Have you ever wanted to join Bill Nye the Science Guy on a cosmic risky venture ? Well , now ’s your probability . Using the funding weapons platform Kickstarter , Nye israising funds to launch his LightSail undertaking , which will essay to sail a diminutive spacecraft using the Sunday ’s Department of Energy .
The LightSail missionhopes to actualize the principle first described by their “ airy founders ” Louis Friedman , Bruce Murray and Carl Sagan . The idea was popularize by Sagan on Johnny Carson ’s " The Tonight Show " ( see video below ) .
LightSail is a ‘ citizen - funded project ’ byThe Planetary Society , which Nye leadsas their chief executive officer . The project will use the sun ’s vim to propel itself into Earth ’s orbit . While light particles , or photons , do n’t have any mass , they do have momentum . The task will use tinyCubeSats , a type of orbiter used in quad research , to acquit large reflective canvas and apply the impulse from photons to speed . The ballistic capsule can accelerate unceasingly and increase in speed over time .
" Through this substantiation - of - conception mission , we will use CubeSats to open new paths beyond Earth and one day potentially to other planets with an cheap , inexhaustible substance of actuation , ” says Nye onLightSail ’s Kickstarter page . “ LightSail actuation truly holds the promise — dare I say it?—to change the world . "
The initial Kickstarter finish of $ 200,000 has already been met , but the projection require to levy $ 1.2 million before the missionary post can be launched . Nye and The Planetary Society are giving away a number of dainty , include musical composition of the solar sheet , to those who make pledge . The reward range from a LightSail T - shirt to the opportunity to station your name to space on LightSail .
A prototype of the spacecraft will be tested by and by this calendar month , though it wo n’t be able to ‘ solar sheet ’ as it will not be high enough above the Earth ’s atmospheric state . The mission is scheduled to set up in the downfall of 2016 . you could learn more about the crowdfunded campaign in the video below .
persona credit : Ed Schipul via Flickr . CC BY - SA 2.0
