3 ms·
If you jettisoned lightsail while approaching solar system it would get SLOWED down by Sol's light compared to the main mass of the craft. We would see the ship
by lmilcin 8y ago
If you jettisoned lightsail while approaching solar system it would get SLOWED down by Sol's light compared to the main mass of the craft. We would see the ship first and only then the sail.
Solar sails to be effective would have to be much larger than the craft itself, and also very reflective (by definition), though the reflection don't have to omnidirectional (stealth aircraft/ship principle -- make it reflect a lot but only in very specific direction so that it seems dark to most observers).
Given this, the craft would most likely PRECEDE the sail but would also be smaller and darker and we would most likely not be able to spot it.
- lolc 8y agoUsing a dinky star for acceleration is not going to get you real fast. There could have been a targeted beam to accelerate the craft. And the craft carries fuel for deceleration only.
- Tuna-Fish 8y agoYou can get right up to relativistic velocities if you first sundive as close as you can while keeping your sail folded and protected by a heatshield, and then deploy your sail right next to the sun. But anyway, if you carry a solar sail to accelerate, why would you not use the same sail to decelerate as much as possible too?
- lmilcin 8y agoEspecially if you are going to a star roughly same or higher luminosity, you should have no problem braking with the sail. Also, you probably absolutely need to break with sails since you don't want to carry much fuel to break. Any reasonable amount of fuel required to break will be orders of magnitude more than the payload -- reducing effectiveness of sails by same factor.