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Solar Sail Spacecraft

This has nothing to do with religion or apologetics, but it is very cool.

A Russian submarine has launched a prototype space craft that uses the rays of the sun to propel it through space. Several "sails" are deployed to literally catch the sun's rays as a form of propulsion. Not only does this eliminate the need for a bulky and heavy engine (and its fuel), but it provides continued accelaration of the craft over unlimited distances.

See the press release from the outfit behind the launch for specifics.

Update: Unfortunately, the space craft did not reach orbit. So there was no test of the solar sail concept. But perhaps we did learn something about using surplus cold-war era Russian weapons as launch vehicles.

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