SPACE SAIL SEEKS WINDS OF FORTUNE : LACK OF FUNDS KEEPS CRAFT GROUNDED.

Byline: Keith Stone Daily News Staff Writer

Under a layer of dust in an industrial park garage languishes the remnants of a daring dream, a quest to explore space in a ship that its builders say would sail on waves of sunlight.

Even though the sun would exert no more pressure on the sail than the weight of a few aspirin, the theory is that it would be sufficient to propel a ship at thousands of miles an hour through the resistance-free atmosphere of space.

From Earth, the unmanned vessel would be steered by pivoting the square sail, with gravity acting as the keel.

But just like many other wind-jamming explorers of Columbus' day, this ship has remained grounded for lack of one component: money - more than $9 million by one estimate.

The astronautical engineers, retired aerospace scientists and galactic enthusiasts who built the ship are running short on hope. Their World Space Foundation in South Pasadena is losing momentum as some members grow older and others grow frustrated by the hunt for money.

``This is a bunch of guys working nights and weekends who want to do stuff in space - and here is a thing in space that you can certainly do,'' said Emerson LaBombard, a 76-year-old retired engineer who is manager of the project.

``Interest? Yes. Money? No,'' LaBombard said last week during an interview at the foundation's office, a few dusty rooms and a cavernous garage containing a full-scale mock-up of their sailing ship.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration's interest in solar sailing has never been great; it abandoned a plan in 1977 to send a sun-powered probe to meet Halley's Comet because the project was deemed not worth the investment.

Now, however, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena is studying whether a solar-sail-powered probe can be used to study the sun.

``We are considering making it part of our road map. We are considering it as a future technology that enables some missions,'' said Henry Harris, a technical manager in JPL's Advanced Concepts Department.

Harris understands the difficulty in finding support for unorthodox ideas.

``I think it is the human condition,'' he said. ``People with vision are originally rejected, and what it takes is these few people who persevere and finally get the job done.''

When NASA withdrew from solar sailing, the just-formed World Space Foundation adopted the project as its own. There would be other projects, such as support of a JPL scientist's search for asteroids.

Yet the solar sail has been a main rallying point.

``A lot of us wanted to keep the dream of the solar sail going, so we started working on our own, a volunteer effort,'' said the chief engineer, Humphrey ``Hoppy'' Price.

``And we actually got pretty far,'' said Price, a La Crescenta resident who is working at JPL on the ``Pluto Express'' mission.

Throughout history, the opening of new frontiers always has been driven by mavericks and clusters of radical thinkers working on the fringes of society.

In many ways, the foundation fits that tradition of discovery, said Frank Sulloway, a research scholar at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who is studying the roots of scientific creativity.

``The common denominator is that groups do come together in history again and again and again when they have a common unorthodox interest, and sometimes these groups succeed,'' he said. ``And sometimes they fail.''

In fact, the foundation may fold into The Planetary Society, a group that noted astronomer Carl Sagan founded to encourage galactic study and exploration for extraterrestrial life.

Exploration through the ages has occurred only when several conditions exist together, said Planetary Society executive director Louis Friedman, who worked on the solar sail for NASA.

The key always has been money, Friedman said, citing Columbus' entreaty to Spain's King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella.

``That usually involves either some perceived entrepreneurial advantage, as in the shipping industry in the late 18th and 19th centuries or you need some political advantage, such as Ferdinand and Isabella,'' he said.

So it was only fitting that the 500th anniversary celebration in 1992 of Columbus' voyage to America brought the foundation close to launching its sail.

The Christopher Columbus Quincentenary Jubilee Commission seized on the romance and historic symbolism of a sail race to Mars. A panel of experts was authorized to choose three groups: one from America, one from Asia, which was Columbus' intended destination, and another from Europe, his home port.

To represent America, the foundation's ship was selected and given the name the Nina. Other ships would be called the Pinta and Santa Maria.

With a sail 180 feet on each side, the foundation's vessel was to be launched atop a rocket and set free. Its sail would unfurl and then ride solar waves to Mars - and back, to be reused continually.

LaBombard, who retired from McDonnell Douglas after 45 years of helping to design its airplanes, said the solar-sail concept is revolutionary in its simplicity and efficiency.

``It was a gadget that can go anywhere with zero fuel and be controlled from the ground and go on and on forever. Go anywhere and come back. Go there again,'' he said.

When the commission chairman resigned abruptly, however, the race to Mars lost momentum and, more important, financing.

``One of the most unfortunate things about the World Space Foundation,'' LaBombard said, ``is their timing for everything has been absolutely no good.'

During the early, success-flush days of NASA's space shuttle, the foundation managed to win a contract to launch not one but two sails into space as part of a program for non-government experiments.

Then the shuttle Challenger exploded, and the foundation lost its ride into space.

Undaunted, the foundation and teams from France and Japan joined to promote what would be a race to the Moon in 1995 - dubbed the Luna Cup. A Los Angeles public relations firm drew up a black-covered booklet, complete with glossy pictures of solar sails and an explanation of their need for money.

Several corporations, including E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co. and the Thiokol Corp., agreed to provide materials and expertise. But the foundation failed to raise enough other support, and then the aerospace industry soured.

``They began looking at next year's bottom line, and it slowed down considerably,'' LaBombard said. ``And then the whole thing slowed way down.''

Now a spacecraft mock-up sits idle in the workshop. The custom-made sail-cutting machine is covered in plastic.

Piled high in the foundation's office are handwritten letters with checks from people who want the nonprofit group to launch its sail. Since 1979, thousands of people have donated to the space-sail project, among them Francis Wilson, a 72-year-old Lompoc man who believes humankind's survival is written in the stars.

``It is the last frontier,'' he said. ``The only thing that has kept man going on Earth is they have always had a frontier.''

CAPTION(S):

2 Photos

PHOTO (1 -- color) Emerson LaBombard pilots the World Sp ace Foundation, which needs money to launch a solar-powered spacecraft.

(2) Emerson LaBombard works the custom-made solar-sail cutting machine. The device sits in a warehouse unused as the project seeks funding.

David Crane/Daily News