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"A good science fiction story should be able to predict not the automobile but the traffic jam."
- Frederik Pohl
 |
| Light Pressure Propulsion | ||
| First mention of the idea that light itself could be a form of propulsion for spacecraft. |
Michel Arden, fearless French adventurer, appears before the Baltimore Gun Club to address them on various matters. Among them, the idea that the projectile shot from the great Columbiad may be just the beginning of fast spacecraft.
| That journey must be undertaken sooner or later; and, as for the
mode of locomotion adopted, it follows simply the law of progress.
Man began by walking on all-fours; then, one fine day, on two
feet; then in a carriage; then in a stage-coach; and lastly
by railway. Well, the projectile is the vehicle of the future,
and the planets themselves are nothing else! Now some of you,
gentlemen, may imagine that the velocity we propose to impart to
it is extravagant. It is nothing of the kind.
All the stars exceed it in rapidity, and the earth herself is at this moment carrying us round the sun at three times as rapid a rate, and yet she is a mere lounger on the way compared with many others of the planets! And her velocity is constantly decreasing. Is it not evident, then, I ask you, that there will some day appear velocities far greater than these, of which light or electricity will probably be the mechanical agent? |
| Technovelgy from From the Earth to the Moon,
by Jules Verne. Published by Pierre-Jules Hetzel in 1867 Additional resources -
|
The existence of light pressure was demonstrated as theoretically possible by James Clerk Maxwell in 1873. Confirming laboratory experiments waited until the turn of the century. Walter James Miller, the translator of the 1978 edition, notes that, "Verne is right on top of new developments in physics . . . . James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879) has recently discovered that light exerts a pressure on surfaces."
The first person to suggest solar sailing was probably Johannes Kepler, in a 1608 letter to Galileo: "Provide ships or sails adapted to the heavenly breezes, and there will be some who will brave even that void.”
Golden age sf great Edmond Hamilton uses this idea explicitly in his 1929 short story The Comet Doom; see the entry for ship propelled by light pressure.
Compare to these propulsion systems: Light Pressure Propulsion (1867),
apergy (1880),
Beam-Powered Propulsion (1931),
Granton motor (1933),
Vibration-Propelled Cruiser (1928),
geodynes (1936),
ion drive (1947),
Planetary Propulsion-Blasts (1934),
stardrive (1953),
solar sail (light sail) (1962),
Lyle drive (1961),
laser cannon (1966),
Bussard ramjet (1976),
asymptotic drive (1976),
Interstellar Laser Propulsion System (1985).
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