A Study into the Use of Laser Retroreflectors on a Small Satellite - M.Unwin

[Tim May]

At 6:30 PM -0500 7/24/01, Jim Choate wrote:
>And these are reasonably low power lasers...
>
>http://www.ee.surrey.ac.uk/SSC/IJSSE/issue1/unwin/unwin.html
>
>The simple fact is that the thermodynamic impact of a laser beam that is
>several feet across and emitting more photons than the surface of the sun
>will not be easy to reflect unless immense cooling is taken. Cost/weight
>factors alone argue it in the negative.

"More photons than the surface of the sun" for HOW LONG?

A minute? A second? A millisecond? A microsecond?

You confuse fluence with flux, a classic mistake.

(A pulse "brighter than the sun" but lasting only milliseconds will 
have far less heating effect than other flux level pulses lasting 
longer. Calculations matter. And, yes, I used to do these 
calculations when I was refuting Kosta Tsipis' calculations of the 
late 70s. Fluence matters.)

--Tim May

-- 
Timothy C. May         tcmay at got.net        Corralitos, California
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