[aerohead]

Originally Posted by freebeard

Interstellar Travel Without Breaking Physics with Andrew Higgins

Watching this wll put you 1:20:16 into the future. The proposal combines dynamic soaring with a sail that rides on the solar wind instead of photons. They suggest reaching 2-3% of light speed in Solar orbit and then 20-30% light speed in transit.

1) So the 'sail' will act as a terrestrial sail, producing lift in a relative 'wind'? And Mr. Higgins has calculated the density ( rho ) of the solar wind. And how many centuries it would take to accelerate a mass up to 5,580-miles/ second?
2) And then, as one orbits the solar system, somehow enough thrust can be created by harvesting the solar wind, such to overcome the inertia of the craft and successfully deflect it out of orbit, and somehow continue to accelerate it's mass, on a wind with it's strength falling off as the inverse-square of it's distance from the Sun, which reaches 'zero' velocity at 100 Astronomical Units from the Sun?
That would be a pretty good parlor trick.