Sunday, November 8, 2009 East Central Illinois

UI researchers giving molecules a light push

By Greg Kline
Thursday, August 30, 2007 7:05 AM CDT

When NASA sends a spaceship to Mars, it doesn't need to load enough rocket fuel to push the craft there pedal to the metal, even though you'd be hard pressed to find a gas station along the way.

The space agency just fuels the ship for a shorter hop to the moon, properly aligned to more or less bounce off the moon's gravitational field, providing enough oomph to fling it the rest of the way.

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