Coolest Shit Ever: Ikaros Space Probe To Test Solar Sail Propulsion
18 May, 2010 in Coolest Shit Ever, fnord, sadhana and dharma
Since we, as a country, decided to pussy out of big time space exploration, we have to look to other countries for cool space news.
Japan has developed a probe which will use a solar sail to push it through space. Photons have mass, which is why light can be trapped by the gravitational pull of a black hole. You can read the full article here.
So, although acceleration is going to be super duper slow, it can attain insane speed. Think about it. If you’re being pushed along by particle/wave going at the speed of light, then in a vacuum, you should be able to eventually reach nigh light speed, no? I think you should, and Isaac Newton does too. Maybe Einstein does, but Newton is up in space (at least a piece of the apple tree that gave him the idea that gravity happens.)
It’s the Coolest Shit Ever. Space stuff rules. We should go to space. Yes. The Moon, Mars, Encelades, Europa…. somewhere cool. It’s mythologically necessary.
We, individually, and collectively, cannot allow ourselves to cease striving to experience something commensurate to our capacity for wonder. (to paraphrase Fitzgerald)
Every time we look out there, there is something else that makes us realize that we, as a species, have NO FUCKING idea about anything. One picture of Jupiter… ONE PICTURE destroyed all the theories that we had about planetary evolution. It delights me no end…
The universe is big. Very Big. It’s like Douglas Adams’ Infinite Improbability Drive. When dealing such immense bigness, then the most improbable things are statistically (almost) inevitable.
Have you noticed that w/in the last few years, the language of scientists re: extraterrestrial life has shifted from “looking for it” to “confirming it”. With Enceladus shooting plumes of water ice, organic molecules and nitrogen… those are (as far as we know) the ingredients for life. Shake for billions of years, and let infinite improbability arrange those molecules until it can replicate itself and crash your car.