system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Could solar sails be used on a satellite to constantly accelerate it so that it would be able to travel to a nearby star much faster than would normally be possible?
gpt
It is feasible to use solar sails as a boost to move around the solar system, but there are issues with diminishing returns using them more interstellar travel. As they get farther from the sun, the radiation pressure gets weaker and weaker as the sun appears smaller and smaller. Additionally, as the sail builds up velocity away from the sun, the incident radiation becomes Doppler shifted and the momentum transfer gets less and less efficient. There was a proposal a few years ago to develop super strong focused lasers to blast a radiation sail towards Alpha Centauri, which a physically possible but somewhat outlandish idea.