Phil Plait aka The Bad Astronomer of this message board, blogs on the Lightsail. Personally, I’m amazed that massless particles can push spaceships to inter-planetary speeds. The Japanese have some bragging rights to this technology: IKAROS flew past Venus back in 2010.
Tomorrow (May 20), the low orbit prototype is launched: the webcast link is here. The ship is burdened by a software bug, but it should still relay images if all goes well. If. Hopefully they will have that sorted out by the April 2016 high orbit launch date.
Are lightsails the space technology of the future? Hard to say. Could lightsails and cubesats put meaningful space exploration in reach of mid-sized countries? I’d like to know.
Space cup. They have a working prototype in the International Space Station. Now they want to make them out of glass for zero g and 1 g encounters.
Q1) Um, why? I know 3-D laser printing is expensive, but c’mon.
My guess: because it’s cool for earthbound folk. Eh, ok.
Q2) That base looks a little narrow for 1 g environments.
The group also says, “With this project supported we’ll also have resources to invest in more like-minded living-and-working in space demonstrations. We’ll let you know what we mean soon…” That I can get behind. I’m pretty excited about working out nuts and bolts stuff.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/spaceware/space-coffee-cup