On Mon, 1 Oct 2001, Steve Schear wrote:
At 01:25 PM 10/1/2001 -0400, James B. DiGriz wrote:
Declan McCullagh wrote: A far more productive application of corporate welfare would be if that money were spent on engineering research and development of geosynchronous solar power microwave relays, fusion and advanced fission reactors,
GEO is lousy: it's too far away, and it's packed already. Newer concepts assume LEO with active microwave focus tracking of the rectenna ground array with phased array antennas integrated into the solar array. You have to have sufficient amounts of hardware in the sky for continuous line of sight presence.
permanent manned statons on the Moon, Mars, asteroids, etc. The planet and
Luna is closest, and it's near enough for relativistic lag being low enough to allow teleoperation. Sending monkeys elsewhere would seem a later stage.
its politics would likely be a lot cleaner. Just one beneficial side effect.
Research in geosynchronous power satellites is still being funded. One program, started in Japan but which is now also funded by NASA, uses 5.7 GHz transmission to a ground based RECifying anTENNAs. Another project intends to use IR lasers. My understanding is these projects are receiving serious funding and prototypes should fly soon.
Problem is high LEO launch costs. It would seem easier to build automated and teleoperate fabbing and (linear motor) launching facilities on Luna, and circularize orbit mostly by aerobraking. -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://www.lrz.de/~ui22204/">leitl</a> ______________________________________________________________ ICBMTO: N48 04'14.8'' E11 36'41.2'' http://www.lrz.de/~ui22204 57F9CFD3: ED90 0433 EB74 E4A9 537F CFF5 86E7 629B 57F9 CFD3