Via NASA’s headline service comes this report about an experimental spacecraft that would use the solar wind to push on a magnetic field generated by a small spacecraft (instead of the Clarkian standby of a big-ass sheet of mylar.) If launched in 2002, it could reach the Heliopause, the edge of Solar space by 2013.
This little ship will be fast:
“There is enough power in the solar wind to accelerate a 136 kg (300 lb) spacecraft to speeds of up to 288,000 km/h (180,000 mph) or 6.9 million km (4.3 million mi) a day. By contrast, the space shuttle travels at about 7.7 km/s (17,300 mph) or 688,000 km (430,000 mi) a day.”
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