solar sail n.
a surface designed to utilize the pressure of solar radiation to provide the propulsive force for a spacecraft to which it is attached
Propulsion
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1958 Manchester Evening News 20 Sept. 6/3
[quoting an unnamed scientist:] Striking the aluminium side of a large solar sail, the rays would cause it to accelerate. A manned vehicle attached to the sails by lines would be capable of going to any point in the solar system.
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1960 Aeroplane 99 693/1
Another interesting concept which has not yet really undergone feasibility determination is that of the solar sail. With this device, a space ‘ship’ may some day be able literally to sail through interplanetary space.
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1993
Kim Stanley Robinson
The material of the two silicate asteroids was transformed by their robot crews into sheets of solar sail material.
Green Mars (new ed.) 135
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1998
David Brin
The image you see is caused by a tremendous reflector-and-energy-collector…a solar sail.
Heaven’s Reach 72
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1998 Interzone July 20/1
Time meant nothing to the bioprobes' dreamless minds, chilled almost to coma in the payload of the immense solar sail.
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2012
page image
Jason Sanford
bibliography
My hopes die when I look at the collapsed solar sail—during the crash, one of the ship’s structural beams impaled it.
Heaven’s Touch in Asimov’s Science Fiction Aug. 27
Research requirements
antedating 1958
Earliest cite
Manchester Evening News
Research History
Simon Koppel submitted a 1958 cite from the Manchester Evening News.
Last modified 2021-04-02 14:52:37
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