PBnFlash
New Member
Unwardil said:I did think about this a bit actually.
There's no reason that the collector arrays would be in geosynchronous orbit. That wouldn't be a lot better than just putting the collectors on earth, because there would be times when they are in the shadow of the earth. You want maximum yield off these babies which means putting them directly in the path of the solar winds. Beyond the earth's magnetosphere ideally and the closer to the sun, the better.
Obviously you would need something in geostationary orbit, but that would simply be a power relay terminal satellite, not the actual collectors. Launching newer and better relay satellite every few years when the old ones wear out would not be prohibitively expensive.
You're also correct about maintenance costs. Fact is, it would be impossible. If a panel breaks, that's it, it's done. The solution is mind numbingly easy though. You treat the collectors the same way a hive treats it's drones. Occasional losses are expected and budgeted for, simply replace the drones. If a drone collector stops working, it spends it's reserve fuel to make a final thrust out of formation and plots a course in a decaying orbit with the sun.
Again, this is to be expected, because one has to assume that the more this technology gets used, the more advanced the collector drones will become, so you'll constantly need to be rotating out the old models with the new ones.
Now the last point about the cost of launching all this stuff into space in the first place, well, the ideal model would have these drone collectors being constructed in space from at least 90% space harvested resources from the moon or from asteroids. The majority of the bulk in their construction would not be terrestrial in origin, only the very finely made computer controls which currently require human controlled manufacturing to produce. Everything else would be constructed in space by robots. That's the end goal anyway, but we won't ever get to that end goal without intermediary steps between now and then.
First of all, there is a reason they don't use solar long term out side of the magnetosphere. First of all electromagnetic flux frying stuff, solar is low voltage stuff protection is expensive and heavy. The biggest problem is charged partials coming from the sun, like atomic sandblasting thin solar sheets erode and develop high voltage charge imbalances.
The panels would in fact need to be in a polar orbit because they would be unable to turn the massive array of ultra thin solar panels 1 full rotation every day, as withstanding the centripetal force and acceleration and deceleration of thrusters would make the superstructure impractical. Each of these sub relays would need to convert the solar to, probably an infrared laser to shoot to the substation that would convert it back to electricity and then to microwave where it will be shot down to earth. The distance between a polar orbit and a geosynchronous one is around a max of 686,387,601 mi.
So this thing is beaming an infrared death laser of who knows how many watts hitting the relay station along with many others (we are powering the world after all). And do all of these transformations with well over 50% efficiency (because if it's less than 50% it's cheaper just to put them on the ground).
What if a servo breaks and the beam damages the relay satellite? You can't just leave a death laser firing satellite up there, but you can't destroy it because if the polar obit becomes contaminated with debris it will just damage more. Things getting "dirty" is not a huge problem in space, as the average bit of dust is moving much faster than a bullet.
These are just the logistics of keeping it running let alone building it in the first place. Lowering something into a gravity well orbit requires energy just like pushing it out of one. The only place we could get materials would be the moon. Getting stuff off the moon isn't free. Escape velocity for the moon is 2.4 km/s, less terrifyingly impractical than earth at 11.2 km/s but not much. On top of that the moon is dark for 2 weeks at a time, something that is difficult for solar powered factories to deal with.
And PLEASE don't use the argument that engineers will develop a better battery or magic away all of the problems, engineers need to work within the laws of physics too. Solar voltaic is practical under one condition, that all the solar stuff batteries and panels, sun and space are cheaper than the copper wire to just hook it into the grid.
This is not a question of being difficult like putting a man on the moon, this is simply impractical like making a house out of gold bars, when perfectly good bricks are cheaper and much better suited.
PS, in that analogy bricks are nuclear.
PPS, Come to think of it, it would be cheaper to shoot all of the transuranic waste into the sun.
PPPS, by like, a lot.
PPPPS, K THX BAI.