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One on Powwows of New York.
Celebrating the Powwow Way of Life
BY SHADI RAHIMI
They came from as far away as Mexico, in vans, trucks or motor homes, and camped beneath the stars at Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn. At first light they awoke to prepare to thrill the children who came from schools across the city to see them dance.
And thrill they did. The powwow dancers, spinning furiously while shifting their feet to the beat of a drum punctuated by the wail of a male singer, caused the wide-eyed students to say things like "Dang, look at that," and "That's mad cool!"
For many visitors at the Gateway to Nations powwow yesterday, the event was the first time they had seen American Indian dancers, touched American Indian crafts or eaten American Indian cuisine like buffalo burgers or venison stew.
But for the hundreds of artisans and performers across North and South America who travel the powwow circuit, driving with family or hitching rides to the hundreds of festivals, powwows are a way of life.
"It always makes me feel like I've found home," said Ruth Maracle, 57, who was born on the Six Nations of the Grand River reservation in Ontario, Canada.
The Gateway to Nations powwow, now in its 11th year, is one of the few times when the more than 41,000 American Indian and Alaska Natives scattered across New York City to mingle, shop, eat and share traditions.
Run by the Redhawk Native American Arts Council in Brooklyn, the powwow, which continues through tomorrow, typically draws more than 8,000 visitors a day, a majority of whom are not American Indian, said the director of the arts council, Cliff Matias.
"The same way that native people opened their arms to people all across the world when they came here, during our festival, we open our arms," Mr. Matias said.
"Our purpose is to educate. I've seen people come wearing giant war bonnets, not knowing they're symbols of status for Plains people. We try to break stereotypes and show who we are today."
Jack Goldwasser, 66, of Staten Island was attending the powwow for the second time, drawn by the education he said he got last year and "the quietness; it's not a carnival."
Mr. Goldwasser pointed excitedly at a dancer in yellow regalia: "Now isn't that lovely? Look at that."
The dancer, Calvin Burns, 35 and from Williamsburg, is used to attracting attention. A member of the Shinnecock tribe, he started dancing at the age of 4 and is now a champion, winning contests at each of the 20 powwows he attends yearly.
"You can win $5,000 at some contests, or a car," Mr. Burns said. "But for me, it's not the money. It's the feeling you get." Skilled dancers and drummers win thousands during their summerlong journey to powwows across the country.
Artisans like the Aztec and Cora silversmith John Sevilla, 59, make even more by selling their crafts.
Mr. Sevilla and his wife, Marty, began their trek toward Brooklyn from Florida in April, stopping at powwows in Georgia, Virginia, Maryland and Massachusetts to sell jewelry in traditional Hopi, Navajo and Zuni designs. On a good day, they can make $1,500. And on a day when the crowd is right, Vernon Chrisjohn, 64, an Oneida Nation tribal member of Red Hook, N.Y., can sell 200 bows made of hickory and ash.
Sitting atop a cedar-shaving horse, his sneakers deep in a pile of fresh wood shavings, Mr. Chrisjohn grinned widely as students peppered him with questions about his children's bows, which sell for $20.
How did powwows start?
Some say it stems from the war dances of Southern Plains tribes, when warriors would re-enact their brave deeds for tribal members. Others say it originates from the ceremonies of medicine men, who would dance and sing in prayer.
And some say it took shape after the ban on American Indian religions was lifted by the federal government in the middle of the last century.
But most agree that the modern powwow is now more celebratory than spiritual, mostly because of its public nature. And some argue that as it becomes more well-known, and commercial, it is moving into the mainstream. "I've been saying it for years, culture in America is not ballet and ballroom dancing," said Wallace Coffey, 59, chairman of the Comanche Nation of Oklahoma. "It's tractor rides, rodeos and powwows."
One on Star Wars.
Turn On, Tune In, Veg Out
By NEAL STEPHENSON
Seattle
IN the spring of 1977, some friends and I made a 40-mile pilgrimage to the biggest and fanciest movie theater in Iowa so we could watch a new science fiction movie called "Star Wars." Expecting long lines, we got there early, and found the place deserted.
As we sat on the sidewalk waiting for the box office to open, others like us drifted in from the towns, farms and colleges of central Iowa and queued up behind. When the curtain in front of the big Cinerama screen finally parted, the fanfare sounded and the famous opening crawl appeared against a backdrop of stars, there were still some empty seats. "Star Wars" wasn't famous yet. The only people who had heard about it were what are now called geeks.
Twenty-eight years later, the vast corpus of "Star Wars" movies, novels, games and merchandise still has much to say about geeks - and also about a society that loves them, hates them and depends upon them.
In the opening sequence of the new Star Wars movie, "Episode III: Revenge of the Sith," two Jedi knights fight their way through an enemy starship to rescue a hostage. Ever since I saw the movie, I have been annoying friends with a trivia question: "Who is the enemy? What organization owns this vessel?"
We ought to know. In 1977, we all knew who owned the Death Star (the Empire) and who owned the Millennium Falcon (Han Solo). But when I ask my question about the new film, everyone reacts in the same way: with a sudden intake of breath and a sideways dart of the eyes, followed by lengthy cogitation. Some confess that they have no idea. Others think out loud for a while, developing and rejecting various theories. Only a few have come up with the right answer.
One hyperverbal friend was able to spit it out because he had read and memorized the opening crawl. Another, a hard-core science fiction fan, had been boning up on supplemental materials: "Clone Wars," an animated TV series consisting of "epic adventures that bridge the story arc between 'Episode II: Attack of the Clones' and 'Episode III: Revenge of the Sith.' "
If you have watched these cartoons - or if you've enjoyed some of the half-dozen "Clone Wars" novels, flipped through the graphic novels, read the short stories or played the video game - you will know that the battle cruiser in question is owned by the New Droid Army of the Confederacy of Independent Systems, which is backed by the Trade Federation, a commercial guild that is peeved about taxation of trade routes.
And that is not the only aspect of "Episode III" that you will see in a different light. If you watch the movie without doing the prep work, General Grievous - who is supposed to be one of the most formidable bad guys in the entire "Star Wars" cycle - will seem like something that just fell out of a Happy Meal.
Likewise, many have been underwhelmed by the performance of Hayden Christensen, who plays Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader. Only if you've seen the "Clone Wars" cartoons will you understand that Anakin is a seriously damaged veteran, a poster child for post-traumatic stress disorder. But since none of that background is actually supplied by the Episode III script, Mr. Christensen has been given an impossible acting task. He's trying to swim in air.
In sum, very little of the new film makes sense, taken as a freestanding narrative. What's interesting about this is how little it matters. Millions of people are happily spending their money to watch a movie they don't understand. What gives?
Modern English has given us two terms we need to explain this phenomenon: "geeking out" and "vegging out." To geek out on something means to immerse yourself in its details to an extent that is distinctly abnormal - and to have a good time doing it. To veg out, by contrast, means to enter a passive state and allow sounds and images to wash over you without troubling yourself too much about what it all means.
In corporate-speak, there is a related term used when someone has committed the faux pas of geeking out during a meeting. "Let's take this offline," someone will suggest, when the PowerPoint slides grow dark with words. Literally, it means, "I look forward to geeking out on this topic - later." But really it's a polite synonym for "shut up already!"
The first "Star Wars" movie 28 years ago was distinguished by healthy interplay between veg and geek scenes. In the climactic sequence, where rebel fighters attacked the Death Star, we repeatedly cut away from the dogfights and strafing runs - the purest kind of vegging-out material - to hushed command bunkers where people stood around pondering computer displays, geeking out on the strategic progress of the battle.
All such content - as well as the long, beautiful, uncluttered shots of desert, sky, jungle and mountain that filled the early episodes - was banished in the first of the prequels ("Episode I: The Phantom Menace," 1999). In the 16 years that separated it from the initial trilogy, a new universe of ancillary media had come into existence. These had made it possible to take the geek material offline so that the movies could consist of pure, uncut veg-out content, steeped in day-care-center ambience. These newer films don't even pretend to tell the whole story; they are akin to PowerPoint presentations that summarize the main bullet points from a much more comprehensive body of work developed by and for a geek subculture.
"Concentrate on the moment. Feel, don't think. Trust your instincts," says a Jedi to the young Anakin in Episode I, immediately before a pod race in which Anakin is likely to get killed. It is distinctly odd counsel coming from a member of the Jedi order, the geekiest people in the universe: they have beards and ponytails, they dress in army blankets, they are expert fighter pilots, they build their own laser swords from scratch.
And (as is made clear in the "Clone Wars" novels) the masses and the elites both claim to admire them, but actually fear and loathe them because they hate being dependent upon their powers.
Anakin wins that race by repairing his crippled racer in an ecstasy of switch-flipping that looks about as intuitive as starting up a nuclear submarine. Clearly the boy is destined to be adopted into the Jedi order, where he will develop his geek talents - not by studying calculus but by meditating a lot and learning to trust his feelings. I lap this stuff up along with millions, maybe billions, of others. Why? Because every single one of us is as dependent on science and technology - and, by extension, on the geeks who make it work - as a patient in intensive care. Yet we much prefer to think otherwise.
Scientists and technologists have the same uneasy status in our society as the Jedi in the Galactic Republic. They are scorned by the cultural left and the cultural right, and young people avoid science and math classes in hordes. The tedious particulars of keeping ourselves alive, comfortable and free are being taken offline to countries where people are happy to sweat the details, as long as we have some foreign exchange left to send their way. Nothing is more seductive than to think that we, like the Jedi, could be masters of the most advanced technologies while living simple lives: to have a geek standard of living and spend our copious leisure time vegging out.
If the "Star Wars" movies are remembered a century from now, it'll be because they are such exact parables for this state of affairs. Young people in other countries will watch them in classrooms as an answer to the question: Whatever became of that big rich country that used to buy the stuff we make? The answer: It went the way of the old Republic.
One on solar sails in space.
Into Orbit (Maybe Beyond) on Wings of Giant Solar Sails
By WARREN E. LEARY
In an effort to promote space exploration, a private group plans today to launch the first spacecraft to sail in Earth orbit on the solar wind.
If successful, the mission will provide scientific proof for a concept that has captivated science fiction for decades - that ships can travel great distances across the heavens under the power of giant solar sails nudged by the faint energy of light itself.
The satellite, called Cosmos 1, was built in Russia to the specifications of the Planetary Society, a group based in Pasadena, Calif., that raised almost $4 million for the project.
The spacecraft is to be launched at 3:46 p.m. Eastern time from a submerged Russian submarine in the Barents Sea. Cosmos 1 is to be carried into a near circular polar orbit atop a three-stage Volna rocket, a ballistic missile converted for commercial use.
If it reaches orbit, 500 miles above the Earth, Cosmos 1 will then try to extend eight triangular sail blades, each almost 50 feet long, giving the craft the appearance of a giant silver windmill. Over a period of weeks, controllers hope to stir the sails to gather enough sunshine to change the spacecraft's orbit.
"We've waited a long time for this and we're excited," said Dr. Louis D. Friedman, project director and executive director of the society, who became fascinated with the solar sail concept years ago while working for NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and in private industry.
"We want to spur exploration of this novel technology and get the major space agencies and others to do bigger missions away from the Earth, where we can really see it work," he said. "We're hoping Cosmos 1 blazes a new trail in solar system exploration that eventually may lead to the stars."
A secondary goal, he continued, is to encourage the role of private space enthusiasts and commercial companies in exploration.
Although Cosmos 1 would be the most ambitious solar sail test thus far, NASA, the European Space Agency and Russia have done their own testing, and the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency deployed two solar sails on a suborbital flight last year.
The mission became possible for the Planetary Society, which has 100,000 members worldwide, because of low-cost launching and spacecraft-building options available in Russia.
The society contracted with the Lavochkin Association, a spacecraft builder, and the Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences to build and equip the satellite, and the Makeyev Rocket Design Bureau for launching services.
Half the cost is being paid by Cosmos Studios of Ithaca, N.Y., an entertainment media company led by Ann Druyan, the widow of the astronomer Carl Sagan, a Planetary Society founder and sun sail enthusiast. The rest of the project costs are being covered by donations from Peter Lewis, a philanthropist, and society members, Dr. Friedman said.
The 275-pound spacecraft has two cameras as well as sensors to measure solar radiation pressure and small changes in the satellite's velocity. Apart from propulsion, the craft is powered with electricity from four solar panels. It has two radio systems as well as a sun sensor and gyroscopes to orient it in space.
The eight sails, made of thin plastic Mylar film coated with aluminum on one side, are packed into coffee-can-sized containers. Once in orbit, hollow tubes made of a denser plastic material are inflated with nitrogen and pull the attached, folded sails from their containers and hold them in rigid triangular shape. Each sail blade has a surface of about 6,500 square feet.
Solar sailing uses light instead of wind. The idea is that photons - the particles that make up light - have enough energy and momentum to exert a tiny force when they hit the sail and light is reflected. Over time, this steady, infinitesimal force drives the space sailing vehicle.
Celebrating the Powwow Way of Life
BY SHADI RAHIMI
They came from as far away as Mexico, in vans, trucks or motor homes, and camped beneath the stars at Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn. At first light they awoke to prepare to thrill the children who came from schools across the city to see them dance.
And thrill they did. The powwow dancers, spinning furiously while shifting their feet to the beat of a drum punctuated by the wail of a male singer, caused the wide-eyed students to say things like "Dang, look at that," and "That's mad cool!"
For many visitors at the Gateway to Nations powwow yesterday, the event was the first time they had seen American Indian dancers, touched American Indian crafts or eaten American Indian cuisine like buffalo burgers or venison stew.
But for the hundreds of artisans and performers across North and South America who travel the powwow circuit, driving with family or hitching rides to the hundreds of festivals, powwows are a way of life.
"It always makes me feel like I've found home," said Ruth Maracle, 57, who was born on the Six Nations of the Grand River reservation in Ontario, Canada.
The Gateway to Nations powwow, now in its 11th year, is one of the few times when the more than 41,000 American Indian and Alaska Natives scattered across New York City to mingle, shop, eat and share traditions.
Run by the Redhawk Native American Arts Council in Brooklyn, the powwow, which continues through tomorrow, typically draws more than 8,000 visitors a day, a majority of whom are not American Indian, said the director of the arts council, Cliff Matias.
"The same way that native people opened their arms to people all across the world when they came here, during our festival, we open our arms," Mr. Matias said.
"Our purpose is to educate. I've seen people come wearing giant war bonnets, not knowing they're symbols of status for Plains people. We try to break stereotypes and show who we are today."
Jack Goldwasser, 66, of Staten Island was attending the powwow for the second time, drawn by the education he said he got last year and "the quietness; it's not a carnival."
Mr. Goldwasser pointed excitedly at a dancer in yellow regalia: "Now isn't that lovely? Look at that."
The dancer, Calvin Burns, 35 and from Williamsburg, is used to attracting attention. A member of the Shinnecock tribe, he started dancing at the age of 4 and is now a champion, winning contests at each of the 20 powwows he attends yearly.
"You can win $5,000 at some contests, or a car," Mr. Burns said. "But for me, it's not the money. It's the feeling you get." Skilled dancers and drummers win thousands during their summerlong journey to powwows across the country.
Artisans like the Aztec and Cora silversmith John Sevilla, 59, make even more by selling their crafts.
Mr. Sevilla and his wife, Marty, began their trek toward Brooklyn from Florida in April, stopping at powwows in Georgia, Virginia, Maryland and Massachusetts to sell jewelry in traditional Hopi, Navajo and Zuni designs. On a good day, they can make $1,500. And on a day when the crowd is right, Vernon Chrisjohn, 64, an Oneida Nation tribal member of Red Hook, N.Y., can sell 200 bows made of hickory and ash.
Sitting atop a cedar-shaving horse, his sneakers deep in a pile of fresh wood shavings, Mr. Chrisjohn grinned widely as students peppered him with questions about his children's bows, which sell for $20.
How did powwows start?
Some say it stems from the war dances of Southern Plains tribes, when warriors would re-enact their brave deeds for tribal members. Others say it originates from the ceremonies of medicine men, who would dance and sing in prayer.
And some say it took shape after the ban on American Indian religions was lifted by the federal government in the middle of the last century.
But most agree that the modern powwow is now more celebratory than spiritual, mostly because of its public nature. And some argue that as it becomes more well-known, and commercial, it is moving into the mainstream. "I've been saying it for years, culture in America is not ballet and ballroom dancing," said Wallace Coffey, 59, chairman of the Comanche Nation of Oklahoma. "It's tractor rides, rodeos and powwows."
One on Star Wars.
Turn On, Tune In, Veg Out
By NEAL STEPHENSON
Seattle
IN the spring of 1977, some friends and I made a 40-mile pilgrimage to the biggest and fanciest movie theater in Iowa so we could watch a new science fiction movie called "Star Wars." Expecting long lines, we got there early, and found the place deserted.
As we sat on the sidewalk waiting for the box office to open, others like us drifted in from the towns, farms and colleges of central Iowa and queued up behind. When the curtain in front of the big Cinerama screen finally parted, the fanfare sounded and the famous opening crawl appeared against a backdrop of stars, there were still some empty seats. "Star Wars" wasn't famous yet. The only people who had heard about it were what are now called geeks.
Twenty-eight years later, the vast corpus of "Star Wars" movies, novels, games and merchandise still has much to say about geeks - and also about a society that loves them, hates them and depends upon them.
In the opening sequence of the new Star Wars movie, "Episode III: Revenge of the Sith," two Jedi knights fight their way through an enemy starship to rescue a hostage. Ever since I saw the movie, I have been annoying friends with a trivia question: "Who is the enemy? What organization owns this vessel?"
We ought to know. In 1977, we all knew who owned the Death Star (the Empire) and who owned the Millennium Falcon (Han Solo). But when I ask my question about the new film, everyone reacts in the same way: with a sudden intake of breath and a sideways dart of the eyes, followed by lengthy cogitation. Some confess that they have no idea. Others think out loud for a while, developing and rejecting various theories. Only a few have come up with the right answer.
One hyperverbal friend was able to spit it out because he had read and memorized the opening crawl. Another, a hard-core science fiction fan, had been boning up on supplemental materials: "Clone Wars," an animated TV series consisting of "epic adventures that bridge the story arc between 'Episode II: Attack of the Clones' and 'Episode III: Revenge of the Sith.' "
If you have watched these cartoons - or if you've enjoyed some of the half-dozen "Clone Wars" novels, flipped through the graphic novels, read the short stories or played the video game - you will know that the battle cruiser in question is owned by the New Droid Army of the Confederacy of Independent Systems, which is backed by the Trade Federation, a commercial guild that is peeved about taxation of trade routes.
And that is not the only aspect of "Episode III" that you will see in a different light. If you watch the movie without doing the prep work, General Grievous - who is supposed to be one of the most formidable bad guys in the entire "Star Wars" cycle - will seem like something that just fell out of a Happy Meal.
Likewise, many have been underwhelmed by the performance of Hayden Christensen, who plays Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader. Only if you've seen the "Clone Wars" cartoons will you understand that Anakin is a seriously damaged veteran, a poster child for post-traumatic stress disorder. But since none of that background is actually supplied by the Episode III script, Mr. Christensen has been given an impossible acting task. He's trying to swim in air.
In sum, very little of the new film makes sense, taken as a freestanding narrative. What's interesting about this is how little it matters. Millions of people are happily spending their money to watch a movie they don't understand. What gives?
Modern English has given us two terms we need to explain this phenomenon: "geeking out" and "vegging out." To geek out on something means to immerse yourself in its details to an extent that is distinctly abnormal - and to have a good time doing it. To veg out, by contrast, means to enter a passive state and allow sounds and images to wash over you without troubling yourself too much about what it all means.
In corporate-speak, there is a related term used when someone has committed the faux pas of geeking out during a meeting. "Let's take this offline," someone will suggest, when the PowerPoint slides grow dark with words. Literally, it means, "I look forward to geeking out on this topic - later." But really it's a polite synonym for "shut up already!"
The first "Star Wars" movie 28 years ago was distinguished by healthy interplay between veg and geek scenes. In the climactic sequence, where rebel fighters attacked the Death Star, we repeatedly cut away from the dogfights and strafing runs - the purest kind of vegging-out material - to hushed command bunkers where people stood around pondering computer displays, geeking out on the strategic progress of the battle.
All such content - as well as the long, beautiful, uncluttered shots of desert, sky, jungle and mountain that filled the early episodes - was banished in the first of the prequels ("Episode I: The Phantom Menace," 1999). In the 16 years that separated it from the initial trilogy, a new universe of ancillary media had come into existence. These had made it possible to take the geek material offline so that the movies could consist of pure, uncut veg-out content, steeped in day-care-center ambience. These newer films don't even pretend to tell the whole story; they are akin to PowerPoint presentations that summarize the main bullet points from a much more comprehensive body of work developed by and for a geek subculture.
"Concentrate on the moment. Feel, don't think. Trust your instincts," says a Jedi to the young Anakin in Episode I, immediately before a pod race in which Anakin is likely to get killed. It is distinctly odd counsel coming from a member of the Jedi order, the geekiest people in the universe: they have beards and ponytails, they dress in army blankets, they are expert fighter pilots, they build their own laser swords from scratch.
And (as is made clear in the "Clone Wars" novels) the masses and the elites both claim to admire them, but actually fear and loathe them because they hate being dependent upon their powers.
Anakin wins that race by repairing his crippled racer in an ecstasy of switch-flipping that looks about as intuitive as starting up a nuclear submarine. Clearly the boy is destined to be adopted into the Jedi order, where he will develop his geek talents - not by studying calculus but by meditating a lot and learning to trust his feelings. I lap this stuff up along with millions, maybe billions, of others. Why? Because every single one of us is as dependent on science and technology - and, by extension, on the geeks who make it work - as a patient in intensive care. Yet we much prefer to think otherwise.
Scientists and technologists have the same uneasy status in our society as the Jedi in the Galactic Republic. They are scorned by the cultural left and the cultural right, and young people avoid science and math classes in hordes. The tedious particulars of keeping ourselves alive, comfortable and free are being taken offline to countries where people are happy to sweat the details, as long as we have some foreign exchange left to send their way. Nothing is more seductive than to think that we, like the Jedi, could be masters of the most advanced technologies while living simple lives: to have a geek standard of living and spend our copious leisure time vegging out.
If the "Star Wars" movies are remembered a century from now, it'll be because they are such exact parables for this state of affairs. Young people in other countries will watch them in classrooms as an answer to the question: Whatever became of that big rich country that used to buy the stuff we make? The answer: It went the way of the old Republic.
One on solar sails in space.
Into Orbit (Maybe Beyond) on Wings of Giant Solar Sails
By WARREN E. LEARY
In an effort to promote space exploration, a private group plans today to launch the first spacecraft to sail in Earth orbit on the solar wind.
If successful, the mission will provide scientific proof for a concept that has captivated science fiction for decades - that ships can travel great distances across the heavens under the power of giant solar sails nudged by the faint energy of light itself.
The satellite, called Cosmos 1, was built in Russia to the specifications of the Planetary Society, a group based in Pasadena, Calif., that raised almost $4 million for the project.
The spacecraft is to be launched at 3:46 p.m. Eastern time from a submerged Russian submarine in the Barents Sea. Cosmos 1 is to be carried into a near circular polar orbit atop a three-stage Volna rocket, a ballistic missile converted for commercial use.
If it reaches orbit, 500 miles above the Earth, Cosmos 1 will then try to extend eight triangular sail blades, each almost 50 feet long, giving the craft the appearance of a giant silver windmill. Over a period of weeks, controllers hope to stir the sails to gather enough sunshine to change the spacecraft's orbit.
"We've waited a long time for this and we're excited," said Dr. Louis D. Friedman, project director and executive director of the society, who became fascinated with the solar sail concept years ago while working for NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and in private industry.
"We want to spur exploration of this novel technology and get the major space agencies and others to do bigger missions away from the Earth, where we can really see it work," he said. "We're hoping Cosmos 1 blazes a new trail in solar system exploration that eventually may lead to the stars."
A secondary goal, he continued, is to encourage the role of private space enthusiasts and commercial companies in exploration.
Although Cosmos 1 would be the most ambitious solar sail test thus far, NASA, the European Space Agency and Russia have done their own testing, and the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency deployed two solar sails on a suborbital flight last year.
The mission became possible for the Planetary Society, which has 100,000 members worldwide, because of low-cost launching and spacecraft-building options available in Russia.
The society contracted with the Lavochkin Association, a spacecraft builder, and the Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences to build and equip the satellite, and the Makeyev Rocket Design Bureau for launching services.
Half the cost is being paid by Cosmos Studios of Ithaca, N.Y., an entertainment media company led by Ann Druyan, the widow of the astronomer Carl Sagan, a Planetary Society founder and sun sail enthusiast. The rest of the project costs are being covered by donations from Peter Lewis, a philanthropist, and society members, Dr. Friedman said.
The 275-pound spacecraft has two cameras as well as sensors to measure solar radiation pressure and small changes in the satellite's velocity. Apart from propulsion, the craft is powered with electricity from four solar panels. It has two radio systems as well as a sun sensor and gyroscopes to orient it in space.
The eight sails, made of thin plastic Mylar film coated with aluminum on one side, are packed into coffee-can-sized containers. Once in orbit, hollow tubes made of a denser plastic material are inflated with nitrogen and pull the attached, folded sails from their containers and hold them in rigid triangular shape. Each sail blade has a surface of about 6,500 square feet.
Solar sailing uses light instead of wind. The idea is that photons - the particles that make up light - have enough energy and momentum to exert a tiny force when they hit the sail and light is reflected. Over time, this steady, infinitesimal force drives the space sailing vehicle.
