Universe Today Podcast [Interview] Solar Sail Propulsion: Reality VS Fiction with Les Johnson
Les Johnson is the Principle Investigator with NASA's upcoming Near-Earth Asteroid Scout mission that will fly on the SLS and test solar sail navigation. But at the same time, he's a science fiction author. So, in this interview, we discussed both these sides of his life.
📖 Les Johnson's Books: https://www.lesjohnsonauthor.com/
🦄 Support us on Patreon: https://patreon.com/universetoday
00:00 - Intro
01:01 - Meet Les Johnson
02:19 - Working at NASA and being a science fiction writer at the same time
06:50 - Solar sails proplusion
10:29 - Flying towards the Sun with solar sails
14:32 - Near-Earth Asteroid Scout mission flying on the SLS
21:07 - Why so few solar sails are used now
27:07 - What's the future of solar sails
39:07 - Methods of interstellar exploration
53:02 - Role of science fiction in modern space exploration
01:00:10 - Outro
📺 VIDEO VERSION
https://youtu.be/vZhDbzdqAWQ
📰 EMAIL NEWSLETTER
Read by 55,000 people every Friday. Written by Fraser. No ads.
Subscribe. It's FREE: https://universetoday.com/newsletter
🎧 PODCASTS
Universe Today: https://universetoday.fireside.fm/
Weekly Space Hangout: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0-KklSGlCiJDwOPdR2EUcg/
Astronomy Cast: http://www.astronomycast.com/
🤳 OTHER SOCIAL MEDIA
Twitter: https://twitter.com/fcain
Twitter: https://twitter.com/universetoday
Facebook: https://facebook.com/universetoday
Instagram: https://instagram.com/universetoday
📩 CONTACT FRASER
frasercain@gmail.com
⚖️ LICENSE
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)