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Solar sails and large open spaces face big challenges, but experiments like JAXA’s IKAROS, the LightSail missions, and NASA’s NanoSail-D2 have shown that solar

Solar sails and large open spaces face big challenges, but experiments like JAXA’s IKAROS, the LightSail missions, and NASA’s NanoSail-D2 have shown that solar sails can work in space.

PaulHoule 2y ago
Somebody pointed out to me that IKAROS didn’t last that long (neither did its namesake), so far that’s the best rebuttal to my L1 sunshade plan but I’d imagine a second generation product could do better. People so forget that space is a corrosive environment that will wreck many materials. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Duration_Exposure_Facility https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Duration_Exposure_Facilit...
fooqux 2y ago
Isn't that a bit like saying the solar car cross-country races show that solar-powered cars can work? In both cases the 'payload' and vehicles are stripped to the barest essentials. Solar sails with any significant mass attached to them would either need to be impossibly large, and/or operate on timescales that make ion propulsion seem like a warp drive. And that's not counting the issue of stopping when you get to your destination, which will either require some insane laser/power source already at your destination, or propellant- in which case you're back to just using that in the first place.
- firesteelrain 2y ago
  You’re right. Solar sails need to be massive to move anything heavy, and they take a long time to build up speed. Stopping is another big hurdle. But they’re not supposed to replace everything. They’re useful when you can’t carry fuel, like on really long missions. They’re slow, but they work for what they’re designed to do: keep going without needing fuel.
  - PaulHoule 2y ago
    Funny, a low performance solar sail is actually a high performance sunshade, you’d actually do better with a black sunshade than a highly reflective one.

Solar sails and large open spaces face big challenges, but experiments like JAXA’s IKAROS, the LightSail missions, and NASA’s NanoSail-D2 have shown that solar sails can work in space.

PaulHoule 2y ago

Somebody pointed out to me that IKAROS didn’t last that long (neither did its namesake), so far that’s the best rebuttal to my L1 sunshade plan but I’d imagine a second generation product could do better. People so forget that space is a corrosive environment that will wreck many materials. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Duration_Exposure_Facility https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Duration_Exposure_Facilit...

fooqux 2y ago

Isn't that a bit like saying the solar car cross-country races show that solar-powered cars can work? In both cases the 'payload' and vehicles are stripped to the barest essentials. Solar sails with any significant mass attached to them would either need to be impossibly large, and/or operate on timescales that make ion propulsion seem like a warp drive. And that's not counting the issue of stopping when you get to your destination, which will either require some insane laser/power source already at your destination, or propellant- in which case you're back to just using that in the first place.

firesteelrain 2y ago
You’re right. Solar sails need to be massive to move anything heavy, and they take a long time to build up speed. Stopping is another big hurdle. But they’re not supposed to replace everything. They’re useful when you can’t carry fuel, like on really long missions. They’re slow, but they work for what they’re designed to do: keep going without needing fuel.
- PaulHoule 2y ago
  Funny, a low performance solar sail is actually a high performance sunshade, you’d actually do better with a black sunshade than a highly reflective one.