Word: sailer
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...SAILER Sellersville...
...four cigarettes per acre of surface at the distance of the earth. But it is free and unfailing, and in the weightless, placid vacuum of space, large, frail sails might be spread to intercept it. For a starter, Dr. Cotter would like to try a 50-lb. space sailer. Once launched in the usual way to an orbit around the earth, the satellite would sprout a circular sail of thin plastic coated with shiny aluminum. If the satellite is spinning, the sail would spread itself by centrifugal force. Another method would be to construct a sail with inflatable tubes connected...
...result of this feathering action will be to push the satellite into an elliptical orbit that grows longer and longer until the earth is so far away that its gravitation is negligible, and the satellite can break loose. Dr. Cotter estimates that a 50-lb. space sailer could escape from the earth in about six months...
Orbit to Orbit. Once free from the earth, the space sailer would fall into a solar orbit, use sunlight to waft it almost anywhere in the solar system. For such maneuvering it would need a way to change its sail's angle to the sunlight; Dr. Cotter believes that this can be done by gyroscopic devices that act in response to radio signals from the earth. With its sail broadside to the light, it will be pushed farther and farther from the sun in wider and wider orbits. Eventually it will reach the orbits of Mars or the outer...
...bring the space sailer back to the earth's orbit, the operator on earth could reset the sail at such an angle that sunlight bouncing off would tend to reduce its orbital speed. As the speed slowly diminished, the space sailer would spiral inward toward the sun, eventually returning to the earth's orbit...