The Planetary Society aims for the final frontier with the launch of their Cosmos 1. A Russian Volna rocket carrying the Cosmos blasted off today from the Barents Sea in the belly of a Russian submarine. In four days, the sails will unfurl and imagination will be taken aback as reality becomes more fantastic. Until now, solar technology has been on the drawing board and in science fiction like Star Trek or Star Wars but solar sails are very real and if this works, will change the landscape of space technology and exploration. All the big space agencies currently have projects in existence dealing with solar sails. Cosmos 1 project director Louis Friedman led a NASA project on solar sails back in the 70s.
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