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Kenn Brown Ready for takeoff? Cosmos' photon-powered ship.
The idea has been around since the 1920s: Propel ships through space on the momentum of countless photons streaming from the sun, reflected by vast, diaphanous sails. But plans for solar-sail craft rarely go farther than blueprints and science fiction.
Now a privately funded venture of the Planetary Society and Cosmos Studios says it's ready to launch – maybe as soon as this winter. If it flies, Cosmos 1 will be the first true solar-sail ship to orbit Earth.
Riding into space atop a converted Russian ICBM launched from a submarine, the unmanned Cosmos 1 will unfurl a pinwheel of aluminized Mylar that's 5 microns thick and 30 meters across. It will be lit by the photons that drive it, making it visible in the night sky until it reenters – and burns up – after three months or so.
In the meantime, the craft could be proof of concept for cheaper interplanetary travel. Solar sails won't exactly get you to warp 6; they provide only a few miles per hour of acceleration each day. But with a big sail and enough time, a ship could go anywhere in the galaxy – compelling stuff for space aficionados like Cosmos Studios CEO Ann Druyan. "If NASA had done this," she says, "I wouldn't have."
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