Reality catches up with science fiction

[TheEnforcer]

Several years ago in a Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode entitled Exlorers http://www.st-hypertext.com/ds9-3/explorers.html (episode guide/review) they talked about space ships using solar sails to fly through space and now we see it coming to reality. It always amazes me when people outright dismiss everything from a sci-fi show just because it's sci-fi. You can see a comparison of what DS9 writers and science adbvisors envisioned a ship like this to be and compare it to what has been now by looking at pictures at this address.
http://www.trekbbs.com/threads/showflat.ph...t=1#Post4608174

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...toryId=4710016

Spacecraft to Launch, Propelled by Sun and Sails
by Nell Boyce



Morning Edition, June 20, 2005 · On Tuesday, a group of private space enthusiasts will launch a new kind of spaceship, pushed along by eight giant sails fueled by light particles. Because such craft don't need to carry fuel, backers hope that solar sailing technology could one day put travel to distant solar systems within reach.

A rocket launched from a Russian submarine under the Barents Sea will send the Cosmos 1 on its way. Once the craft is in orbit some 500 miles above Earth, its eight triangular blades, each incredibly thin and made of mylar, will deploy.

Photons will hit the sails and bounce off, giving Cosmos 1 a push forward that slightly but continuously accelerates it through space. After three years, such a solar sailing ship could cruise along at a 100,000 mph.

But the Cosmos 1 isn't expected to reach those speeds. Louis Freedman of the Planetary Society, the group sponsoring the mission, says radiation is likely to destroy the Cosmos 1's fragile sails after a few months. Tuesday's launch is really a proof of concept. "We're willing to fly for just a few days, go nowhere, but prove the concept of controlled solar sail flight," Freedman says. "Sort of in the spirit of the Wright Brothers, who flew 12 seconds and went nowhere, but it was rather significant."

Web Extra: Setting Sail in Space

By Katie Unger

The Cosmos 1 craft expected to lift off from a Russian submarine on Tuesday will be equipped with sails powered by the sun. These solar sails are like big plastic mirrors that use light particles from the sun to push the spacecraft forward. But researchers are also working on another kind of sun-powered sail, called a plasma sail. It would harness energy not from the sun's light, but from the solar wind -- the charged particles that flow constantly off the sun.

Plasma sails don't look like the billowing sails of a boat, or even the giant plastic triangles used on Cosmos 1. In fact, a plasma sail can't be seen, because it is made up of heated gas and a magnetic field.

Like Cosmos 1, a plasma-powered craft would be small and lightweight, because it wouldn't need to carry any propulsion fuel. But it would need to carry a magnet to generate the balloon-like electromagnetic field around the craft. Injecting the plasma, or hot gas, into the magnetic field would "inflate" it, creating a giant "sail" tens of miles wide. The charged particles of the solar wind would bounce off the magnetic field lines, propelling the craft forward. The solar wind's constant flow would allow the ship to accelerate continuously, picking up speed as it heads towards the outer reaches of the solar system.

A plasma sailing vessel could go stunningly fast. A trip to Mars could take a mere 50 days instead of the six months that's possible with today's technologies, says Robert Winglee, director of the University of Washington's Research Institute for Space Exploration. He's head of a team that has drawn up plans for a plasma sail.

Because bigger sails make for a faster spacecraft, the huge size of plasma sails offers an advantage over solar sails. Using plasma and magnets to make a giant sail might prove easier than trying to make and deploy a plastic solar sail 30 miles wide.

Still, solar sails are way ahead of plasma sails, which have barely left the drawing board. Winglee says plasma researchers have struggled because the sails are complicated to think about. "It's easy to visualize a mechanical surface," like a plastic solar sail, he says. "It's very much harder to visualize a plasma-magnetic system."


And it's also hard to figure out how to test a plasma sail. Les Johnson, who manages NASA's In-Space Propulsion Technology Projects Office at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., says some technical issues are holding back the plasma sail idea. One problem: There aren't big enough vacuum chambers on Earth to test a miles-wide magnetic sail. But Johnson says plasma sails are "a cool idea," and he predicts NASA will give them another look in a few years.

[Bhelliom]

cool article... and i didn't notice the comparison before .. .but interesting.

Seems to me alot of technology these days originated in sci-fi. specifically star trek.

on the original. there were personal computers, 3.5 floppy disks, transporter technology (which right now can only transmit photons or something similarly tiny) cell phones (the communicators), things like credits (todays credit and debit cards), and medical instruments like the pressure injection thing in star trek that is now available. etc etc.

or going back even further to jules vern with 20 000 leagues. a submarine

I believe that without sci-fi not as much of these things would be conceived. or at least not for a longer time. people saw these things on tv or in books and attempted to create them in modern times.

[Trev]

Very cool article and it was an even better episode of DS9

The best inventors have always been the Sci-fi writers, however don’t expect to see warp engines just yet

[TheEnforcer]

Originally posted by Bhelliom@Jun 21 2005, 12:50 PM
cool article... and i didn't notice the comparison before .. .but interesting.

Seems to me alot of technology these days originated in sci-fi. specifically star trek.

on the original. there were personal computers, 3.5 floppy disks, transporter technology (which right now can only transmit photons or something similarly tiny) cell phones (the communicators), things like credits (todays credit and debit cards), and medical instruments like the pressure injection thing in star trek that is now available. etc etc.

or going back even further to jules vern with 20 000 leagues. a submarine

I believe that without sci-fi not as much of these things would be conceived. or at least not for a longer time. people saw these things on tv or in books and attempted to create them in modern times.

Exactly.

I remember in a Philosophy class discussing whether a being like Data from TNG could ever become a reality, and if so, would it deserve the status he received in TNG. http://www.startrek.com/startrek/view/seri...sode/68376.html What astounded me the most about the discussion was the incredible number of people who outright dismissed the possibility that a being like Data could be created. People just dismissed it out of hand which I found rather amazing and sad at the same time.

[Dravyk]

The Science Channel's "Discoveries This Week" magazine show not only did the solar sail but also:

Saving Space Junk

Communication satellites are big business — they relay television signals, voice and data. The problem is that their life span is limited. A new invention called ConeXpress might give them a longer life. Its job is to hunt down aging satellites and save them from becoming space junk. See how this novel invention can prolong the longevity of telecommunications satellites.

The satellite rescuer uses ion propulsion.

[Jeremy]

I think you have to take a good long look at the pic at the bottom of this news article to really understand the deep signifigance of this:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4104282.stm

I think the Beeb may be trying to tell me something :-)

[TheEnforcer]

Originally posted by Jeremy@Jun 21 2005, 04:54 PM
I think you have to take a good long look at the pic at the bottom of this news article to really understand the deep signifigance of this:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4104282.stm

I think the Beeb may be trying to tell me something :-)

[Trev]

Originally posted by Jeremy@Jun 21 2005, 10:54 PM
I think you have to take a good long look at the pic at the bottom of this news article to really understand the deep signifigance of this:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4104282.stm

I think the Beeb may be trying to tell me something :-)

Trust the Beeb

[Dravyk]

Who knew the solar system has a nice set of hooters on 'er!

[Trev]

Originally posted by Dravyk@Jun 22 2005, 01:17 AM
Who knew the solar system has a nice set of hooters on 'er!

With it being billions of years old will the 2257 still apply?

[Almighty Colin]

Originally posted by TheEnforcer@Jun 21 2005, 01:48 PM
I remember in a Philosophy class discussing whether a being like Data from TNG could ever become a reality, and if so, would it deserve the status he received in TNG. http://www.startrek.com/startrek/view/seri...sode/68376.html What astounded me the most about the discussion was the incredible number of people who outright dismissed the possibility that a being like Data could be created. People just dismissed it out of hand which I found rather amazing and sad at the same time.

I've met a lot of those people. They seem to believe in souls - that there is something beyond mechanical processes at work.

[Dravyk]

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