Learn more about solar sails and Cosmos 1 at planetary.org/solarsail/ or www.solarsail.org/ (Planetary Society).

You can find instructions and plans for building your own model of the Cosmos 1 solar sail spacecraft at www.spacecraftkits.com/cosmos1/ (Planetary Society).

To find out how solar sails work, go to www.howstuffworks.com/solarsail.htm (How Stuff Works) or solarsails.jpl.nasa.gov/introduction/how-sails-work.html (NASA).

For more on solar sailing, go to www.solarsails.info/ (Benjamin Diedrich).

Information about NASA's solar sail programs can be found at www.nasa.gov/vision/universe/roboticexplorers/solar_sails.html , solarsails.jpl.nasa.gov/ , and science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2000/ast28jun_1m.htm (NASA).

Information about research on solar sails at Arizona State University can be found at www.eas.asu.edu/~sunsail/ (Arizona State University).

Cowen, Ron. 2001. After a failure, a new craft to sail. Science News 160(Sept. 29):203. Available at http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20010929/note13.asp .

______. 1999. Travelin' light. Science News 156(Aug. 21):120-121. Available at http://www.sciencenews.org/pages/sn_arc99/8_21_99/bob1.htm .

Eberhart, Jonathan. 1981. Riders of the light. Science News 120(Nov. 21):328-332, 334.

Books recommended by SearchIt!Science:

Space Sailing — Dorothy M. Souza Published by Lerner Publishing, 1993. More than 5,000 years ago, people discovered how to catch the wind by using sails or pieces of cloth to make ships move across the water. Today, scientists hope to use similar sails to catch the sun's energy and use it to power spaceships millions of miles beyond Earth. Sailing spacecraft may carry equipment, supplies, experiments, and even people to distant planets. Take a look at this state-of-the-art technology and see what projects have been completed so far and where the research is heading. The role of gravity, propulsion, lasers, comets, and radar in space sailing are explained.

Escape from Earth — Peter Ackroyd Published by DK Publishing, 2003. "I would not like to go to sleep," said U.S. Vice President Lyndon Johnson, "beneath a communist moon." The space race and the Cold War kick off this book, which traces humanity's journey into space, from Sputnik to space shuttles to the Hubble space telescope. Meet Soviet hero Yuri Gagarin, the first human to travel in space, and other astronauts. Find out about explorations of Venus, Mars, and beyond; read a detailed history of the Apollo program; and learn about Mir and other space stations. Filled with color photographs, diagrams, and illustrations, and always within the context of history, this comprehensive volume ends with a look at the future of space exploration.

solar wind A stream of high-speed, charged atomic particles that flow outward from the sun.

Copyright © 2002, 2003 Houghton-Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Used with permission.