Bill Nye's LightSail Satellite Finally Deploys

[Fanghawk]

Bill Nye's LightSail Satellite Finally Deploys

After initial setbacks, Bill Nye and the Planetary Society's LightSail prototype deployed its sails, helping open the door to fuel-less spacecraft propulsion.

<a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/105402-Bill-Nye-the-Science-Guy-Passes-Out-Like-Lady-Gaga>Bill Nye never stopped at making science cool for our childhood selves - he's still advancing the field in amazing ways. One of the best examples is the LightSail. Based on a concept championed by <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/96668-Symphony-of-Science-Makes-Mind-blowing-Music>Carl Sagan, the LightSail is a satellite that deploys Mylar sails, which would let the spacecraft be propelled by sunlight alone. Sadly its prototype suffered several setbacks after launch, the most notable of which was a software glitch preventing Earth-bound communications. The good news is the Lightsail finally deployed its sails yesterday, which lets Bill Nye's Planetary Society prepare for its primary mission in Fall of 2016.

The LightSail prototype originally launched on May 20, where it immediately faced problems. First there was a software glitch that cut off all contact with Earth, forcing researchers to wait for some charged particle to cause a system reboot. Once that finally happened, the sails themselves wouldn't actually unfurl. While the original plan was to wait 28 days for the LightSail to orbit Earth, these delays prompted the researchers to deploy the sails at the earliest opportunity - which according to Bill Nye's Twitter feed, happened sometime yesterday.

[tweet t=https://twitter.com/BillNye/status/607636288737583106]

Once completed, the final LightSail satellite will be a small spacecraft - no bigger than a breadbox - containing 32 square meters of Mylar sails. With each sail being roughly 4.5 microns thick, the Mylar is thin enough that the momentum of light should be enough to propel it through space. If successful, the LightSail can be used to power small research craft without a fuel source, and perhaps larger vessels shortly after.

The initiative is being developed by the Planetary Society, of which Bill Nye is CEO. Naturally, a significant portion of its funding will come from Kickstarter backers, thanks to a campaign that raised over $800,000 over the past two months. If you're looking to contribute yourself, the campaign runs for another 17 days - because who doesn't want to tell everyone they're actively funding space travel?

Source: Washington Post

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[flying_whimsy]

I had no idea Bill Nye was still being awesome.

I always thought solar sails were a pipe dream. I guess the question now is how big of a ship you can pull and at what speed?

 

[martyrdrebel27]

I had no idea Bill Nye was still being awesome.

I always thought solar sails were a pipe dream. I guess the question now is how big of a ship you can pull and at what speed?

oh man, you been missing out! bill nye has been kicking ass for a bit now. he did a debate destroying a creationist which was just awesome to watch.

 

[Deathfish15]

I had no idea Bill Nye was still being awesome.

I always thought solar sails were a pipe dream. I guess the question now is how big of a ship you can pull and at what speed?

oh man, you been missing out! bill nye has been kicking ass for a bit now. he did a debate destroying a creationist which was just awesome to watch.

Thanks, but that sucked to listen to. Not because Bill Nye, but the other guy talking about "hijacking the words 'evolution' and 'science'" as well as "indoctrinating young generations". A blowhard through and through that keeps repeating the same things over and over again.

What's funny is the guy tried to split science to "observable science vs historical science", claiming that what you SEE is not the same thing as what you interpret to the past. Yet time and time again his sources and information goes back to a 'historical book' known as the Bible and his obsession with Genesis. Claiming that all humans are one race and that is because of the God creation at the language split of Babel instead of them being one genetic race that had subtle mutations -skin, eyes, hair color, etc.- over time through evolution based on their surrounding environment?

It was just...a painful sit through to listen to that guy. But...but, Bill Nye got on. Yay!

 

[martyrdrebel27]

I had no idea Bill Nye was still being awesome.

I always thought solar sails were a pipe dream. I guess the question now is how big of a ship you can pull and at what speed?

oh man, you been missing out! bill nye has been kicking ass for a bit now. he did a debate destroying a creationist which was just awesome to watch.

Thanks, but that sucked to listen to. Not because Bill Nye, but the other guy talking about "hijacking the words 'evolution' and 'science'" as well as "indoctrinating young generations". A blowhard through and through that keeps repeating the same things over and over again.

What's funny is the guy tried to split science to "observable science vs historical science", claiming that what you SEE is not the same thing as what you interpret to the past. Yet time and time again his sources and information goes back to a 'historical book' known as the Bible and his obsession with Genesis. Claiming that all humans are one race and that is because of the God creation at the language split of Babel instead of them being one genetic race that had subtle mutations -skin, eyes, hair color, etc.- over time through evolution based on their surrounding environment?

It was just...a painful sit through to listen to that guy. But...but, Bill Nye got on. Yay!

you know what really bothers me? personally, i'm non-religious, but open to the idea that maybe things are more complicated than we understand, and if christians wouldn't fight science, there's a line of thought that allows the two to coexist. the complexity of the universe and life itself, as well as little things like eclipses. the only way an eclipse works is because of the EXACT size of the moon, the EXACT size of the sun, and our distance from each of those, makes them appear to be the same size. if i were trying to promote the idea that god created existence, i'd be playing that fact on a loop, because it really is a bizarre coincidence.

but instead, they cling to an impossible narrative enforced by a book written by committee about a guy hundreds of years after he died which was really just a modified version and amalgamation of other solar messiahs and pagan rituals and NONE OF IT MAKES ANY GOD DAMN SENSE. science doesn't discount the possibility of god, just the accepted judeo-christian dogma, where as their belief in Genesis creation discounts the possibility of OBSERVABLE SCIENCE. it's bananas.

EDIT: didn't occur to me until right after, but...
Captcha: angel food

 

[Veldel]

That momment when you see your childhood hero continue kicking ass and still being that awesome science guy.


Bill Nye the science guy is awesome and what he just did is fucking amazing

 

[LordLundar]

Holy shite! For those of you unaware what this means, consider this: The current method for getting an orbital the equivalent to a cell phone communication satellite requires roughly similar fuel amounts to the ENTIRE Apollo 11 run. If this pans out we can have a full topological analysis of Neptune simply for the cost of getting it into orbit, without it taking several decades. Stellar travel just got a lot more feasible.

 

[Smooth Operator]

the only way an eclipse works is because of the EXACT size of the moon, the EXACT size of the sun, and our distance from each of those, makes them appear to be the same size. if i were trying to promote the idea that god created existence, i'd be playing that fact on a loop, because it really is a bizarre coincidence.

Mate that I think it's time to revise basic geometry, the moon casts a gigantic cone of shadow and as long as you stand in it things look like they "perfectly" overlap... but they in no way do, you just can't see anything beyond the moon. The moon could have been a thousand times bigger or smaller and as long as you stood on the right spot shit would look the same.

OT: Kinda odd that KS finances space programs these days but hey if it gets things done, and I don't imagine photon collision sails will be breaking any speed records but it's worth a shot to see what we can get out of it.

 

[zinho73]

you know what really bothers me? personally, i'm non-religious, but open to the idea that maybe things are more complicated than we understand, and if christians wouldn't fight science...

Not all christians, though , mostly creationists (although other branches of several religions did have problems with science at one point or another), but not today.

 

[Jake Martinez]

you know what really bothers me? personally, i'm non-religious, but open to the idea that maybe things are more complicated than we understand, and if christians wouldn't fight science...

Not all christians, though , mostly creationists (although other branches of several religions did have problems with science at one point or another), but not today.

So, I went to Catholic school pretty much my entire life and I can attest to the fact that Catholics are not creationists. In fact, St. Augustine somewhere around the 5th century warned explicitly against a literal interpretation of Genesis and much later St. Thomas is famously on the record with this quote:

one should not try to defend the Christian faith with arguments that are so patently opposed to reason that the faith is made to look ridiculous... irrisio infidelium, the scorn of the unbelievers.

We know for a fact that both deceased Pope John Paul and the current Pope Francis, are not creationists, with the former actually writing in a missive to his bishops that evolution was "more than a hypothesis" and the later coming out in support of evolution in a public speech just last year.

Basically the Church learned it's lesson with Galileo and since that time has been fairly steadfast in both respecting scientific inquiry and not creating dogma that runs counter to reason. To put it succinctly - it focuses on the matters of the soul and divinity and not on the rotation of planets. In this particular case, trying to insist that God created life with a magic wand isn't something the Church is interested in. Instead, it prefers to focus on why.

All that being said, the Church doesn't forbid people from being Creationists if they want to be. It has (wisely) decided to just stay officially out of it while pointing out that evolution is not incompatible with their belief that God created the universe and life.

To be truthful, I've met very few actual creationists in my life and asides from one or two strange Methodists in the UK, overwhelmingly they tend to both be Americans and Evangelicals. It's really not that popular of a view point in the rest of the world.

 

[Mike000]

Big Bang Theory?
- was proposed by a Catholic priest.

Genetic Inheritance Theory (aka Mendelian Inheritance)?
- was proposed by a Catholic monk.

The bible wasn't written* "hundreds of years" after the death of Jesus (*compiled, sure) - the earliest gospels date to within 50 years. And the parallels to other "solar messiahs" are massively overblown by researchers who are about as competent as the "Aliens!" guy. The Galileo thing had a lot more to do with blatantly insulting the pope than with the science.

 

[The Almighty Aardvark]

Mate that I think it's time to revise basic geometry, the moon casts a gigantic cone of shadow and as long as you stand in it things look like they "perfectly" overlap... but they in no way do, you just can't see anything beyond the moon. The moon could have been a thousand times bigger or smaller and as long as you stood on the right spot shit would look the same.

While this is true, there's still a lot of factors that need to come together for us to be able to have total solar AND lunar eclipses. We're still rather fortunate that the size and the distance of our moon is such that it allows both.

 

[Smooth Operator]

While this is true, there's still a lot of factors that need to come together for us to be able to have total solar AND lunar eclipses. We're still rather fortunate that the size and the distance of our moon is such that it allows both.

Right...
Never mind that the margin for error with bodies this big is astronomic, never mind that near every planet with a moon will have total solar and lunar eclipses, never mind any of that, let's just give credit to the Tooth fairy for all of it.

Fucking hell why do I even try to reason with you people.

 

[The Almighty Aardvark]

Right...
Never mind that the margin for error with bodies this big is astronomic, never mind that near every planet with a moon will have total solar and lunar eclipses, never mind any of that, let's just give credit to the Tooth fairy for all of it.

Fucking hell why do I even try to reason with you people.

Hi, could you point to me where I said that it was evidence of some supernatural force?

Mars at the very least, doesn't get total solar eclipses, and judging by the number of moons on all of the jovian planets they're statistically bound to have at least one.

Our moon has to have the right size such that the umbra is cast on the earth when it overlaps. If it doesn't, you just fall under the penumbra and get a partial solar eclipse. It could err on the side of appearing bigger in our sky, but it couldn't afford to be much smaller.

STILL not claiming that this is evidence of a god or divine intervention, or that I believe in either. All I'm saying that we're pretty lucky to have them.

EDIT: Decided to look closer at your first post and noticed something I skimmed over:

The moon could have been a thousand times bigger or smaller and as long as you stood on the right spot shit would look the same.

If the moon was twice as big, it'd appear twice as large in our sky. Maybe you should be reviewing your basic geometry. For it to look the same, our distance would have to change by the same factor its size is changing by. Similar triangles and all

EDIT 2:

You know, I forgot about the actual question I had for the article. With this sail being so incredibly thin, what's stopping it from being torn up by a miniscule piece of space junk? It's it simply a matter of the density of matter in space making it a non-issue? We can keep track of space junk greater than 0.4cm in diameter, but a stray piece of space dust would be more than enough to tear holes in this

 

[direkiller]

judging by the number of moons on all of the jovian planets they're statistically bound to have at least one.

It's almost one a cycle
http://cheller.phy.georgiasouthern.edu/~jhigdon/classes/astro1000/movies/jupiter_io.jpg
Jovian moons don't have anywhere near the inclnaiton of the moon, and gas giants are rather large, so it's rare moon cycle if they don't have one

 

[martyrdrebel27]

the only way an eclipse works is because of the EXACT size of the moon, the EXACT size of the sun, and our distance from each of those, makes them appear to be the same size. if i were trying to promote the idea that god created existence, i'd be playing that fact on a loop, because it really is a bizarre coincidence.

Mate that I think it's time to revise basic geometry, the moon casts a gigantic cone of shadow and as long as you stand in it things look like they "perfectly" overlap... but they in no way do, you just can't see anything beyond the moon. The moon could have been a thousand times bigger or smaller and as long as you stood on the right spot shit would look the same.

OT: Kinda odd that KS finances space programs these days but hey if it gets things done, and I don't imagine photon collision sails will be breaking any speed records but it's worth a shot to see what we can get out of it.

so, admittedly geometry isn't my strongest subject, but you have to revise your whole understanding of perspective... if we were as close to the sun as say, mercury, our moon wouldn't be big enough to eclipse the sun. if our moon was was half the size it is now, our moon wouldn't be big enough to eclipse the sun. if our moon was a third of the size it is now, it wouldn't be big enough to eclipse the son.

all of this is fairly obvious. mate.