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 ...

Quick: what’s the most successful, stable, one-design dinghy class in world history? Answer: the Laser, of course, now rolling past 200,000 boats worldwide. In fact, in celebration of this milestone, ...

May 21, 2010: First deployment of a functional solar sail in space, “IKAROS” (Interplanetary Kite-craft Accelerated by Radiation Of the Sun) is demonstrated by the Japanese Space Agency JAXA. 2011: ...

The International Laser Class Association (ILCA) is pleased to announce the release of a completely new class-legal design for the Laser standard rig sail. The release marks the first time in over 40 ...

Diffraction gratings could allow laser-sailing craft to hold the line. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works. Spacecraft could fly to ...

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works. The Breakthrough Starshot initiative, announced last year, has one very ambitious goal: to use ...

Imagine a large, round, flat, thin disk four meters (13 feet) in diameter that weighs just four grams (0.14 ounce, about the same weight as a small coin) and that is big enough to almost cover the ...

The universe is big, staggeringly, mind-bendingly big. There are trillions and trillions of stars in the observable universe but traveling to even the closest one with our best rockets would take tens ...

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 ...

For the first time in its 92-year history, the Tahoe Yacht Club will host the U.S. Laser National Championships, bringing roughly 100 sailboats to the lake to vie for the title over four days of ...

Space travel can be agonizingly slow: For example, the New Horizons probe took almost 10 years to reach Pluto. Traveling to Proxima Centauri b, the closest habitable planet to Earth, would require ...