divert the orbit enough that the orbit itself would strike the target. The kinetic energy itself would be from the orbital velocity not from any additional thrust. The Hollywood concept of a platform from which projectiles are fired from, is ridiculous; the spacecraft itself would be the projectile and the highly elliptical orbit itself would be the kinetic energy and it would be the polar orbit that allows targeting. Yes, that's one shot per satellite though you could bundle multiple units together and have each just detach and alter their orbit to hit their target.
A solar sail spacecraft would be the worst possible kinetic weapon, high visibility, low mass, almost circular orbits, low thrust over long periods of time, etc.
@johnwang9914 NASA had a problem with 1 sq cm of paint hitting the space station. Imagine what one of these could do at a good % of light speed. Goodbye proxima..
@@Scott27987 But what is the damage of perforating the sail. Sure if a particle hits the instruments payload, it would be devastating but a perforated sail would continue to function normally. Remember the JWST even had it's mirror hit by a micrometeorite shortly after deployment and it's still in use and that's something that can tolerate far less damage as it's a precision mirror. These spacecrafts are designed to withstand several such impacts before loosing functionality and a solar sail could withstand far more than most space craft components. As to near relativistic speeds. What do you think cosmic radiation is but subatomic particles at near relativistic speeds and our astronauts on the ISS get hit by that constantly, they even see it as flashes of light when those particles passes through their visual cortex or retina, sure they have a lot of energy but for the most part, it just passes through. Punching a hole through a solar sail is just that, a hole in the solar sail even if the object is relativistic and a perforated solar sail would still function as it should till there's too many holes for structural stability which can be prolonged with battens for support. A relativistic particle wouldn't transfer much of it's energy, it would just punch the hole and travel through, we already have an analog of this when the US tried aluminum bullets during the Vietnam war to reduce the weight of the ammunition that the soldiers carried, sure the bullets still had the kinetic energy as they increased the bullets speed and kinetic energy is proportional to the square of the velocity but the bullets transferred little of it's energy unless it started to tumble from an earlier impact so it pretty much passed through the targets. Just having a lot of kinetic energy doesn't mean you'll deliver all of it on impact.
PRAISE YESHUA FOR MINDS OF INNOVATION EXTRAORDINARY PEOPLE OF VISION
Well that was useless !! No speed and potential speeds !!! Will a laser get it close to light speed ??? Thought there was going to be some basic facts !!! 👎🏿👎🏽👎✌🖖🍁🌻💛💙🇺🇦
السموات السبع والسماء الارض كل سماء له طاقة خاصة مبنية بغير عمد ترونها كل طاقت الكون يتفاعل مع بعض هل تعلم الريح تاتي من السماء الثالثة هل تعلم السحب كيف يتكون لا تعرف
Is this channel funded or directly related to NASA?
No
After the sin of Earth is vanquished, "the redeemed of the LORD" will sail the heavens. Those who haven't proven the existence of GOD in their life, pray the prayer of Gideon: "Let me prove, I pray thee, but this once...and God did so that night." Every genuine heart will receive a revelation in accordance with their faith, from a divine providence to an open display of His power.
You need to seek help
GOD is dead. Long dead.....
Think you’re on the wrong channel
Sorry, we do science here. No "redeemed" sailing to heaven, only spacecraft through space.