I have a book from the early 80s at home that discusses various "out there" space project proposals from American scientists; this was one of them. The idea was to have a geosynchronous solar collector that beams energy back via microwave. They listed many cons of the project which made it implausible. I must see if I can dig it up.
Um... 1 gigawatt? From geostationary orbit? The free space loss alone is -191dB, which means their satellite will have to be broadcasting at least 10^19 gigawatts of power!! That represents about 3*10^19 SQUARE KILOMETERS of solar arrays.
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aron @ Feb 7th 2008 5:55PM
I have a book from the early 80s at home that discusses various "out there" space project proposals from American scientists; this was one of them. The idea was to have a geosynchronous solar collector that beams energy back via microwave. They listed many cons of the project which made it implausible. I must see if I can dig it up.
Matt @ Feb 8th 2008 10:34AM
Um... 1 gigawatt? From geostationary orbit? The free space loss alone is -191dB, which means their satellite will have to be broadcasting at least 10^19 gigawatts of power!! That represents about 3*10^19 SQUARE KILOMETERS of solar arrays.
Has anyone told these guys that it's impossible?
Matt @ Feb 8th 2008 10:40AM
Whoops, my error... I was assuming two isotropic antennas. About 5-10 square km of solar panels might be enough.
But still... that's too many.