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Scientific American: Light Sails to Orbit -- NASA watches from the sidelines as Cosmos 1, the first solar sail, goes up: "The first solar sail, called Cosmos 1, will go for its test flight in early 2004. The demonstration of a revolutionary way to travel to the planets and maybe even to the stars would seem to be a natural activity for NASA, which spends several million dollars every year researching advanced propulsion systems. Yet in this case, the space agency has chosen to be a bystander.

The successful flight of Cosmos 1 would mark the culmination of three years of effort by the Planetary Society, a space-interest group, and the entertainment media firm Cosmos Studios [see 'Sailing on Sunlight,' News Scan, Scientific American, July 2001]. Both organizations, which can trace their roots to the late Carl Sagan, used their connections with Russian space officials and engineers. They enlisted the Babakin Space Center in Moscow as the prime contractor for Cosmos 1, which cost $4 million"

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