POV-Ray : Newsgroups : povray.binaries.images : Solar Sail : Re: Solar Sail Server Time
1 Oct 2024 15:24:45 EDT (-0400)
  Re: Solar Sail  
From: Jamie Davison
Date: 5 Sep 2000 14:22:55
Message: <MPG.141e35b960a36cdc9897b5@news.povray.org>
On Mon, 04 Sep 2000 11:19:31 -0300, Simon de Vet wrote...
> Anyone have steering ideas?

Erm, Solar sails aren't really massively steerable, unless you can find 
another source of light pressure to fly away from.  So you fly from star 
to star, hoping to god that you get your exit vector right in order to 
get to the next one...

Not strictly relevant, but IIRC Larry Niven used light sails to get 
bussard ramships up to sufficient speed for their ramscoops to start 
functioning efficiently in his Known Space stories.

I suppose you could use *big* lateral steering motors to give you some 
fine control over direction of travel, but doing a u-turn is none too 
practical, or even possible.

Whoops, starting to waffle, and besides I need to go to bed since I start 
my new job on the morrow (Which means this won't be sent until Tuesday 
evening, despite being written Monday evening)

Bye for now,
     Jamie.


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