diode sail
artist's concept of a diode sail spacecraft
Figure 1. Artist's concept of a diode sail spacecraft. Credit: Popular Science.
principle of the diode sail
Figure 2. Principle of the diode sail. Credit: Popular Science.
A diode sail is one of seven types of hypothetical space drives suggested by Marc Millis
of the Breakthrough Propulsion Physics Program at NASA's Glenn Research Center (see Millis
drives).
Like a one-way mirror and analogous to the action of a diode, the diode
sail would reflect radiation coming from cosmic sources in one direction,
but let radiation from the other direction pass through. The difference
in radiation pressure would propel
the spacecraft.