Re: "Concerned citizens" only hope for SPS......by Dr. Gerard K. O'Neill

throopw@xxxxxxxxx (Wayne Throop) wrote:

:: Fred J. McCall <fmccall@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
:: There's nothing that says you can't put your SPS into a Molniya orbit
:: rather than at GEO.
:
:Well, the *receiving* station is likely to be geostatinary. So if the
:satellite isn't, it'll need more complicated aiming and tracking systems.
:So, additional expense and complexity of the system seems to be
:"something", so "nothing" seems inaccurate.

In conjunction with the "can't" it is quite accurate, as you note
below.

:Can still be done, of course.
:But there are significantly more problems, naict.

You're going to have to do SOMETHING to aim your beam anyway. All you
need to do is keep the array roughly aimed at the Earth (I would think
some sort of gravitational stabilizing mechanism could be achieved)
and then use electronic beamforming for the fine steering.

There are also significant advantages for a lot of countries in doing
it this way, which is why so many Russian satellites were put in such
orbits. Otherwise SPS works best for folks living on the equator and
degrades as you go north or south, where most folks actually live.

--
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable
man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore,
all progress depends on the unreasonable man."
--George Bernard Shaw
.