On 2008-11-06 19:54:30 -0500, cavelamb himself said:

Absolutely not at all.

And it actually is on topic for the newsgroup ;-)

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_sail


Programmers call that "vapor ware".

Hey, I is one of them, too. I know the difference between not being
able to deliver a promise (vapor) and noting that something is possible
if someone wants to pay for its development (wish list).

And no, we do NOT have the technology for anything like that.

I agree that we couldn't do what I suggest tomorrow, but I'm surprised
how many advancements have been made since I last checked in, how many
creditable tests, both with sails and solar panels, how many probes
have used the underlying techniques successfully.

That they have problems getting the deployment tests launched
successfully is hardly a condemnation of the technology, given what has
been demonstrated. Hell, blame the damn Russian rockets that can't get
it up.

If you want to compare this to anything, I'd point to how much closer
we are to that than we were when JFK challenged us to fly men to the
moon. At the time, we had trouble getting rockets off the launch pad,
much less into space.

HEck, we don't even have the technology to go to the moon at this time.

The technology is proven. It's a HARDware issue!

= Not MY problem ;-)

--
Jere Lull
Xan-à-Deux -- Tanzer 28 #4 out of Tolchester, MD
Xan's pages: http://web.mac.com/jerelull/iWeb/Xan/
Our BVI trips & tips: http://homepage.mac.com/jerelull/BVI/