التخطي إلى المحتوى الرئيسي

Bill Nye wants your help going to space

See full gallery on TechnoBuffalo

An original concept by Carl Sagan is being conceived into action by an Avengers-style team of super scientists, and they need your help. Bill Nye and The Planetary Society are attempting to raise money, via Kickstarter, for a new project known as LightSail, a sailing spacecraft that utilizes solar power to propel itself across the galaxy.

I’ll let Nye himself explain what makes LightSail so intriguing:

  • Imagine it: unlimited free energy from the Sun will provide CubeSats with propulsion and revolutionize access to space for low-cost citizen projects—projects like ours or by teams of students and faculty at universities. This means that spacecraft, especially small ones like CubSats, won’t have to carry heavy fuels into orbit, and that the acceleration will be continuous.

You can actually see Sagan promote his solar sailing idea on Johnny Carson’s The Tonight Show (video below).

Solar sails work by using the sun’s energy as a means of propulsion. Light produces energy called photons, reflects off the sail, and transfers its momentum. While the acceleration is relatively small, the Sun’s light will provide a continuous stream of energy, allowing the LightSail to travel anywhere in our solar system—and maybe even into interstellar space.

The first official test flight will actually take place later this month, though it won’t fly high enough to test the solar sailing. Instead, the goal is to test out the system’s sail deployment sequence, ensuring LightSail’s technology is sound. With enough money, The Planetary Society hopes to deploy the first LightSail into space next year.

You can support the project here, and read more about it here.



Source: PlanetarySociety

from TechnoBuffalo http://ift.tt/1KbHGfW
التسميات:

تعليقات

إرسال تعليق

المشاركات الشائعة من هذه المدونة

Exec behind “Next Big Thing” campaign has departed Samsung

Samsung Mobile CMO, Todd Pendleton, has reportedly departed the company, according to CNET . Pendleton is credited with creating Samsung’s famous “Next Big Thing” campaign, which took aim at the company’s rivals while highlighting the benefits of its own mobile lineup. The ads were smart, terse, and ultimately helped raise the awareness of Samsung’s brand as a major smartphone maker here in the U.S. It’s unclear why Pendleton left, but it’s being reported that Samsung executives became dissatisfied with the campaign’s recent success, even going so far as auditing the mobile division’s Dallas headquarters. It seems you can only use the Next Big Thing tagline so many times; the commercials have taken a decidedly different turn over the past few months, focusing on design, functionality and features rather than bashing Samsung competitors. The timing, I suppose, seems appropriate given that Samsung has just unveiled two new flagships, the Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge. Samsung is clearly ...
إرسال تعليق
قراءة المزيد

Mad Max meets Mario Kart is just bloody brilliant

How is this for a clever mash-up?  sundbergkr ‘s Mario Kart: Fury Road parody trailer mashes up the worlds of Mad Max and Mario Kart to epic results in this wonderful parody of the film’s trailer. What’s really special about this mash-up is that it isn’t entirely overdone. The Mario references are brief, subtle, and appear just long enough for you to appreciate them before waiting eagerly for the next one. Without a doubt the giant Chomp is the most laugh out loud moment, but the creators also slip in some perfectly timed and inappropriate voice clips during the violent action. I still haven’t seen Mad Max: Fury Road , due it not coming out in Japan until June 20, but I had purposely avoided the trailers to not get any spoilers. Now, thanks to Mario, June 20 can’t come fast enough! Source : Via : Destructoid from TechnoBuffalo http://ift.tt/1AvRv58
إرسال تعليق
قراءة المزيد

The Sega Saturn hit shelves 20 years ago today

20 years ago today, one of the weirdest consoles we’ve seen hit the market: The Sega Saturn. Looking at the image above, if you haven’t seen the Saturn before, it might not look that weird at a glance – disc tray, six buttons on the controller, black plastic. Nothing too bizarre there. It’s how Sega got to the Saturn that’s strange. Sega was riding high on the wild success of the Sega Genesis at the time. Sega of America had taken the Mega Drive, renamed Genesis in the United States, from a tiny also-ran to an equal player against the Super Nintendo. Sega was, of course, looking for the next big thing. Sega of America’s president Tom Kalinske courted Sony Interactive Entertainment’s Olaf Olafsson first, almost reaching a deal to cooperate on a new console. That fell through, just as Sony’s negotiations with Nintendo had before that. When Kalinkse brought the idea to the board at Sega of Japan, they weren’t interested in working with the guys who make Walkman stereos (kids, ask your...
إرسال تعليق
قراءة المزيد