How do solar sails work? Bill Nye explains.

Did you know there's a way for spacecraft to travel farther, faster, and maybe one day reach other stars? Bill Nye is here to teach you about the game-changing technology called solar sailing.

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About The Planetary Society:
The Planetary Society has inspired millions of people to explore other worlds and seek other life. With the mission to empower the world's citizens to advance space science and exploration, its international membership makes the non-governmental Planetary Society the largest space interest group in the world. Carl Sagan, Bruce Murray and Louis Friedman founded the Planetary Society in 1980. Bill Nye, a longtime member of the Planetary Society's Board, serves as CEO.

[KigurumiAlice]

A photon walks into a hotel. The desk clerk says, "Welcome to our hotel. Can we help you with your luggage?" The photon says, "No thanks, I'm traveling light."

[phonotical]

Didn't you upload this already?
I'll happily travel to space with Bill Nye, either sitting along side him, or sitting on his back as he soars majestically through the sky toward the endemian moon

[therealdefoma]

0:21 he looks like Wall-E flying around in space with the fire extinguisher

[abrahamsatinger]

From MIT: a highly acclaimed educational institute produced a roll to roll graphene on copper substrate process!!! There's your graphene and energy production that you smart intelligent scholars can cut and paste together your solar sails!! A roll to roll to solar sails from MIT!

[susanwilson]

I wonder if we could harness the momentum of photons here on earth to create a free energy source?

[Curionauta]

Great video, Bill! Thanks for sharing!

[RaysAstrophotography]

I have been following space sail news. jAXA put to use already for asteroid missions. Funny video Bill! Good information.

[joeyrodriguez]

Congratulations team again! This is history in the making.

[andrewstutz]

Gotta love when engineers have an idea and then the people that build it get to tell them everything they got wrong.

[tfcabral]

You really MUST reproduce that fire extinguisher demo whilst standing on a skateboard.

That would be *RAD!*

[mremington]

Could you explain how a photon could have momentum (M x V) without mass (M)?

[lucyboheme]

Wow!!! This is so cool! Science rocks!

[Bird-]

I'd wonder what additional propulsion they'd be able to pack on board. It'd be significantly limited in total thrust output but you'd need more than just the sun from Earth's distance to gain significant momentum, I'm sure of it.

[Hyunbgcvb]

brilliant with humorous explanation....

[cristianFB]

I got a QUESTION: What is the exact altitude of the SolarSail 2?Cause in the mission dashboard it says the apogee is about 725 km, but the Mission Team says that the Sail had achieved 727 km on 30th July, so what happened in 3 days, I don’t guess the sail had already start to deorbit.Anyone know something more about it?

[zapfanzapfan]

Can we crowd source a Breakthrough starshot if we all go out with a laser pointer at night and point at it? ;-)

[gmonorail]

at perigee atmospheric drag on the sail is larger than the orbital boost at apogee from the sun? so the sail is slowly sinking back down into the atmosphere? is that true?

[HellHammerThrash]

I hate to have to ask this but we've actually been able to measure detectable acceleration from sunlight in solar sailing? or is this all still theoretical?

[rodneycarpluk]

With faster travel it would be similar to the generation ship concept...

[phonotical]

What if the craft was sent spinning around by say grazing a micro meteorite, those photons helpful for travel? Or does it spin onward forever