A New Kind of Solar Sail

[XCV330]

Scientists at University of Nottingham seem to have developed a new kind of solar sail:

News - New study shows potential for improved fuel-free spacecraft sails - University of Nottingham

A new study from the University of Nottingham has explored the use of fuel-free spacecraft propulsion systems and how they could be used in future space missions.

www.nottingham.ac.uk

This could be very significant for deorbiting sats, cheap deep space mission.

It is interesting they speficially mentioned orbital sunshades. I have thought this was a great idea but finding a way to maintain such a large structure in a stable orbit seemed undoable. Now it's just incredibly expensive and politically difficult.

How would you see cheap effective solar sails changing things in the future, if at all?

 

[Santaman]

Sunshades are a no no, dim the sun and cloud cover goes bye bye, would be bad for rain etc...

Why low-level clouds vanish during a solar eclipse

Cumulus clouds rapidly dissipate as the land surface cools. This isn't just good news for eclipse chasers on April 8, but also has implications for sun-obscuring geoengineering efforts.

www.space.com

As for solar sails, anything that can get humanity cheaply flying around in space is good of course.

 

[XCV330]

Sunshades are a no no, dim the sun and cloud cover goes bye bye, would be bad for rain etc...

Why low-level clouds vanish during a solar eclipse

Cumulus clouds rapidly dissipate as the land surface cools. This isn't just good news for eclipse chasers on April 8, but also has implications for sun-obscuring geoengineering efforts.

www.space.com

As for solar sails, anything that can get humanity cheaply flying around in space is good of course.

You could use a smaller dedicated shade over an area that was already essentially desert like much of Antarctica to try to lower the average mean temperature during Southern Hemisphere winter. As long as it wasn't near the coast its effect on almost any life would be negligible.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

Sunshades could perhaps be used to deny solar input to hurricanes, so potentially reducing their strength. I expect fine-tuning their position might be problematic, unless there were a lot of them whose operation could be coordinated. Possibly a more sensible idea than nuking such weather systems, but maybe only barely.

 

[XCV330]

I do like the idea of using solar sails for small scale asteroid mining. Have a good prospecting telescope in orbit, send the sailcraft out to the rock, do the initial drill and assay. if its worth it, you can start small scale cycler orbit trips back and forth until you're ready for large scale mining.