Hope you enjoy 24/7 sunlight
How this will be pitched.>Imagine doubling crop yields and solar power output!How this will be used.>Some rich faggot wants on-demand sun for their private island.
>>17026405This will surely help cool the planet
>>17026418depends on the economics of itIn any case, it would probably make more money reflecting light to solar panel arrays than to corn or onions
>>17026421It will make precisely zero difference whatsoever
>>17026421Just stick it between the sun and the planet and point the light somewhere else. Btw this is a practical, simple solution to global warming that global warming fags never ever propose which is how you know they're totally full of shit.
>>17026405It would be nice to have tropical spots in Canada thanks to space mirrors.
Thankfully it's just an investment scam
>>17026405thats a great way to make sure the planet never cools down
>>17026418Neither of the first things are economical, no one is pitching those. The mirrors are far too expensive anyways to actually work. No one would pay millions for a blink of light when basic floodlights cost a fraction and provide much more light.>>17026438Shading the planet with solar mirrors is order of magnitude more expensive way of handling climate change than any of the alternatives.
>>17026418Why dont you buy the service? Why dont you launch it? Why do you deserve other people's property and service?
In 24 hour sunlight don't people not sleep and lose all track of time? Maybe all we need is the sun and water to live forever.
>>17026405let's actually run the numbers on this instead of just laughinga 60ft mirror at 600km has an area of ~280m2. solar constant is ~1360 W/m2 so it intercepts maybe 380 kW of power max when sun-angle is perfect. that's spread over whatever ground spot you're illuminating — and because the satellite moves at ~7.5 km/s with a 97 min orbit, any given location gets maybe 2-4 minutes of illumination per pass before it drops below the horizon.so you're spending hundreds of millions to beam down a few hundred kilowatts for a few minutes every hour or two. that's not "24/7 sunlight" that's "aggressive moonlight with extra steps."a ground-based LED array of equivalent brightness costs fractions, requires zero launch costs, works whenever you flip a switch, and doesn't need orbital station-keeping. solar farms just add batteries — which is how we actually solve the intermittency problem instead of building space flashlights.the mirror would also be visible to every telescope on Earth. astronomers will absolutely lose their minds over this one.and for climate engineering: if you're going to put reflective surfaces in space to mess with Earth's energy budget, put them at L1 where one does what thousands of 600km mirrors can't. 600 km is the worst possible orbit for SRM — you need a whole constellation just to get partial coverage and every single one is a debris hazard.the only semi-plausible use case is search and rescue illumination but even that's cheaper with drones carrying spotlights.this is what happens when someone pitches "space mirrors" at a tech conference and nobody asks "why not just build more solar panels."
>>17026438>>17026655The only real solution I can think of is to capture energy on earth surface (ideally any efficient method that does not generate much losses should work), convert it to electricity and then send that electricity using lasers into space. Any kind of method that simply captures energy and stores it on earth (ultimately to be used later) will not solve the climate change and raising temperatures.
>>17028162you're absolutely right! Here's why what you're seeing is powerful —particularly for this project
>>17028162Why are you assuming they won't be geostationary?
>>17028207Geostationary satellites are in the shade during the night, you could also just read their proposal for the actual details.
>>17026405I can't see many practical applications for it. Maybe to boost solar power?
>>17028213>Geostationary satellites are in the shade during the nightNo they aren't.
>>17028162The only semi-plausible use case is selling americans the idea of a bright future and then scamming boonwr investors though venture capital and ipo.
>>17026655>>17026438Simpsons did it
>>17026405can i have 0/7/365 sunlight
>>17028244Yeah he's full of shit, they'd only be in the shade for a brief period. They spend a larger portion of their orbit in the shade as their orbit gets smaller, and they'd also cross over the horizon more rapidly. What's more is that a satellite with a large surface area proportional to its mass will deorbit more rapidly. And the orbit will also be significantly affected by light pressure which is not necessarily useful if you have to redirect the light in one direction to provide the "service", and in a completely different direction to maintain the orbit. A larger orbit give you more wiggle room to readjust when the mirror can't be used (e.g. on the sun facing side). The real issues with sending them further up are that1) More expensive obviously2) They just want to use big flat mirrors based on their promo art. That means the spot they're lighting up is going to be massive, at least several kilometers across I think. The size of the mirror itself doesn't matter much here but the distance from the Earth's surface absolutely does.
>>17028162Are you aware this is a literal plot in the batman and robin movie where Arnold Shwartzenigger turns Gotham into solid ice, but George Clooney already saw it coming with his space mirror array
>>17026405>launch so many you darken the sky>sell sunlight subscriptions>poorfags depressive, borderline suicidal>doctors prescribe sunlight>health insurance pays you to insolate puurfags an hour every dayprofiting
this is a black ops project for a global coverage of laser systems for missile interception
>>17026405Earth currently captures an amount of energy related to: its size, distance from sun, how much of incoming it reflects back outFor this to work it needs to be big or close to sun, neither of which will happenIt’s gonna be niche uses only; some rich assholes playgrounds
Can they also do the reverse? I would pay money to be able to block sunlight from my neighbor on demand.
>>17026405Welcome to rovaniemi in summertime bro.
>>17026405can't wait to have giant mirrors fall onto my house
