I haven't been on the forum in years. Let me know if this is the right thread to post a short story. Here's the teaser short story opening :The lector clears her throat, “let us begin with a prayer”. Savoring the moment, she scans the crowd of postulants with her eyes. “In the name of the...
If there is intelligent life out there they're ignoring us. For the same reason the USA has never invaded has never invaded South Sudan there's just nothing there the USA wants.
Its hard to admit humans are not wanted but its true. What would aliens want from us
To dig up and burn our...
You're right, I was thinking of converting the light to electricity and then transmitting the energy on a different point of the spectrum with a better divergence (than regular light) and then use a series of booster satellites to pass along the energy but that doesn't add up.
It makes more...
I was thinking of putting a solar sail facing the sun (constructed of a flimsy material so that undesirable parts of the spectrum can pass through) and have the desirable light concentrate on a concave mirror (hopefully it won't heat up too much because it's reflecting only part of the...
Besides access to light 24/7 I was thinking the same thing. However the closer you get to the sun the more intense the rays 1/5 into the sun from Earth the rays are 25 times more intense.
So if you have mirrors closer to the sun to direct the light towards a satellite in Earth orbit you could...
Znamya_2.5 failed http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/273220.stm
"The total force exerted on an 800 by 800 meter solar sail, for example, is about 5 Newtons (1.1 lbf) at Earth's distance from the Sun,[2] making it a low-thrust propulsion system, similar to spacecraft propelled by...
I was thinking that too, It might be why Znamya_2.5 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Znamya_(satellite)#Znamya_2.5 failed . Anyway I was thinking that some orbital PV could power a electromagnetic drive https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2015/04/evaluating-nasas-futuristic-em-drive/ to constantly...
I got distracted by this "The Case for Space Solar Power" Kindle Edition https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00HNZ0Z96/?tag=pfamazon01-20 and this https://www.nasa.gov/pdf/716070main_Mankins_2011_PhI_SPS_Alpha.pdf
Anyway 1400 seemed high, so full moon light produces 1.1 eV per sqr meter and Znamya 3...
1. $340 million to build and operate Znamya 3 http://motherboard.vice.com/read/the-man-who-turned-night-into-day
2. Which produced a light on the Earth "35 miles to 55 miles across" http://www.nytimes.com/1993/01/12/s...e-mirror-as-giant-night-light-for-earth.html?
3. So with electrical...
It's hard to say, Little Help?
There this NYTs article http://www.nytimes.com/1993/01/12/science/russians-to-test-space-mirror-as-giant-night-light-for-earth.html? which calculates satellites in terms of multiple of moon light equivalents and I found this...
This is a fun thought experiment; Why not have space based mirrors to reflect light down to Earth at night to make solar do a little extra generating!
The cost of solar is coming down and the cost of lifting things into orbit is coming down, so why not. Plus gold is very reflective, light...
I was thinking of ways of making carbon cleaner for the environment. One of the ways I came up with is filling a solar updraft tower https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_updraft_tower with the exhaust from a gas/coal plant.
So you'd get a true greenhouse gas accumulation of heat going in the...