Captain Ron
Distinguished Member
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- Jul 6, 2007
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Been reading on the BBC News science page about the plans to put an orbiting solar farm up as a 24/7 power supply. Technology exists already and has been tested and cargo to orbit prices are dropping significantly to the point of making such an endeavour viable. Safety is addressed from beaming gigawatts of power down as microwaves by making the beam cover a wide area collector. Apparently the point strength of the intended beam would be safe enough for birds to fly through and people to walk around in without getting cooked. My only concern is do we trust the power station builders to not also build in a focus capability at the request of their governments. Potentially a fairly significant orbiting weapon if several gigawatts of microwave is focussed on a tight area elsewhere than the receiving ground collector one imagines. Then imagine having several of them in orbit and all of them focussed on the same target away from their ground collectors.