Solar sails are based on the principle that light exerts a tiny pressure on solid objects. Spacecraft have been launched that deployed reflective metallic “sails” to test the idea of using the pressure of sunlight to provide propulsion for future spacecraft. Now researchers are going beyond the conventional materials used for solar sails.
The Google Lunar XPRIZE was a contest that took place between 2007 and 2018. It was organized by the X Prize Foundation and it was sponsored by Google. The challenge was for a privately funded team to be the first to land a robotic spacecraft on the moon which would travel five hundred meters and send high-resolution video and images back to earth. The prize for the winner would be twenty million dollars.
Blue Origin is the private space company started by Jeff Bezos, the Amazon billionaire. During the Space Frontier Foundation’s NewSpace conference in Renton, WA, Blue Origin presented their plan to support the development of permanent settlements on the Moon. Their plans will begin with a mission to land on the Moon in the next five years.
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Up to this point in the evolution of human space launch systems, the best we a have been able to do is to put payloads on huge tanks of propellant and blast our way to orbit. Over the years, a variety of different types systems for getting payloads to orbit have been proposed.
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The International Space Station (ISS) is a habitable artificial satellite in low Earth orbit. The first component for the station was launched in 1998 and the last pressurized module was incorporated in 2011. Components are still being launched to be added to the ISS. The ISS is supposed to be in use until at least 2028.
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