Jerome L. Wright

Jerome Wright developed a trajectory to rendezvous with Halley's Comet by solar sail in a little over four years from a 1981 launch. Wright joined a JPL project prompted by his work to design a solar sail for a Halley rendezvous. This was the most thorough study of solar sailing to date, which produced much valuable information on solar sailing in general and on specific configurations. Unfortunately, funding was cut for the solar sail in favor of ion engine propulsion, which was also cut. After the JPL project was canceled, Wright and others started the World Space Foundation, which built square solar sail engineering models and manufacturing equipment. Their design was to be launched on a race against other sail designs by groups around the world in a race to the moon and mars.

• mailto:wright1225@hotmail.com
• Book: Space Sailing
• Website: http://sail.quarkweb.com/