solar sailing n.

propelling a spacecraft via a solar sail n.

  • 1959 T. N. Scortia Race into Space in Future Science Fiction June 109/1 page image Thomas N. Scortia bibliography

    There’s another very clever device for using the sun’s energy…and that’s the use of solar sailing.

  • 1959 Marin News (Sausalito, California) 3 Jan. 3/5 page image

    Solar sailing is based on the use of the pressure of sunlight (photons) reflected by a large thin sail in much the same way that sailboats use the wind.

  • 1973 C. Sagan Cosmic Connection xxiii. 162 Carl Sagan

    Solar sailing, the use of the pressure of sunlight and of the protons and electrons in the solar wind for tripping through the solar system.

  • 1988 C. Sheffield Across the Great Divide in J. Baen New Destinies (#3) Spring 21 page image Charles Sheffield bibliography

    We can expect developments in chemical rockets, and we can expect ion propulsion and perhaps solar sailing and nuclear to help out on the long hauls.

  • 2008 A. C. Clarke & F. Pohl Last Theorem xxxvii. 237 Arthur C. Clarke Frederik Pohl bibliography

    Natasha’s smile persisted as she thought of all the attempts she had made to explain solar sailing to audiences of potential backers and the merely curious on Earth.


Research requirements

antedating 1959

Research History
Simon Koppel submitted a 1959 cite from a newspaper database.

Last modified 2021-04-02 12:28:21
In the compilation of some entries, HDSF has drawn extensively on corresponding entries in OED.