NASA set to launch 13k square foot solar sail as early as next year

via techi.com

It’s the type of vision that spawns realities unimaginable to most, but it’s a vision that has come true in recent years and that will receive its biggest test as early as 2014, according to NASA. The sail utilizes the “currents” of the Sun’s energy to propel it through space much the same way that wind pushes a sail boat across the ocean. NASA’s project, nicknamed Sunjammer in honor of its conceptual genesis, will put a 13,000 square foot sail into space. It sounds big, but once collapsed it’s the size of a dishwasher and weighs 70 lbs.

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