Re: A Moon base is too far; an asteroid ship better alternative:)

From: Joe Strout (joe_at_strout.net)
Date: 03/20/05 

Date: Sun, 20 Mar 2005 13:52:49 -0600

In article <Pine.LNX.4.44.0503181520210.26831-100000@uurth.com>,
 "Gene P." <alcore@uurth.com> wrote:

> >> 2. Space furnace mirrors can point down at the lunar surface just as
> >> easy as at an orbital processing facility...
> >
> >Can they? From where? There are no selenosynchronous orbits.
>
> I was thinking of Lagrange points here... but the fact is that if you
> build several (3 at a minimum) sets of mirrors in lunar orbit, they can
> "trade off" power duties to lunar ground targets as they pass by
> overhead...

Neither of those is anywhere near as easy as focusing light at an
orbital processing facility. The distance from any Lagrange point to
the Moon is huge, requiring an enormous mirror and resulting in a rather
broad hot spot. And in the case of several mirrors in low lunar orbit,
you've now got rapid tracking issues -- not insurmountable, to be sure,
but clearly not as easy as a mirror as part of your facility, facing the
sun 24x7.

> I'm basically a skeptic of human nature though... I don't think there will
> ever be solar power satellites or really big solar mirror farms for the
> same basic reason:
>
> The ability to focus a power beam at any distance is equivalent to a space
> weapon of incredible power.

Nonsense. The microwave power beam from a solar power satellite has
half the power density of sunlight. You could walk right through it and
probably wouldn't even notice.

I don't think that mirrors could focus light on Earth's surface enough
to cause major damage, either.

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