Solar Sail Project Fails

This would have been so very neat if it had at least gotten to be attempted.

The Cosmos 1 vehicle, a joint Russian-American project, was intended to show that a so-called solar sail can make a controlled flight. Solar sails are envisioned as a potential means for achieving interstellar flight, allowing spacecraft to gradually build up great velocity and cover large distances.

Unfortunately, the rocket blew up during launch.

But the Volna booster rocket failed 83 seconds after its Tuesday launch from a Russian nuclear submarine in the Barents Sea, the Russian space agency said.

They launched from a Russian Nuke? That sounds quite odd.