No fuel. No engines. Just plug into the Sun and go. That was the dream of solar sailing, so beloved of both scientists and science fiction writers. Trouble is, no one could make it work. Not any more. The technologies have come of age. And so has the commercial vision. Enter Paris-based businessman Nersi Razavi. He’s busy turning his boyhood passion into a concrete vision NASA could envy. The agency is planning a test launch of a solar sail by 2005. But it’ll probably be beaten by a consortium of European space agencies Razavi has helped organise. Stuart Clark…
Plain sailing
By Stuart Clark
24 February 2001
