fleets of ships will be propelled through space by extremely high energy lasers instead of the Sun.” Science fiction franchises like Star Trek are unlikely to swap out warp drive for laser sail ...

Science fiction ... of solar sailing in the 1920's, but the first work to spark theinterest of scientists and sf writers came in 1951, with the publication of"Clipper Ships of Space." ...

Their finite supply of propellant puts a cap on the manoeuvres they can make. Build a solar sailing ship for space, though, and you can tap into the effectively limitless source of power that ...

“Provide ships ... fiction to reality, and solar sailing once again seemed like an enticing form of propulsion. Soon after its inception, NASA began planning a bevy of ambitious space missions ...

SPACE.com explores how technology drives space exploration and discovery. Sail ships might be the spacecraft that first take human technology to distant stars. Giant sails propelled by the sun's ...

That’s why I like sails, where the energy is not on the ship; it comes from ... It was our achievements in space, going to the moon. It was the dreamers, science fiction writers, and television ...

pushing the craft forward like the wind blowing into a ship’s sails. Although the generated momentum is very small, because there is no air resistance in space, this method can accelerate ships ...

Those words were written almost 150 years ago in Jules Verne's From the Earth to the Moon—just another moment when science fiction predicts ... solar sails, a mode of space propulsion that ...