How far can a solar sailor sail?
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Answer:
The Solar Sail's accelleration is tightly connected to the amount of sunlight that falls on it. Compare, for instance, Mercury's surface temperature (340K) to Neptune's surface temperature (53K) and you'll see there is a dramatic drop in the amount of energy between close to the centre of our solar system and the amount of energy on the outskirts of our solar system. For a Solar Sail to accellerate properly, you'd have to be very close to a star and even then would the acceleration be very low. Theoretically speaking you could position your sail close to the sun and have the sun accellerate it to the edge of the solar system onto the next one. The only problem is, at the speed you'll be going it'll take a very very very very long time to get there.
As to your question, "Would it be possible to use the light of a destination star past the midway point?", the answer is simply no. First of all the star is too far away to provide the sail with a real significant amount of thrust. Second, the solar sail (much like a normal sail) functions by catching photons that hit the sail on the back and give it a bit of thrust. Light hitting it on the front would only push the sail in the opposite direction, that's why the back and the front have a different layer of coating that does or does not absorb a part of the energy inside the photons hitting it. Doing this would be like placing a huge fan on the shore that blows air towards a sailing ship. The result would be the ship getting blown away from the fan rather then pulled towards the fan.
As for acceleration, I'm not really sure. I can recall having read something about it taking 10 years to build up a speed comparable to the speed of contemporary (rocket-powered) space ships.
Once you're out of the solar system, there would be no real power to tap. You'd have to be going at the speed you wanted to go. When you got to your target you'd have to turn around to slow down. Even so it would probably take 10's of thousands of years to get to the closest stars.
I don't know details of solar magnification but that's what ya need to change light into electric current which is what solar power is all about.
How long is a piece of string? I don't think there's any such system as yet. Its still only a theory, even if they had a working model, it would probably take thousands of years to get to the nearest solar system. The very idea has got to be a joke.
I am just answering to check what others are saying ... good luck.
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