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You are not pushing a light sail ship to another star system, sorry. Light sails are "theoretically" possible but you don't need that much energy to push somet
by raverbashing 5y ago
You are not pushing a light sail ship to another star system, sorry.
Light sails are "theoretically" possible but you don't need that much energy to push something that's feasible to push.
Or better, there's a better source of light radiation: the sun itself. No need for a laser, just use a focusing mirror and you can have 100x more pressure than just from the sun itself.
- ansible 5y agoLight sails are practical, and have already been tested in orbit. https://www.planetary.org/articles/lightsail-2-successful-flight-by-light https://www.planetary.org/articles/lightsail-2-successful-fl... Light from the Sun isn't coherent, and you can't focus it with mirrors very far away. Lasers have many orders of magnitude less divergence when talking about distances measured in light-years.
- webmaven 5y ago> Light from the Sun isn't coherent, and you can't focus it with mirrors very far away. Lasers have many orders of magnitude less divergence when talking about distances measured in light-years. To expand on your point, those characteristics become even more important when using the light received to decelerate at your destination, though it is worth noting that there are alternative means of deceleration that don't have the same requirements (eg. electric and magnetic sails).
- naasking 5y agoWhy not? Light sails can reach 10% the speed of light, and sending out thousands of colony ships in multiple directions seems like a feasible way to colonize a galaxy relatively quickly. As the other poster mentioned, harnessing the sun's energy and turning it into a better form suited for light sails is the way to go. Sailing on the solar wind within a star system is a different tech with a different purpose.