The stability of a light sail riding on a laser beam is analyzed both analytically and numerically. Conical sails on Gaussian beams, which have been studied in the past, are shown to be unstable in ...

But wait! Is that the rumble of revolution I hear growing louder with each passing sailing day? Why are there so many Laser sailors out there on the water with crisp, new sails that—gasp!—aren’t made ...

Stable flight of a laser sail is an essential requirement of beam-driven propulsion. Centauri Dreams talked to James Benford about work towards stable beam flight. It places considerable demand upon ...

Most space missions rely on chemical rockets for propulsion. Rockets must carry fuel, which increases spacecraft mass and limits their speed and travel distance. For decades, researchers have explored ...

If you have been dreaming of traveling to another star system, researchers say you may need to use a sail. Penn Engineering and UCLA researchers show that light sails could provide interstellar ...

During a parabolic flight over Europe, a small slab of graphene aerogel floated in near-weightlessness while a laboratory laser fired into it. The material moved. Not because of a chemical reaction or ...

At the 2007 Laser Masters Worlds in Roses, Spain, International Laser Class president Tracy Usher started discussions about creating a new sail that would last longer than the existing sail, designed ...

Imagine a place like our solar system. A place with a ‘central’ star orbited by planets but light years away. There might be a planet there with water and living organisms. Now imagine if you could ...

Nanoscale features of a laser-driven light sail showing germanium pillars and air holes embedded in a poly(methyl methacrylate) matrix, designed to achieve high ...