Questions tagged [solar-sail]

I have an interest in solar sails as a method of propulsion. I have thought of the following interesting question about the workings of solar sails, which I just don’t have the mathematical ability to be able to answer, but hopefully some of the…

Solar sails are not fast and acceleration is not going to provide meaningful simulated gravity. For a long journey, spinning a ship to provided simulated gravity can provide health benefits. Essentially the ship and sail configuration is a large…

I know a mission to Venus was conducted using a solar sail -- however, once unfurled using rotation kinetic energy, it could not be retracted. Would retracting a solar sail cause uncontrollable spinning? Or is there a known design that prevents…