Future possibilities of Planetary society's solar sail idea.

[Monsterboy]

I don't know how long this solar sail idea has been here , the Planetary society's second solar sail failed to achieve its objective right ? I am interested in the applications of this technique.

1) Is it possible to use them to deflect large asteroids and comets away from the Earth ?

2) Is it possible to propel a spacecraft with solar sail using a powerful laser or some other kind of focused beam of light to interstellar destinations ? even though it might take a long time to reach there.

3) Is it possible to propel it beyond , say Jupiter, Saturn just by sunlight ?

 

[mfb]

Have you checked the wikipedia article? It answers most of those questions.

All those things are possible*, but their efficiency is questionable.

*even the Pioneer and Voyager probes and New Horizons will reach interstellar distances eventually, but they'll need hundreds of thousands of years for that.