come sail away

Styx references aside, I've been a horrible, horrible blogger, and should be beaten about the head with a mallet. A frikkin-post-something mallet.

In my defence, most of my free time recently has been consumed by configuring and troubleshooting not one, but 2 new computers. Both of which are (or were) on the fritz. Though I have plenty to say about that, it has been deemed too geeky for human eyes and shan't be posted here. If you're interested, feel free to ask.

The reason for this post is the impending launch of Cosmos 1. It's a solar sail, being launched in 3 hours. That's right. Avast ye interplanetary mateys, there soon be pirates of high space. Or at least a privately funded spacecraft, launched from an old Russian ICBM, that plans to prove that solar sails work by steadily increasing its orbit energy over the next week. Who knows, if all goes well it might eventually break orbit and head out towards... well, there. Wherever "there" happens to be. The cool thing about this "there", though, is that it will be a constantly accelerating "there", as long as the sun keeps burning.

Check it out.