For everything that is good out there, there’s always someone to naysay it. So how to respond when the haters come for our solar sails? With poetry, friends, only poetry.
io9’s comment of the day today comes from this post on the successful launch of secret space plane X-37B, along with something interesting there for the ride-along — a shiny, new solar sail.
https://gizmodo.com/a-tiny-satellite-with-solar-sails-is-orbiting-our-plane-1705975324
But when things in the comments started to veer off-course, commenter lostEngineer put together their response in verse:
A nobody with dreamy eyes towards the starward fly,
A spectator to those brave souls casting hopes and dreams to the sky,
Upon hearing that human drive and mind has stitched hope and cast,
By inch by mylar inch, and yard by delta V screaming yard to the stars fast,
A first small step for man, a giant leap, we hope, to manifest solar destinies,
hearkened back to words wiser from seaborne lore upon conquered seas,
To squeak a kinja triumph, to congratulate the long science honor rolls,
Instead parodied because the internet is dark and full of trolls.
Image: Artist’s concept of IKAROS with solar sail / Andrzej Mirecki
