A Fleet of Victor Solar Sailing Ships (1913)

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On the Waves of the Ether a fleet of Russian made Victors propelled by the force of the sun's radiation successfully reach the distant planet Venus. The space travelers are able to navigate the ships very much like a sailing ships on the earth's oceans. Surrounding a gondola is a disc of maxwellium 115 feet in diameter. Its flat upper surface is covered with sheets of polished metal only 0.1 mm thick, forming the mirror. In the center of the disc is a hole 20 feet in diameter. Inside is a ring, joined to the disc by a pivot so that it can rotate freely. Inside this is the gondola, attached to the ring by another pivot at right angles to the rings. The gondola is thus attached to the mirror by a universal joint, allowing it to assume any inclination desired relative to the mirror. Four screens of black silk can be deployed to cover any of the four quadrants of the mirror, to control the radiation pressure on it. Krasnogorskii has calculated a force of about I pound on every square yard of the mirror. Since the ship (mirror plus gondola) weighs a total of about 1,000 pounds, this leaves an excess of radiation pressure, or propelling force, of about 100 pounds. Above text from page 109 of The Dream Machines by Ron Miller, copyright 1993 by Krieger Publishing Company