That’s an interesting question. A regular sail can sail into the wind, but they have a triangular sail, and a keel with water resistance. I don’t think any of those things exist in space, so I’m going to guess no. Perhaps some sort of high efficiency propellant keel could make it possible?
As a certified small keelboat skipper, I understand watercraft sails. I think I understand solar sails, but not nearly as well. I know Stephen Hawking wanted to send a bunch of micro drones to Alpha Centauri using solar sails powered by on-board lasers. That seems like the whole fan on a boat pointed at a sail situation, which doesn’t work on earth, so maybe I don’t actually understand solar sails. I’m definitely not going to say that Stephen Motherfucking Hawking was wrong about his area of expertise.
Edit: I got really curious about this after posting and looked into it more. The project was called The Breakthrough Starshot, and I misremembered the configuration. The lasers weren’t onboard the spacecraft, they would have been earth or satellite based. So I guess I do understand how solar sails work. When photons hit the sail, they impart some of their momentum to the sail, and the attached spacecraft. Since billions of photons are hitting the sail every second, all those tiny little pushes provide forward momentum. I’m still not sure if you can use a high efficiency propellant keel to sail towards the light source or not, but I’m thinking probably “no”.
Easily. You’d just have to use it to push your orbit in the right direction at the right time. If you are like Pluto, and way out there with a very eccentric orbit, unfurling the sail as you are heading into the galaxy might make your orbit path curve through the sun itself.
Can a solar sail be used to put a craft into the sun?
That’s an interesting question. A regular sail can sail into the wind, but they have a triangular sail, and a keel with water resistance. I don’t think any of those things exist in space, so I’m going to guess no. Perhaps some sort of high efficiency propellant keel could make it possible?
My intuition would say no, but to be honest, I don’t understand the physics of either solar or watercraft sails.
As a certified small keelboat skipper, I understand watercraft sails. I think I understand solar sails, but not nearly as well. I know Stephen Hawking wanted to send a bunch of micro drones to Alpha Centauri using solar sails powered by on-board lasers. That seems like the whole fan on a boat pointed at a sail situation, which doesn’t work on earth, so maybe I don’t actually understand solar sails. I’m definitely not going to say that Stephen Motherfucking Hawking was wrong about his area of expertise.
Edit: I got really curious about this after posting and looked into it more. The project was called The Breakthrough Starshot, and I misremembered the configuration. The lasers weren’t onboard the spacecraft, they would have been earth or satellite based. So I guess I do understand how solar sails work. When photons hit the sail, they impart some of their momentum to the sail, and the attached spacecraft. Since billions of photons are hitting the sail every second, all those tiny little pushes provide forward momentum. I’m still not sure if you can use a high efficiency propellant keel to sail towards the light source or not, but I’m thinking probably “no”.
If it would work, it would be by stopping the angular momentum around the sun, then letting the sun’s gravity pull the object in.
Yes, because of the way orbits work, you just need to add velocity horizontal to the orbit, which is just as easy going into the sun as out of it.
So a solar sail is just as good both in and out of the sun.
Easily. You’d just have to use it to push your orbit in the right direction at the right time. If you are like Pluto, and way out there with a very eccentric orbit, unfurling the sail as you are heading into the galaxy might make your orbit path curve through the sun itself.