Light Sail

The Planetary Society has called for a kick-starter program that will be funded by citizens around the world to build a solar sail spacecraft. The Planetary Society is an NGO (non-governmental organisation) helm by CEO Bill Nye. Those of you who were born in the 80s or 90s may vividly know him as Bill Nye, The Science Guy. As a kid growing up in the 90s, I used to catch his TV programs here in Singapore. The TV shows did not only serve to inculcate science to kids, but also made them love it! Bill was once a student of a famous astrophysicist, the late Dr. Carl Sagan.

  

Coming back to the topic of solar sails, I am an advocate of space exploration. So-much-so, I have bickered in forums and earned myself a few online "enemies" who were naysayers to huge budget space programs. 

Now, how does all this work? Light is a strange thing. It is a particle and a wave at the same time. The particles of light are called photons and they have no mass. Shiny objects are known to reflect light better than darker objects. When these photons are reflected off a surface, Newton's 3rd law kicks in - whenever there is an action, there will be an equal and opposite reaction. These photons are able to push the light sail that is made of mylar, which is a very shiny and reflective material, thus causing the sail to move in Space.

To know more about how it works and the future goals of solar sails, then check out this link: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/theplanetarysociety/lightsail-a-revolutionary-solar-sailing-spacecraft

As for myself, I have already pledged US$5 (~SG$6.50) to the program. They have already achieved 3 out of 5 goals for their budget milestones and they will be launching the sail via the Delta Heavy rocket by SpaceX in 2016.

With relation to the light sail, The Planetary Society has also planned to send selfies of the public into Space using the light sail in an attempt to garner public attention for the program. So, I thought, "Hey, why not?"

This is the link to send your selfie into Space: http://www.planetary.org/get-involved/messages/lightsail/

I uploaded a photo that was taken with Dr. Neil Tyson during the Cosmos promotional event in Singapore. Well, it wasn't a selfie, but it's going to be damn bloody awesome to see this in Space.

Woohoo! We are sailing through space on LightSail! Weee~