How to build a solar sail this week on planetary Radio. Radio. Welcome to Public Radio's travel show that takes you to the final frontier.

I'm Matt Kaplan of the Planetary Society.

As Ikeros speeds away from our solar system, another much simpler solar sale has reached

a major milestone back here on Earth.

Today we'll drop in on a critical design meeting

for Light Sail 1, a spacecraft that will start out the size of a shoebox and

expand to more than 32 square meters in space.

You'll hear from the project manager, Jim Cantrell,

from a university professor and some of his students

who are playing a vital role in the creation of LightSail and from

Planetary Society Executive Director and Solar Sale Pioneer Lou Friedman.

Bill Nye, the science and planetary guy, brought his engineering and other expertise to the meeting.

We'll start our report with him in just a minute.

No Emily today, Ms. Lachto-Wala has the week off as she enjoys her hard-earned vacation. But Bruce Betts is lurking in the

wings with News of the Night Sky, and we've got a Celestial Weather Station to give to our

latest Space Tri trivia contest winner.

We haven't forgotten the Kepler spacecraft or the recent announcement that it may have discovered

not one, not 20, but hundreds of exoplanets.

Go to planetary.org for a great story by my colleague Amir Alexander.

Kepler Mission Head Bill Baruchy will be my guest next week.

Speaking of exoplanets, here's a hell of a story. In fact, it's a planet

that sounds like hell. This Jupiter-class world is 20 times closer to its star than Earth is to the Sun. As you might imagine

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