Send a message from Earth...

[subro]

I came across this today and while it is kind of cheesy, it is free and pretty cool technology. You can have your name and a personal message digitally encoded on a Mini-DVD that will be attached to two upcoming Solar Sail Projects. The last day to sign up for the Ikaros launch is today. Lightsail won’t take off for at least another year. You can also print out a certificate documenting that you participated in the project.

Solar sails take shape

Posted: Friday, March 19, 2010 8:17 PM by Alan Boyle

As Japan gears up to send the first working solar sail into deep space in a couple of months, the Planetary Society is moving ahead with its own solar-sail project. You can put your name on both sails … if you act now.
Monday is the deadline for adding your name to the list for Japan's Ikaros spacecraft, due to piggyback on the May 18 launch of the Venus-bound Akatsuki orbiter aboard a Japanese H-2A rocket. More than 25,000 people have signed up already using the Planetary Society's "Sail Away" Web page - and when those are added to the Japanese list, the tally goes up to 60,000 names.

All those names will be digitally encoded on the same kind of silica glass mini-DVD that was sent to the Red Planet on the Phoenix Mars Lander as well as on each of NASA's Mars rovers, said Bruce Betts, director of projects for the Planetary Society. The California-based society is a space advocacy group co-founded by the late astronomer Carl Sagan.

LightSail-1 and Ikaros are both aimed at showing that solar sails can actually propel a spacecraft through the cosmos - something that's never been done before, even though people have tried for more than a decade. Russian solar sail missions failed in 1999 and 2001. The Japanese successfully tested the deployment of a solar sail in 2004, but that suborbital experiment did not address the propulsion question. A NASA experiment known as NanoSail-D went awry in 2008 when its SpaceX Falcon 1 launch vehicle failed to reach orbit.

The idea behind solar sailing is that photons of light bounce off the sail's surface, exerting enough pressure over a wide surface to give a push to the spacecraft. That push is gentle, but over time, the steady acceleration from sunlight could eventually send the sail on an interstellar cruise.

http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2010/03/19/2233551.aspx

[jandar]

Thanks for the reminder.

[Bostech]

I hope they included DVD player with disk and instructions how to use it.

[buckethead]

I hope they included DVD player with disk and instructions how to use it.

It is to track your estate after you die. IRS, man...

[BridgeTroll]

Cool... my name is on Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity.  Just added myself to these two space craft... unfortunately this is the only way I will be able to get off this planet...

[Bewler]

I hope they included DVD player with disk and instructions how to use it.

Not to mention the dvd player better be battery operated, otherwise they're going to have to include an electrical outlet and some form of powersupply. Unless of course all aliens use the standard dual prong.

[Bostech]

They should have sent AOL Online CD too.

[Jason]

Bos I love your avatar.  Since you have three would you mind sharing one with me?

[JaxNative68]

I hope they included DVD player with disk and instructions how to use it.

Not to mention the dvd player better be battery operated, otherwise they're going to have to include an electrical outlet and some form of powersupply. Unless of course all aliens use the standard dual prong.

it will be tethered to the earth via extension cords sponsored by Home Depot . . . I'm sure the aliens have honey-do lists as well.