Re: solar sails

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Article #6942

#6942

From: John Roberts
Date: Sun, 24 Jan 1993 01:15

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-From: MLINDROOS@FINABO.ABO.FI (Marcus Lindroos INF)
-Subject: Re: Solar sails
-Date: 23 Jan 93 08:39:41 GMT
-Organization: Abo Akademi University, Finland

-There was another proposal as well. A small space probe suspended behind a
-giant solar sail (2km across, total mass of one hundred kg(?)) would reach
-Alpha Centauri in 250 years if we make a close flyby of the Sun - one solar
-radius from the surface (0.7 million km). Is there a way to manufacture an
-ultra-light sail able to withstand the temperature (4000-5000K at least)?

Do you have access to the math behind that proposal? It should be impressive -
for instance, the sail has to withstand something around 50 MW/m^2.
(The inverse-square law wouldn't exactly apply as far as photon thrust is
concerned at that distance, but it should be less than a factor of two off.)

John Roberts
roberts@cmr.ncsl.nist.gov

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From: roberts@cmr.ncsl.nist.gov (John Roberts)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: solar sails
Message-ID: <C1C3xs.33E.1@cs.cmu.edu>
Date: 24 Jan 93 01:15:08 GMT
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