Rockets are incredibly powerful.
You can launch yourself into orbit,
fly the Moon,
and, soon enough, travel to Mars.
But to go beyond our Solar System,
you're going to need something else.
Solar sails.
To launch a spaceship,
you need a rocket
to push you up into the sky.
That push is called thrust.
Being launched from Earth
with the power of a rocket
gives a spacecraft most of its momentum.
After this,
you’d need more fuel to change your speed
or course.
But there are no gas stations out there in space
for you to refuel.
And that means you can only go as far as your fuel takes you.
See, more fuel means more weight,
and in space,
your reserves are limited.
In other words,
it would be really hard
to get to your interstellar destination
with rockets alone.
But all of that is about to change.
All aboard!
You're set to sail across the galaxy.
You know, if anything breaks down in the dead of space,
it’ll be on you to fix it.
But back on Earth, we don't always have that ability.
Not by choice but because some of the biggest manufacturers around
don't want us to have access to fix their products.
This practice allows companies to keep a lock on the market
and limit your choices as a consumer.
That's a backdoor way for them to create a monopoly.
This stranglehold on the market puts smaller, more affordable
repair shops out of business because they can't compete
without the tools needed to do their jobs.
Currently, over two dozen state legislatures are crafting laws
to defend your Right to Repair,
making these business practices illegal.
Look, to their credit, Apple has reversed some of its policies,
but they still maintain a huge amount of proprietary control,
and some other companies don't take this issue seriously.
So urge your lawmakers to fight for your rights as a consumer
and take back control of what belongs to you.
After all, you paid for it!
Now let's get back to the video.
On Earth,
sails have been moving boats
around the globe for centuries.
They work without any fuel,
only the power of wind.
But out in space,
there are no air particles moving around.
So you'd need to harness a different kind of wind.
Solar winds
carry charged particles ejected by the Sun.
And these particles fly across the Solar System
at a blisteringly fast
1.6 million km/h (1 million mph).
But with a special type of sail,
you could take advantage of that power
to get yourself
across the Solar System
and beyond.
And no, those special sails
wouldn't look much like
the sails you are familiar with.
Are you ready to have your mind blown?
This is the contraption
that could take you across the galaxy.
It's called electric sails, or e-sails.
They're kind of like an umbrella without fabric.
Only these ribs
would be made of electrically charged aluminum wires.
And they can be as long as 20 km (12 mi),
while also being no thicker than
about half of one strand of hair on your head.
Now all you'd need is the solar wind,
and you could sail across the deep,
dark sea of outer space.
Wait, wait, wait, wait.
There's one catch.
You see, you'd still need
chemical rockets
to launch you off into space to begin with.
That’s because electric sails
don't work within Earth’s magnetosphere.
The magnetosphere is the area around the planet
that’s under the influence
of its magnetic field.
It’s up to ten times larger than Earth itself.
And to escape it,
you’d need a little boost from the old-school rockets.
Or you could build a spaceport around Earth.
It would have to be far enough
so that the planet's magnetic field
doesn’t reach it.
But you know,
that would get too expensive
and take too long to construct.
And we want to send you
on this journey right now.
So you'd launch your ship from Earth
and out of the magnetosphere's limits.
From there,
it would be smooth sailing.
With a 1,000 kg (2,200 lb) spacecraft like yours,
you'd have about 100 wires
to catch solar wind particles.
You'd be a pioneer,
voyaging through space
with this fantastic new technology.
After one year of sailing,
you'd reach a speed of at least 30 km/s (18.6 mi/s).
And you might even go as fast as
150 km/s (93 mi/s).
And that’s really fast.
Faster than Voyager 1,
the fastest space probe humans have ever sent off-world.
The Voyager 1 probe
is hurtling through space
at about 17 km/s (10 mi/s).
After spending three years
getting past Mars,
Jupiter, Saturn
and Uranus,
you'd end up beyond the orbit of Neptune.
You'd navigate
by simply changing the voltage levels
on different wires
of your electric sails.
Yeah, well, you'd still have to be a navigational genius
to sail safely,
especially when you get closer
to the outer edges of the Solar System.
Here, you have to pass through the Kuiper belt.
This area is filled with icy comets.
And if you're not careful,
these comets would do some hefty damage
to your electric sails.
Yeah, your interstellar trip
might end before you even get out
of our planetary neighborhood.
After that, you've still got
a long way to go
to the very end of the Solar System,
the heliopause.
It's four times further away from the Sun
than Neptune.
So fasten your seatbelts
and power through a pretty uneventful view
for about 10 more years.
Yeah, I know, I know,
you'd prefer a view of Jupiter or Uranus instead.
But, hey, it’s almost time to explore
worlds you've never seen.
Ugh, I just remembered,
I was supposed to tell you something important.
Yeah, you know how your electric sails
need solar winds to sail?
Well, now you'd be the furthest from the Sun
you've ever been.
And that means
there won't be as many solar particles
pushing your spaceship forward.
Your sailing might just come to a complete stop,
leaving you stuck forever
in the outskirts of the Solar System.
Cold, lonely and hopeless.
Yeah, I'm not going to lie.
This could be how your days come to an end.
So while you still have some life left in your sails,
you'll need to navigate to another star.
If I were you,
I'd head to the Alpha Centauri star system.
It's the closest one around.
And it has not one,
but three stars.
Now, you should also know
that not all stars are equal
in providing you
the powerful solar winds
you so desperately need.
Passing by a red dwarf star,
like Alpha Centauri C,
also known as Proxima Centauri,
you'd experience luminosities
that could be anywhere from one tenth
to one ten-thousandth as strong as our own Sun.
But despite this,
you might be able to gain enough accelerating power
to reach super-high speeds once again.
And all this
without any chemical fuel.
Yeah, going green is the cool new thing
everyone's talking about.
OK, now that you've made it
further into space than
any human has ever dared to go,
well, you should probably explore
what else is out there.
Like some of the planets
scientists have discovered
that might be even better for life than Earth.
But that’s a story for another WHAT IF.