...100 MW of Space Solar Power ...per single launch!
Jonathan
Jeremy Hsu
space.com - Wed Dec 2, 10:15 am ET
"Solaren would then need to launch a solar panel array capable
of generating 400 megawatts. The total launch weight of all the
equipment would be the equivalent of about 400 metric tons,
or 20 shuttle-sized launches, according to Hoffert.
But Solaren says that it would just require four or five heavy-lift
rocket launches capable of carrying 25 metric tons, or about
one fourth of Hoffert's weight estimate. The company is relying
on developing more efficient photovoltaic technology for the
solar panels, as well as mirrors that help focus sunlight.
Solaren has not provided details on just how its technology
works, citing intellectual property concerns. But it expects that
its space solar power can convert to RF energy with greater
than 80 percent efficiency, and expects similar conversion
efficiency for converting the RF energy back to DC
electricity on the ground in California. The company also
anticipates minimal transmission losses from the space
to the ground."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20091202/sc_space/controversyflaresoverspacebasedsolarpowerplans
The 'inevitable' is steadily becoming possible...imho.
Jonathan
s
Sylvia Else
> works, citing intellectual property concerns.
Meaning it wouldn't stand up to the inevitable expert scrutiny if they
got a patent.
And let's remember that it's perfectly possible to make money lawfully
out of a technically flawed concept if you can get investors - you just
pay yourself a good salary.
Sylvia.
gaetanomarano
.
Space Solar Power hoax/illusion DEBUNKED article:
http://www.ghostnasa.com/posts/038sspdebunked.html
.
.
Why the Ares-1 is already DEAD article:
http://www.ghostnasa.com/posts2/058ares1dead.html
.
.
tadchem
>
> The 'inevitable' is steadily becoming possible...imho.
>
> Jonathan
>
> s
Nice, if there's somebody in orbit who can use 400 MW.
If you want to use it planet-side, you have to get it down here.
THAT creates problems.
A storage device has mass, which brings all the transport problems of
a safe re-entry and recovery.
A conduit would require materials with properties we have not
developed yet.
A beam would present an enormous safety and environmental hazard. You
could cook an Airbus in milliseconds with a 400 megawatt microwave.
That's about 200,000 heavy-duty microwave ovens - at once.
Tom Davidson
Richmond, VA
Jonathan
"Sylvia Else" <syl...@not.at.this.address> wrote in message
news:00a09904$0$23357$c3e...@news.astraweb.com...
>> Solaren has not provided details on just how its technology
>> works, citing intellectual property concerns.
>
> Meaning it wouldn't stand up to the inevitable expert scrutiny if they got a
> patent.
>
Maybe, but keeping a secret could mean fraud or it could mean
a breakthrough, we don't know for sure. But the electric company
P G & E, one of the largest utilities in the nation, while considering
the contract should be privy to the details of the technology.
And from their application to the state utilities commission wrote....
Public Utilities Commission of the State of California
Subject: PG&E's Power Purchase Agreement with Solaren
Corporation
"Solaren is using an innovative space-based solar technology,
which, if successful, would represent a break-through in the
renewable power industry. While emerging technologies like
space solar face considerable hurdles under a traditional
viability analysis, PG&E believes that potential, significant
benefits to its customers from a successful space solar installation
outweigh the challenges associated with a new and unproven
technology."
http://www.pge.com/nots/rates/tariffs/tm2/pdf/ELEC_3449-E.pdf
The key wording is the statement that ...the potential outweigh the risk.
That's called a tipping point, from pie-in-the-sky to nearly practical.
> And let's remember that it's perfectly possible to make money lawfully out of
> a technically flawed concept if you can get investors - you just pay yourself
> a good salary.
Right. But the point is that a 'Big Utility' has taken a good look at an early
attempt at SSP and have ...signed upon the dotted line. The point is
that both sides, buyer and seller, seem to think the idea is realistic
enough to attempt a start up.
That's a big deal imho....a breakthrough. I mean, did it really matter of
the first airline made money, or the first nuclear power plant?
It's the 'first' aspect that matters, not so much is it lives up to all the
precise promises.
Jonathan
>
> Sylvia.
Me
Incorrect. The contract requires nothing from the utility. All the
contract says it that if you have electrical power, we will buy it
from you, no money until then. There is no risk to PG&E nor does PG&E
have know how the power gets to them.
Androcles
"Me" <charlie...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:7535324d-3f1c-4596...@k17g2000yqh.googlegroups.com...
================================================
Only a fool would sign that contract, there is always a risk.
You call on the phone for a taxicab and an old banger turns
up with a drunken driver, but it's cheap. What do you, be late
for your appointment and call a different cab company or accept
the ride in the banger? PG & E needs to know if the supply is
safe and reliable -- secrets are not confidence building.
Peter Fairbrother
>[..]
>
> Nice, if there's somebody in orbit who can use 400 MW.
>
> If you want to use it planet-side, you have to get it down here.
>
> THAT creates problems.
>
> A storage device has mass, which brings all the transport problems of
> a safe re-entry and recovery.
Anti-matter?
> A conduit would require materials with properties we have not
> developed yet.
>
> A beam would present an enormous safety and environmental hazard. You
> could cook an Airbus in milliseconds with a 400 megawatt microwave.
> That's about 200,000 heavy-duty microwave ovens - at once.
Not so, actually - an Airbus weighs about 400 tons, call the exposure 1
kW/kg, or perhaps 1 degree C per second, so it would take several
minutes, not milliseconds, before the Airbus might start losing
structural strength. If it was flying rather than parked, the air would
cool it so much that it wouldn't be affected at all.
That's IF you can get it all into the Airbus, which is not even vaguely
likely - a typical ground station covers maybe a square mile, GEO is a
looong way away, and focussing enough energy at that distance to do any
real short-term damage would take a maser, not the typical microwave
transmitter used in these space solar power designs.
The exposure on the ground could easily be low enough to be short-term
survivable for an unshielded human, indeed it would be quite difficult
to get even that amount of power per unit area, and impossible unless it
was deliberately weaponised.
Getting the power down to the ground is tricky, but it's not at all
impossible from a technical or a political viewpoint.
But I don't believe the Solaren numbers on the required uplift mass,
they are too small by a lot, and even if they are correct it has to get
to GEO not LEO (a power station in LEO is pretty much useless), which
would take maybe 60 Shuttle launches, not 20.
At a conservative $100 million per Shuttle launch, that's $6 billion -
and at 10c per kWh it would take 68 years just to recover the launch
costs, ignoring interest - in practice you could never do it.
I don't think Space Solar Power is impossible BTW, but I don't think the
way Solaren are going about it will work, at least not anytime in the
near future.
I'd be looking at a maybe 50 gigawatt system instead, using mirrors,
boilers and turbines - possibly manned. And a much cheaper launch system.
-- Peter Fairbrother
tadchem
> tadchem wrote:
> >[..]
>
> > Nice, if there's somebody in orbit who can use 400 MW.
>
> > If you want to use it planet-side, you have to get it down here.
>
> > THAT creates problems.
>
> > A storage device has mass, which brings all the transport problems of
> > a safe re-entry and recovery.
>
> Anti-matter?
>
> > A conduit would require materials with properties we have not
> > developed yet.
>
> > A beam would present an enormous safety and environmental hazard. You
> > could cook an Airbus in milliseconds with a 400 megawatt microwave.
> > That's about 200,000 heavy-duty microwave ovens - at once.
>
> Not so, actually - an Airbus weighs about 400 tons, call the exposure 1
> kW/kg, or perhaps 1 degree C per second, so it would take several
> minutes, not milliseconds, before the Airbus might start losing
> structural strength. If it was flying rather than parked, the air would
> cool it so much that it wouldn't be affected at all.
How long would the Airbus' avionics last in a 400 megawatt microwave
beam?
You can't fly those crates by the seat-of-the-pants. Knock out the
electronic fly-by-wire systems and the plane becomes a brick.
Tom Davidson
Richmond, VA
Alain Fournier
As Peter said, a microwave energy beam would be spread over an area
in the square kilometre range. This is not really for security's sake
it is because of basic physics making it impossible to focus a microwave
beam very tightly over long distances. The beam would be survivable
by an unshielded human being (or more likely by a bird flying through
it). The electronics in the jetliner are shielded by the hull of the
plane and will survive the beam even more so than the human wandering
into the beam. This is not a problem.
Alain Fournier
Uncle Al
>
> Controversy Flares Over Space-Based Solar Power Plans
>
> Jeremy Hsu
> space.com - Wed Dec 2, 10:15 am ET
>
> "Solaren would then need to launch a solar panel array capable
> of generating 400 megawatts. The total launch weight of all the
> equipment would be the equivalent of about 400 metric tons,
> or 20 shuttle-sized launches, according to Hoffert.
1) Energy of a Space Scuttle launch, altitude plus velocity, is no
less than 4.2*10^12 J. $500 million/mission.
2) 20 missions = 9x10^13 J and $10 billion.
3) Solar cell efficiency real world is no better than 20% with
crystalline silicon. 80% bullshit business plan number for RF
conversion, 80% bullhshit^2 number for ground recovery.
(0.2)(0.8)(0.8) = 13% orbita; insolation to ground electrical
transfer, assuming absolute perfection. Look up the solar constant
for square mileage of solar cells required.
4) After the power plant delivers 2.5x10^6 kW/hr of electricity it
covers its launch energy. After it delivers another 10^11 kW/hr of
electricity at $0.10/kW/hr net profits, it covers its launch cost.
5) At 400 megawatts 24/7, the bottom of the hole reaches ground
level - assuming no intermediate costs, after 28.52 years (including
leap years).
6) Add in amortization of the cost of materials, maintenannce,
salaries, pensions, healthcare coverage, expense chits... and teh lfie
of a soalr cell installation under solar hard UV, radiation, meteor
showers, and orbital debris. Ground solar cells last about 20 years.
7) If every impossible assumption works dead center double
bullseye, BULLSHIT.
> But Solaren says that it would just require four or five heavy-lift
> rocket launches capable of carrying 25 metric tons, or about
> one fourth of Hoffert's weight estimate. The company is relying
> on developing more efficient photovoltaic technology for the
> solar panels, as well as mirrors that help focus sunlight.
>
> Solaren has not provided details on just how its technology
> works, citing intellectual property concerns. But it expects that
> its space solar power can convert to RF energy with greater
> than 80 percent efficiency, and expects similar conversion
> efficiency for converting the RF energy back to DC
> electricity on the ground in California. The company also
> anticipates minimal transmission losses from the space
> to the ground."
> http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20091202/sc_space/controversyflaresoverspacebasedsolarpowerplans
>
> The 'inevitable' is steadily becoming possible...imho.
>
> Jonathan
idiot
--
Uncle Al
http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/
(Toxic URL! Unsafe for children and most mammals)
http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/qz4.htm
Jorge R. Frank
That's correct. The beam power density will be about one-fourth the
solar constant. Even then, the aircraft hull is a perfect Faraday cage
against the frequencies of the beam.
The safety issues are overblown (the economic issues are not).
Me
wrote:
> "Me" <charliexmur...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
wrong, the contract can have standards on the quality on the power
supplied, which still doesn't PG&E doesn't need to know the origin of
the power. PG&E isn't going to rely on this power,
eric gisse
[...]
> Solaren has not provided details on just how its technology
> works, citing intellectual property concerns. But it expects that
> its space solar power can convert to RF energy with greater
> than 80 percent efficiency, and expects similar conversion
> efficiency for converting the RF energy back to DC
> electricity on the ground in California.
hahahahahahahahahahahahah
If both numbers summed to 10% I would be impressed. Instead I'm insulted for
being lied to so blatantly.
Is the technology 'not existing' an 'intellectual property concern'?
[...]
Androcles
===================================
You must the be kind of fool that would sign the contract.
*plonk*
Do not reply to this generic message, it was automatically generated;
you have been kill-filed, either for being boringly stupid, repetitive,
unfunny, ineducable, repeatedly posting politics, religion or off-topic
subjects to a sci. newsgroup, attempting cheapskate free advertising
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or permutation of the aforementioned reasons; any reply will go unread.
Boringly stupid is the most common cause of kill-filing, but because
this message is generic the other reasons have been included. You are
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as I would any chicken with two heads, either one of which enables the
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This should not trouble you, many of those plonked find it a blessing
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You have the right to free speech, I have the right not to listen. The
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I'm fully aware that you may be so stupid as to reply, but the purpose
of this message is to encourage others to kill-file fuckwits like you.
I hope you find this explanation is satisfactory but even if you don't,
damnly my frank, I don't give a dear. Have a nice day and fuck off.
Pat Flannery
> That's correct. The beam power density will be about one-fourth the
> solar constant. Even then, the aircraft hull is a perfect Faraday cage
> against the frequencies of the beam.
As long as it's all metal, yes.
But with the increasing use of non-metallic composites in aircraft
structures that might bear some looking into.
When they were designing the B-2 stealth bomber, one area of concern was
how a lightning strike would affect its composite skinning.
Pat
Sylvia Else
Aaagh. More excessive highlighting.
Sylvia.
Sylvia Else
> "Sylvia Else" <syl...@not.at.this.address> wrote in message
> news:00a09904$0$23357$c3e...@news.astraweb.com...
>>> Solaren has not provided details on just how its technology
>>> works, citing intellectual property concerns.
>> Meaning it wouldn't stand up to the inevitable expert scrutiny if they got a
>> patent.
>>
>
> Maybe, but keeping a secret could mean fraud or it could mean
> a breakthrough, we don't know for sure.
If they have a breakthrough, they should get a patent on it, ASAP. As
long as it's merely secret, they're exposed to industrial espionage,
accidental leaks, you name it.
> But the electric company
> P G & E, one of the largest utilities in the nation, while considering
> the contract should be privy to the details of the technology.
It wouldn't be the first time that people who should have known better
got taken for a ride. See
http://news.cnet.com/2100-1023-240493.html
which is about the Pixelon video-streaming compression scam.
Sylvia.
Sylvia Else
> 80% bullshit business plan number for RF
> conversion
At 80%, the remaining 20%, or 80MW, is heat that has to be got rid of,
by radiation alone.
Sylvia.
Peter Fairbrother
I don't find those numbers to be too out-of-range, it's only 64% overall
efficiency - though they are perhaps a bit higher than I'd use.
But a 50% overall efficiency of a GEO-to-Earth microwave energy transfer
system should be obtainable without stretching the technology too much,
and 64% is not totally unreasonable, just a lot more expensive.
I believe 80+% overall efficiency has been achieved in terrestrial testing.
A 7 mile diameter rectenna with a further 4 mile exclusion zone in say
the Mojave desert, supplied by a suitable satellite, could easily
provide 100 gigawatts of power, enough to power all of California's
electricity needs with a bit left over, though you might have to move a
few people and tortoises or whatever; and there are lots of other places
on the Earth's solid surface which are about as desolate.
(Hmmm, not just deserts, central Australia springs to mind ... that's
big and empty)
You wouldn't want to stay there too long, but it wouldn't kill you in
seconds, more like hours, or a lot longer with suitable protection (or
years, in the outer zone, even with no protection) - the microwave
energy per unit area in the center is about the same as the energy from
the noonday sun ... except it's there 24/7.
Solaren's apparent/implied overall launch, ground and equipment
costings, on the other hand, I do not believe at all.
-- Peter Fairbrother
Alain Fournier
Jorge R. Frank wrote:
> Alain Fournier wrote:
>> As Peter said, a microwave energy beam would be spread over an area
>> in the square kilometre range. This is not really for security's sake
>> it is because of basic physics making it impossible to focus a microwave
>> beam very tightly over long distances. The beam would be survivable
>> by an unshielded human being (or more likely by a bird flying through
>> it). The electronics in the jetliner are shielded by the hull of the
>> plane and will survive the beam even more so than the human wandering
>> into the beam. This is not a problem.
>
>
> That's correct. The beam power density will be about one-fourth the
> solar constant. Even then, the aircraft hull is a perfect Faraday cage
> against the frequencies of the beam.
>
> The safety issues are overblown (the economic issues are not).
Well, some people do over blow the economic issues, but I think we
agree here.
The problem with the safety issues are not the effective safety per se,
but the NIMBY, that they would create. The fact that the technology
is safe will not stop an ignorant crowd from screaming about MWs of
DANGEROUS RADIATION. Which of course is the same as saying what you
said that the safety issues are overblown, but that over blowing can
cause real problems.
Alain Fournier
Uncle Al
Given 0% carbon footprint, 80 MW continuous ground heating cannot add
to Global Warming. Besides, it is add over a broad area. It's not
like lighting a candle or grilling a steak - both of which are
Enviro-whiner atrocities.
Rick Jones
> Maybe, but keeping a secret could mean fraud or it could mean a
> breakthrough, we don't know for sure. But the electric company P G
> & E, one of the largest utilities in the nation, while considering
> the contract should be privy to the details of the technology.
Even if they were/are, PG&E, while do doubt staffed by some very
inteligent folks, are not known to have "space" as part of their core
competency. They know electricity, boilers, fision, coal, gas, oil,
wires, even I suspect photovoltaics, but are new to rocket science.
rick jones
--
firebug n, the idiot who tosses a lit cigarette out his car window
these opinions are mine, all mine; HP might not want them anyway... :)
feel free to post, OR email to rick.jones2 in hp.com but NOT BOTH...
Rick Jones
Given it is, presumably, on the verge of its maiden flight, and unless
is a complete flop will vastly outnumber the B2 in numbers of
passenger miles flown, mentioning the Boeing 787 is probably
worthwhile.
rick jones
--
Wisdom Teeth are impacted, people are affected by the effects of events.
Androcles
"Rick Jones" <rick....@hp.com> wrote in message
news:hg68js$9j9$1...@usenet01.boi.hp.com...
> In sci.space.history Jonathan <Ho...@again.net> wrote:
>> Maybe, but keeping a secret could mean fraud or it could mean a
>> breakthrough, we don't know for sure. But the electric company P G
>> & E, one of the largest utilities in the nation, while considering
>> the contract should be privy to the details of the technology.
>
> Even if they were/are, PG&E, while do doubt staffed by some very
> inteligent folks, are not known to have "space" as part of their core
> competency. They know electricity, boilers, fision, coal, gas, oil,
> wires, even I suspect photovoltaics, but are new to rocket science.
>
> rick jones
Everyone else is new to rocket science except Rick Jones,
he's been around rockets since 1814.
"And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines in the stream:
'Tis the star-spangled banner! Oh long may it wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave."
-- Francis Scott Key, 1814
You'll be 200 years old in 4 years, Jones. No wonder you
know so much about rocket science.
Rick Jones
> Everyone else is new to rocket science except Rick Jones,
> he's been around rockets since 1814.
> "And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
> Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
> Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam,
> In full glory reflected now shines in the stream:
> 'Tis the star-spangled banner! Oh long may it wave
> O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave."
> -- Francis Scott Key, 1814
Francis always did have a way with words.
> You'll be 200 years old in 4 years, Jones. No wonder you know so
> much about rocket science.
Your flattery of those of us in the peanut gallery is apreciated, if
perhaps premature...
Phil: Well maybe the *real* God uses tricks, you know? Maybe he's not
omnipotent. He's just been around so long he knows everything.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107048/quotes
'cause I ain't there, yet.
rick jones
--
I don't interest myself in "why". I think more often in terms of
"when", sometimes "where"; always "how much." - Joubert
Sylvia Else
> Sylvia Else wrote:
>> Uncle Al wrote:
>>
>>> 80% bullshit business plan number for RF
>>> conversion
>> At 80%, the remaining 20%, or 80MW, is heat that has to be got rid of,
>> by radiation alone.
>>
>> Sylvia.
>
> Given 0% carbon footprint, 80 MW continuous ground heating cannot add
> to Global Warming. Besides, it is add over a broad area. It's not
> like lighting a candle or grilling a steak - both of which are
> Enviro-whiner atrocities.
>
I wasn't talking about on the ground. If the space side conversion of
generated power to microwaves is only 80% efficient, then there's 20%
loss in heat. That heat has to be got rid of, or the system will melt.
Given that it's in a vacuum, the heat has to be got rid of entirely by
radiation.
Sylvia.
Peter Fairbrother
For physics reasons (in order to get a small enough beam spread) the
transmitter will need to be 0.5-1 km across, regardless of power; and
there is no real reason why it should not be made from heat-tolerant
materials, excepting maybe some of the electronics.
Even for my proposed 100 GW systems, cooling the transmitter isn't a big
problem. No external cooling systems are needed, just sunshades. Indeed
if it can operate at a few hundred C even sunshades are not required.
[One reason why I am in favour of very large systems is that the Earth
and space antennae are about the same size regardless of power (within
reason) - so it's best to put a whole lot of power through the system -
means fewer Earth stations are required.
For instance half a dozen 100 GW systems could provide the US's entire
electricity needs, and have extra left over for eg electric transport -
and only need six receiving stations, each about 15 miles across.]
-- Peter Fairbrother
Androcles
> In sci.space.history Androcles <Headm...@hogwarts.physics_q> wrote:
>> Everyone else is new to rocket science except Rick Jones,
>> he's been around rockets since 1814.
>
>> "And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
>> Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
>> Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam,
>> In full glory reflected now shines in the stream:
>> 'Tis the star-spangled banner! Oh long may it wave
>> O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave."
>> -- Francis Scott Key, 1814
>
> Francis always did have a way with words.
>
>> You'll be 200 years old in 4 years, Jones. No wonder you know so
>> much about rocket science.
>
> Your flattery of those of us in the peanut gallery is apreciated, if
> perhaps premature...
It's never to early to be sarcastic. Energy company engineers
don't know a thing about vehicle science, they don't work for
Ford or GM. I doubt they can even drive a car - especially if
the new electronic ignition system with the radio controlled
switch designed by Osama bin Laden is still secret and unpatented.
Still, never mind, as long as it works on a test drive you'd buy
one, eh?
Such a trusting soul...
Androcles
"Sylvia Else" <syl...@not.at.this.address> wrote in message
It had to arrive entirely by radiation. Didn't you know the Sun is hot?
Jonathan
"Sylvia Else" <syl...@not.at.this.address> wrote in message
> Jonathan wrote:
>> "Sylvia Else" <syl...@not.at.this.address> wrote in message
>> news:00a09904$0$23357$c3e...@news.astraweb.com...
>>>> Solaren has not provided details on just how its technology
>>>> works, citing intellectual property concerns.
>>> Meaning it wouldn't stand up to the inevitable expert scrutiny if they got a
>>> patent.
>>>
>>
>> Maybe, but keeping a secret could mean fraud or it could mean
>> a breakthrough, we don't know for sure.
>
> If they have a breakthrough, they should get a patent on it, ASAP. As long as
> it's merely secret, they're exposed to industrial espionage, accidental leaks,
> you name it.
They claim to have a patented 'system'. But that's all I found, no details.
":Solaren's patented SSP plant design uses...." "We are currently supporting
the CPUC regulatory filing process, and plan to provide additional details
about our SSP pilot plant project in early Summer 2009."
http://www.next100.com/2009/04/interview-with-solaren-ceo-gar.php
>
> > But the electric company
>> P G & E, one of the largest utilities in the nation, while considering
>> the contract should be privy to the details of the technology.
>
> It wouldn't be the first time that people who should have known better got
> taken for a ride. See
But there is significance to be found in all this. The 'Big Question' in
building a vibrant space faring future is when will the market place
be able to make 'Big Money' in space. Which would vastly accelerate
the move into space.
The answer to that question is stated clearly by P G &E in it's filing.
"PG&E believes that potential, significant benefits to its customers
from a successful space solar installation outweigh the challenges
associated with a new and unproven technology."
http://www.pge.com/nots/rates/tariffs/tm2/pdf/ELEC_3449-E.pdf
/When the benefits exceed the risks/.....THAT'S..when the market place
can make a successful pitch to investors, and start the ball rolling.
Even with the low risk contract, the key point is that P G & E has
pledged to buy the product in advance. That's a big help in finding
investors and an advantage over most start ups. A biotech, for instance
often spends hundreds of millions of dollars in the hope their product
pans out and finds a buyer later. The energy start ups, it appears, will
be able to find buyers and agree upon prices before they've printed
their first circuit board.
It seems energy just might become that next large market for
space activities. And that is a good thing for our future.
Very Good!
Sylvia Else
Yes, and if the transmitter could run at the temperature of the surface
of the sun, there'd be no problem.
Sylvia.
Sylvia Else
> Sylvia Else wrote:
>> Uncle Al wrote:
>>> Sylvia Else wrote:
>>>> Uncle Al wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> 80% bullshit business plan number for RF
>>>>> conversion
>>>> At 80%, the remaining 20%, or 80MW, is heat that has to be got rid of,
>>>> by radiation alone.
>>>>
>>>> Sylvia.
>>>
>>> Given 0% carbon footprint, 80 MW continuous ground heating cannot add
>>> to Global Warming. Besides, it is add over a broad area. It's not
>>> like lighting a candle or grilling a steak - both of which are
>>> Enviro-whiner atrocities.
>>>
>>
>> I wasn't talking about on the ground. If the space side conversion of
>> generated power to microwaves is only 80% efficient, then there's 20%
>> loss in heat. That heat has to be got rid of, or the system will melt.
>> Given that it's in a vacuum, the heat has to be got rid of entirely by
>> radiation.
>
> For physics reasons (in order to get a small enough beam spread) the
> transmitter will need to be 0.5-1 km across, regardless of power; and
> there is no real reason why it should not be made from heat-tolerant
> materials, excepting maybe some of the electronics.
Typically, the transmitting antenna would be a mesh to minimise the mass
- the holes merely have to be small compared with the transmitted
wavelength. But a mesh doesn't have a large surface area, which would be
required to radiate away the heat.
>
> Even for my proposed 100 GW systems, cooling the transmitter isn't a big
> problem. No external cooling systems are needed, just sunshades. Indeed
> if it can operate at a few hundred C even sunshades are not required.
What's the blackbody radiation per square metre at a few hundred Celsius?
Sylvia.
Autymn D. C.
> That's correct. The beam power density will be about one-fourth the
intensity
Peter Fairbrother
>>> [..]
>>> Nice, if there's somebody in orbit who can use 400 MW.
>>> If you want to use it planet-side, you have to get it down here.
>>> THAT creates problems.
>>> A storage device has mass, which brings all the transport problems of
>>> a safe re-entry and recovery.
>> Anti-matter?
>>
>>> A conduit would require materials with properties we have not
>>> developed yet.
>>> A beam would present an enormous safety and environmental hazard. You
>>> could cook an Airbus in milliseconds with a 400 megawatt microwave.
>>> That's about 200,000 heavy-duty microwave ovens - at once.
>> Not so, actually - an Airbus weighs about 400 tons, call the exposure 1
>> kW/kg, or perhaps 1 degree C per second, so it would take several
>> minutes, not milliseconds, before the Airbus might start losing
>> structural strength. If it was flying rather than parked, the air would
>> cool it so much that it wouldn't be affected at all.
>
> How long would the Airbus' avionics last in a 400 megawatt microwave
> beam?
>
> You can't fly those crates by the seat-of-the-pants. Knock out the
> electronic fly-by-wire systems and the plane becomes a brick.
Indeed, the power level in the beam is above the FAA standards -
aircraft would be required to avoid the area.
However if there are only a few beams, say six in the US, and each
exclusion area would be about 15 miles across, and probably located far
from airports - not a big problem, eg you can't fly over Area 51 or
whatever nowadays.
I was just pointing out that the aircraft, even a composite one,
wouldn't melt or anything like that!
-- Peter Fairbrother
Autymn D. C.
> 3) Solar cell efficiency real world is no better than 20% with
> crystalline silicon. 80% bullshit business plan number for RF
> conversion, 80% bullhshit^2 number for ground recovery.
> (0.2)(0.8)(0.8) = 13% orbita; insolation to ground electrical
> transfer, assuming absolute perfection. Look up the solar constant
> for square mileage of solar cells required.
20% on Earth, and why silicon?
> 4) After the power plant delivers 2.5x10^6 kW/hr of electricity it
> covers its launch energy. After it delivers another 10^11 kW/hr of
> electricity at $0.10/kW/hr net profits, it covers its launch cost.
<smirk>
> 5) At 400 megawatts 24/7, the bottom of the hole reaches ground
> level - assuming no intermediate costs, after 28.52 years (including
> leap years).
> 6) Add in amortization of the cost of materials, maintenannce,
> salaries, pensions, healthcare coverage, expense chits... and teh lfie
> of a soalr cell installation under solar hard UV, radiation, meteor
> showers, and orbital debris. Ground solar cells last about 20 years.
What happens after 20 years? Not much, square.
-Aut
Autymn D. C.
> >> I wasn't talking about on the ground. If the space side conversion of
> >> generated power to microwaves is only 80% efficient, then there's 20% loss
> >> in heat. That heat has to be got rid of, or the system will melt. Given
> >> that it's in a vacuum, the heat has to be got rid of entirely by
> >> radiation.
>
> >> Sylvia.
>
> > It had to arrive entirely by radiation. Didn't you know the Sun is hot?
>
> Yes, and if the transmitter could run at the temperature of the surface
> of the sun, there'd be no problem.
Then why not make a plasma transmitter?
Androcles
"Sylvia Else" <syl...@not.at.this.address> wrote in message
Oh, you mean an incandescent lamp.
It's gonna need a mighty big solar array to power it for
100 MW. Perhaps someone is planning to orbit a nuclear
reactor instead, or else they'll need a lot of coal.
Peter Fairbrother
Most designs don't use a mesh, but rather a matrix of transmitting
elements in a solid plane. The individual elements are closely spaced,
and even if a grid was used it would be fairly full. Think of a phased
array antenna rather than a loose grid of wires
>>
>> Even for my proposed 100 GW systems, cooling the transmitter isn't a
>> big problem. No external cooling systems are needed, just sunshades.
>> Indeed if it can operate at a few hundred C even sunshades are not
>> required.
>
> What's the blackbody radiation per square metre at a few hundred Celsius?
7348 w/m^2 at 600 K or 327 C.
A 3 km^2 area transmitter at 327C would radiate over 20GW, enough for a
100 GW transmitter at 20% efficiency.
-- Peter Fairbrother
Peter Fairbrother
Duh, 20% loss, not 20% efficiency. Sorry.
For a 400 MW system, as opposed to a 100 GW system, even with a wire
grid, the cooling requirements are ... piffling. You'd want to take them
into account, but that's about all.
Oh, on antenna sizes - the larger the antenna in orbit the tighter the
beam, and thus the smaller the required ground antenna, and the required
exclusion zone.
For a 100 GW system I'd use a considerably larger space antenna than the
1.4 km diameter antenna implied above so that the irradiation at the
edge of the terrestrial antenna's exclusion zone was *much* less than eg
the exposure caused by carrying a mobile phone or using a microwave oven.
Safety first, precautionary principle (you don't want to get sued), and
so on.
-- Peter Fairbrother
Pat Flannery
> I was just pointing out that the aircraft, even a composite one,
> wouldn't melt or anything like that!
I was more worried about the microwaves going right through the
composite parts of the aircraft and hitting the people and electronics
inside of it.
As someone pointed out earlier, a all-metal aircraft works like a
Faraday Cage and shields its interior from the microwaves...although I'd
expect some pretty impressive electrical displays off of the static
discharge wicks at the wing and tail tips as the plane itself will act
like a rectenna for the microwaves, and that electrical energy has to go
somewhere.
It's best just to have aircraft just steer clear of the beam.
Pat
Pat Flannery
>
> Most designs don't use a mesh, but rather a matrix of transmitting
> elements in a solid plane. The individual elements are closely spaced,
> and even if a grid was used it would be fairly full. Think of a phased
> array antenna rather than a loose grid of wires
Something like a huge version of this:
http://www.bharat-rakshak.com/NAVY/Images/MR-775.jpg
Unlike a big parabolic dish, you can steer the microwave beam from a
flat array electronically without having to physically move the antenna.
Pat
Sylvia Else
> "Sylvia Else" <syl...@not.at.this.address> wrote in message
> news:00a1528c$0$26889$c3e...@news.astraweb.com...
>> Jonathan wrote:
>>> "Sylvia Else" <syl...@not.at.this.address> wrote in message
>>> news:00a09904$0$23357$c3e...@news.astraweb.com...
>>>>> Solaren has not provided details on just how its technology
>>>>> works, citing intellectual property concerns.
>>>> Meaning it wouldn't stand up to the inevitable expert scrutiny if they got a
>>>> patent.
>>>>
>>> Maybe, but keeping a secret could mean fraud or it could mean
>>> a breakthrough, we don't know for sure.
>> If they have a breakthrough, they should get a patent on it, ASAP. As long as
>> it's merely secret, they're exposed to industrial espionage, accidental leaks,
>> you name it.
>
>
> They claim to have a patented 'system'. But that's all I found, no details.
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7612284.html
Usual case of patenting the bleedin' obvious, while not identifying a
solution to the technical difficulties involved.
Sylvia.
Sylvia Else
Imagine a large square in orbit over the equator, oriented so that its
surface is horizontal, (w.r.t. the surface of the Earth immediately
below) and so that it has one of its four sides (the "front")
perpendicular to the direction of motion.
It seems to me that all four sides experience a force with a component
towards the centre of the square, and a component away from the centre
of the Earth. The forces on the front and rear arise because they are
travelling too fast for the orbit they are in. The forces on the left
and right arise because of that, and also because they are not actually
in an orbit about the centre of the Earth. These forces tend to make the
square crumple into a ball.
The forces on the front and rear sides can be eliminated by making the
square curved, but the forces on the left and right sides remain.
Making a very large antenna that is sufficiently rigid not to collapse,
but light enough to be launched, doesn't seem such a straigthforward
proposition.
Sylvia.
Pat Flannery
> I was just pointing out that the aircraft, even a composite one,
> wouldn't melt or anything like that!
There's another thing to consider here... if the composite material uses
carbon fiber in its construction (most aerospace composites do) there
is a problem as carbon fiber is electrically conductive, and hitting it
with microwave energy might cause it to arc at the ends of the fiber in
the same way a metal bread bag tie will in a microwave oven.
(Any long thin metal object works like a antenna for the microwave
energy, and starts emitting high amperage electricity at the ends that
will cause them to melt in a spectacular light and sound show*)
Although the microwave flux in the beam would be very low, the
individual carbon fibers could be several hundred feet in length, and
that could give them the antenna area needed to build up a very large
electrical charge even in a low energy microwave environment.
* You wreck your microwave oven trying this, it's not my fault - and the
fusing steel of the wire tie is hot enough to melt right into the glass
tray you put the food on.
Pat
BradGuth
> Controversy Flares Over Space-Based Solar Power Plans
>
> Jeremy Hsu
> space.com - Wed Dec 2, 10:15 am ET
>
> "Solaren would then need to launch a solar panel array capable
> of generating 400 megawatts. The total launch weight of all the
> equipment would be the equivalent of about 400 metric tons,
> or 20 shuttle-sized launches, according to Hoffert.
>
> But Solaren says that it would just require four or five heavy-lift
> rocket launches capable of carrying 25 metric tons, or about
> one fourth of Hoffert's weight estimate. The company is relying
> on developing more efficient photovoltaic technology for the
> solar panels, as well as mirrors that help focus sunlight.
>
> Solaren has not provided details on just how its technology
> its space solar power can convert to RF energy with greater
> than 80 percent efficiency, and expects similar conversion
> efficiency for converting the RF energy back to DC
> electricity on the ground in California. The company also
> anticipates minimal transmission losses from the space
> to the ground."http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20091202/sc_space/controversyflaresover...
>
> The 'inevitable' is steadily becoming possible...imho.
>
> Jonathan
>
> s
64% all-inclusive efficiency isn't half bad,
Getting so much created, deployed and serviced is likely going to
consume most every megawatt of energy it produces, and then some.
Is this energy going to cost us $1/kw.h?
~ BG
BradGuth
> .
> .
>
> Space Solar Power hoax/illusion DEBUNKED article:
>
> http://www.ghostnasa.com/posts/038sspdebunked.html
>
> .
> .
>
> Why the Ares-1 is already DEAD article:
>
> http://www.ghostnasa.com/posts2/058ares1dead.html
It's called job security without having to invest a dime of your own
loot. William Mook was always good at suggesting ways of his living
large off the backs of others, as well as always protecting Big Energy
and their puppet government at the same time.
~ BG
Pat Flannery
> Making a very large antenna that is sufficiently rigid not to collapse,
> but light enough to be launched, doesn't seem such a straigthforward
> proposition.
Yes, there are tidal effects to be taken into account due to it not
being a point source in orbit.
There's a trick that might be usable here; since objects with like
electrical charges tend to repel each other, you might be able to charge
the whole thing and have it use electrostatic repulsion to keep it rigid
as the individual parts try to move away from each other.
This converts the structure into something that can be held together by
thin wires in tension rather than structural framework.
The NRO reportedly used the flip side of this concept many years back by
deploying the collapsible framework of a large parabolic antenna of a
signal intercept satellite in orbit, and having electrostatic attraction
suck the thin covering material (probably something like a aluminized
mylar sheeting) down onto the framework to give it smooth reflective
surface.
Pat
Peter Fairbrother
> Pat Flannery wrote:
>> Peter Fairbrother wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> Most designs don't use a mesh, but rather a matrix of transmitting
>>> elements in a solid plane. The individual elements are closely
>>> spaced, and even if a grid was used it would be fairly full. Think of
>>
>> Something like a huge version of this:
>> http://www.bharat-rakshak.com/NAVY/Images/MR-775.jpg
>> Unlike a big parabolic dish, you can steer the microwave beam from a
>> flat array electronically without having to physically move the antenna.
>>
>> Pat
>
> Imagine a large square in orbit over the equator, oriented so that its
> surface is horizontal, (w.r.t. the surface of the Earth immediately
> below) and so that it has one of its four sides (the "front")
> perpendicular to the direction of motion.
>
> It seems to me that all four sides experience a force with a component
> towards the centre of the square, and a component away from the centre
> of the Earth. The forces on the front and rear arise because they are
> travelling too fast for the orbit they are in. The forces on the left
> and right arise because of that, and also because they are not actually
> in an orbit about the centre of the Earth. These forces tend to make the
> square crumple into a ball.
Yes, though it's more a prolate spheroid than a ball.
BTW, an antenna will probably be round, not square, though that doesn't
change much.
> The forces on the front and rear sides can be eliminated by making the
> square curved, but the forces on the left and right sides remain.
Indeed. but this is in GEO, so the forces will be quite a lot smaller
than in, say, LEO. A flat antenna is however best.
Also it spins once per day in order to keep it pointed at the Earth,
around an axis at right angles to the motion through the plane of the
antenna, which gives a bit of fore-aft tension. Electronic beam steering
is only used for fine adjustments.
It could also be spun about an axis perpendicular to the plane to keep
it in tension. It wouldn't need to spin fast, maybe once per hour (I
haven't worked it out, that's a wild guess).
There are also possible electrostatic and other tricks, as mentioned by Pat.
The mirrors may have to spin too, and the support beams between the
mirrors and the transmitter/power station are also a weight problem.
> Making a very large antenna that is sufficiently rigid not to collapse,
> but light enough to be launched, doesn't seem such a straigthforward
> proposition.
Agreed, it isn't straightforward, especially at todays launch capacities
and costs - a new, much cheaper, high-capacity per annum (though not
necessarily per launch) launch system is needed for it to be
economically viable.
However the potential market is in the trillions, so capital to develop
a new launch system is chickenfeed really (though we are still talking
about a large amount of money).
[Hmm, I think I described such a launch system here a few months ago,
30,000 tons per year capacity for $7 billion or so ...]
BTW there are a lot of studies available at
http://www.nss.org/settlement/ssp/library/index.htm if you are
interested, though I think many of them seem to miss the point a bit -
for instance, providing power to forward troops is not going to work
well politically, inciting claims of cooking the enemy etc.
The real money is in supplying fixed domestic and industrial power,
which has very few unwanted domestic (and pretty well zero
international) political consequences if done right.
And no greenhouse gases, or very few, and no nuclear waste, and almost
zero environmental impact (except for some at the ground sites, which
IMO should be situated in deserts or otherwise empty areas).
Personally I'd go for 100 GW Brayton cycle turbine systems rather than a
400 MW direct semiconductor conversion system, with maybe 5 km diameter
space antennas and 8 km ground antennas - though I haven't done any
detailed studies on this, it's very BOTE.
-- Peter Fairbrother
Dr J R Stockton
Mon, 14 Dec 2009 00:15:28, Peter Fairbrother <zenad...@zen.co.uk>
posted:
>
>You wouldn't want to stay there too long, but it wouldn't kill you in
>seconds, more like hours, or a lot longer with suitable protection (or
>years, in the outer zone, even with no protection) - the microwave
>energy per unit area in the center is about the same as the energy from
>the noonday sun ... except it's there 24/7.
>
Since one wants to "Fill the dish" and capture 100% of the energy, and
one also wants easy maintenance access, it seems desirable to mount the
entire receiver on a forest of poles at a height of a few metres (the
banyan tree thought of that first). Since the receiver efficiency will
be high, and at least some of the losses will be by means other than
penetration of the array, the flux at ground level should be a lot less
than the beam power would imply.
--
(c) John Stockton, nr London, UK. ?@merlyn.demon.co.uk Turnpike v6.05 MIME.
Web <URL:http://www.merlyn.demon.co.uk/> - FAQqish topics, acronyms & links;
Astro stuff via astron-1.htm, gravity0.htm ; quotings.htm, pascal.htm, etc.
No Encoding. Quotes before replies. Snip well. Write clearly. Don't Mail News.
Sylvia Else
> It could also be spun about an axis perpendicular to the plane to keep
> it in tension. It wouldn't need to spin fast, maybe once per hour (I
> haven't worked it out, that's a wild guess).
That axis would be continuously changing because of the need to keep the
antenna pointed at Earth. So you would need to find a continuous torque
from somewhere (gyroscope effect), as well as deal with the structural
implications. I suspect that spinning it to put it in tension would
create more problems than it solves.
>
> There are also possible electrostatic and other tricks, as mentioned by
> Pat.
>
> The mirrors may have to spin too, and the support beams between the
> mirrors and the transmitter/power station are also a weight problem.
They're presumably less of a problem in that they point at the sun,
meaning that their axis of rotation is going through a complete turn
once per year rather than once per day.
>
>
>> Making a very large antenna that is sufficiently rigid not to
>> collapse, but light enough to be launched, doesn't seem such a
>> straigthforward proposition.
>
> Agreed, it isn't straightforward, especially at todays launch capacities
> and costs - a new, much cheaper, high-capacity per annum (though not
> necessarily per launch) launch system is needed for it to be
> economically viable.
>
> However the potential market is in the trillions, so capital to develop
> a new launch system is chickenfeed really (though we are still talking
> about a large amount of money).
I remain sceptical of the economics. It's not sufficient for the system
to be financially possible - it has to be cheaper than alternatives that
achieve the same general goals. For example, even though land based
solar has issues with availability which have to be addressed, the fact
that they don't need to be launched represents a huge saving.
Sylvia.
Jonathan
"Sylvia Else" <syl...@not.at.this.address> wrote in message
Well would you expect them to? It doesn't make for good business
to give your product 'details' away for free. The test of their ideas will
be if it can go public and convince institutional investors to buy their
stock.
>
> Sylvia.
Sylvia Else
I don't see why not, if you have a patent. What it appears they've done
is to patent something that's obvious, for the purpose of using the
existence of the patent, without providing detail, as a way of giving
themselves undeserved credibility.
Sylvia.
Rick Jones
> Well would you expect them to? It doesn't make for good business to
> give your product 'details' away for free. The test of their ideas
> will be if it can go public and convince institutional investors to
> buy their stock.
If it is patentable and covered by patent, then they are protected for
the duration of the patent, which, ostensibly, is supposed to cover
the important details about what is being patented. That is the whole
point behind a patent - once granted, it does not matter if everyone
else knows what you are doing, they cannot do what you are doing
without licencing your patent.
If it is left merely as trade secret, if someone else figures-out what
you have figured-out (at least if they do so by allowed means) then
you have virtually no recourse.
rick jones
--
The computing industry isn't as much a game of "Follow The Leader" as
it is one of "Ring Around the Rosy" or perhaps "Duck Duck Goose."
- Rick Jones
these opinions are mine, all mine; HP might not want them anyway... :)
feel free to post, OR email to rick.jones2 in hp.com but NOT BOTH...
Pat Flannery
> BTW there are a lot of studies available at
> http://www.nss.org/settlement/ssp/library/index.htm if you are
> interested, though I think many of them seem to miss the point a bit -
> for instance, providing power to forward troops is not going to work
> well politically, inciting claims of cooking the enemy etc.
The military is still interested in that concept the last I heard; how
to get the rectenna into position in the field is a good question - some
sort of a thing that rolls up like a carpet for air transport?
If you could be sure it wouldn't wander off target, you might be able to
send down the power as a laser beam and run some sort of steam generator
with it at the ground end... although that would be something that could
be converted into a weapon in no time flat.
It would at least get the size of the receiver device down somewhat
compared to microwaves, but it still might be pretty wide if it came all
the way down from GEO.
>
> The real money is in supplying fixed domestic and industrial power,
> which has very few unwanted domestic (and pretty well zero
> international) political consequences if done right.
The initial cost though is going to be a real whopper to fund.
This sounds like something the Chinese would do, as they seem really
enthralled with giant projects at the moment.
>
> And no greenhouse gases, or very few, and no nuclear waste, and almost
> zero environmental impact (except for some at the ground sites, which
> IMO should be situated in deserts or otherwise empty areas).
>
> Personally I'd go for 100 GW Brayton cycle turbine systems rather than a
> 400 MW direct semiconductor conversion system, with maybe 5 km diameter
> space antennas and 8 km ground antennas - though I haven't done any
> detailed studies on this, it's very BOTE.
NASA seriously considered Brayton Cycle power generation for the ISS,
but decided to go with the solar arrays instead.
They did run a test Brayton or Stirling Cycle generator for a year or
two nonstop with no problems though, IIRC.
One problem with solar arrays in GEO is that solar storms slowly degrade
them with their radiation, and that every decade or two you would need
to replace them...not a easy thing to do considering the altitude of the
orbit and size of the SPS.
So maybe some sort of thermal system might have the advantage over solar
arrays in this regard.
Pat
Pat Flannery
> That axis would be continuously changing because of the need to keep the
> antenna pointed at Earth. So you would need to find a continuous torque
> from somewhere (gyroscope effect), as well as deal with the structural
> implications. I suspect that spinning it to put it in tension would
> create more problems than it solves.
You might run into some strange precession problems as it rotated,
causing it to slowly wobble around the center of aim.
Although keeping it aimed at the sun will be easy, as you've now turned
it into a huge gyroscope, and it will keep aiming in the same direction
as it orbits around the Earth in GEO.
Most orbital behavior problems with the design can be studied by
examining the design of Comsats for use in GEO, as this is basically one
of those scaled up to huge size to where the microwaves are generating
electrical power rather than just carrying communications signals.
Pat
Pat Flannery
>
> Since one wants to "Fill the dish" and capture 100% of the energy, and
> one also wants easy maintenance access, it seems desirable to mount the
> entire receiver on a forest of poles at a height of a few metres (the
> banyan tree thought of that first). Since the receiver efficiency will
> be high, and at least some of the losses will be by means other than
> penetration of the array, the flux at ground level should be a lot less
> than the beam power would imply.
HAARP* is built like this, but for beaming energy up, not capturing it
on the way down; still, it does show that the rectenna doesn't really
have to cost much for all of its size, and can be pretty low tech in
construction: http://www.rexresearch.com/airwells/haarp.jpg
* You know, the thing that's controlling Alex Jones' brain. ;-)
Pat
Rick Jones
it awaken Them! ;-)
http://www.horror-wood.com/them.htm
rick jones
--
a wide gulf separates "what if" from "if only"
Jonathan
"BradGuth" <brad...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:6b4a5e28-24e8-423a...@x5g2000prf.googlegroups.com...
> 64% all-inclusive efficiency isn't half bad,
> Getting so much created, deployed and serviced is likely going to
> consume most every megawatt of energy it produces, and then some.
> Is this energy going to cost us $1/kw.h?
It doesn't really matter, the greater benefit would be
the effect on all other energy sources.
You have to consider how market systems react when
an industry becomes 'thin', when there's very little or
no excess capacity. Any little disruption in supply can
cause a panic and the prices to explode. Just as oil did
during the Iraq occupation. Oil shot up from some $30
to $160 in a few months from the fear of losing some
production. Just from the .... fear, not from any sizable
reduction in production actually taking place.
What would happen if the supply were to truly become
less than demand? Say if one of the worlds' larger oil fields
went belly up? Or a larger war (IRAN)? Countries would
start hoarding and the whole market could collapse overnight.
The price would bubble like never before and collapse
like the real estate/stock market just did. Only thing
is having the energy market bubble would mean an
end to much of the industrialized world.
We desperately need a /new/ source of energy that can
provide greater confidence to the market place
that a disruption can be handled. The price of energy
/in an emergency/ would effectively be capped
at whatever price Space Solar Power happens
to cost at the time. Until then it can be sold at peak prices
to over burdened grids, or to specialty markets such as
remote or temporary uses etc.
What's scary is the notion of supplying all the world growth
in energy demand with new ....coal power plants.
We need a better way. Besides, the US govt has spent
less than a hundred million on SSP research compared
to some ten billion dollars on a true pipe-dream...fusion.
Nothing really has been spent on SSP research.
I don't believe all the so-called technical hurdles
will be a big problem once real funding and
dedicated research are set in motion.
~ BG
Sylvia Else
> "BradGuth" <brad...@gmail.com> wrote in message
> news:6b4a5e28-24e8-423a...@x5g2000prf.googlegroups.com...
>
>
>> 64% all-inclusive efficiency isn't half bad,
>
>> Getting so much created, deployed and serviced is likely going to
>> consume most every megawatt of energy it produces, and then some.
>
>> Is this energy going to cost us $1/kw.h?
>
> It doesn't really matter, the greater benefit would be
> the effect on all other energy sources.
If it costs more than the other sources, then it won't have any effect
on them.
Sylvia.
Pat Flannery
> Do we really want all that "radiation" set loose on the desert? Won't
> it awaken Them! ;-)
>
> http://www.horror-wood.com/them.htm
I'm amazed someone hasn't remade that yet, given the CGI they can do
these days.
Since the movie was originally to be in color, they put a lot of work
into the ants that you never saw on-screen in the finished B&W version;
they were metallic green and purple in color, and their eyes sparkled in
all the colors of the spectrum as their heads moved.
The "hair" on their bodies was turkey feathers, and IIRC they were made
to move by being something like a cross between a giant puppet and
marionette.
They scared the hell out of me as a kid, and in 3D they probably would
have had the kids in the audience running from the theater screaming.
Pat
tadchem
> tadchem wrote:
> > On Dec 13, 11:18 am, Peter Fairbrother <zenadsl6...@zen.co.uk> wrote:
> >> tadchem wrote:
> >>> [..]
> >>> Nice, if there's somebody in orbit who can use 400 MW.
> >>> If you want to use it planet-side, you have to get it down here.
> >>> THAT creates problems.
> >>> A storage device has mass, which brings all the transport problems of
> >>> a safe re-entry and recovery.
> >> Anti-matter?
>
> >>> A conduit would require materials with properties we have not
> >>> developed yet.
> >>> A beam would present an enormous safety and environmental hazard. You
> >>> could cook an Airbus in milliseconds with a 400 megawatt microwave.
> >>> That's about 200,000 heavy-duty microwave ovens - at once.
> >> Not so, actually - an Airbus weighs about 400 tons, call the exposure 1
> >> kW/kg, or perhaps 1 degree C per second, so it would take several
> >> minutes, not milliseconds, before the Airbus might start losing
> >> structural strength. If it was flying rather than parked, the air would
> >> cool it so much that it wouldn't be affected at all.
>
> > How long would the Airbus' avionics last in a 400 megawatt microwave
> > beam?
>
> > You can't fly those crates by the seat-of-the-pants. Knock out the
> > electronic fly-by-wire systems and the plane becomes a brick.
>
> Indeed, the power level in the beam is above the FAA standards -
> aircraft would be required to avoid the area.
>
> However if there are only a few beams, say six in the US, and each
> exclusion area would be about 15 miles across, and probably located far
> from airports - not a big problem, eg you can't fly over Area 51 or
> whatever nowadays.
>
> I was just pointing out that the aircraft, even a composite one,
> wouldn't melt or anything like that!
"Exclusion zones" are not foolproof. We have had several cases of
unregulated aircraft inadvertently violating the Washington D.C. no-
fly zone recently.
I'm sure that would be of great consolation to the families of the
victims.
Tom Davidson
Richmond, VA
Pat Flannery
> They scared the hell out of me as a kid, and in 3D they probably would
> have had the kids in the audience running from the theater screaming.
Just found out that the very memorable sound the ants made in the movie
was the call of the bird-voiced tree frog (Hyla avivoca) with an
occasional gray tree frog (Hyla chrysoscelis) call thrown in.
You can hear the frog's call here:
http://www.uga.edu/srelherp/anurans/hylavi.htm
Now get a little bottle of formic acid to sniff at, and close your eyes...
Pat
Peter Fairbrother
> "BradGuth" <brad...@gmail.com> wrote in message
> news:6b4a5e28-24e8-423a...@x5g2000prf.googlegroups.com...
>
>
>> 64% all-inclusive efficiency isn't half bad,
>
>> Getting so much created, deployed and serviced is likely going to
>> consume most every megawatt of energy it produces, and then some.
>
>> Is this energy going to cost us $1/kw.h?
It depends, mostly on system size and launch costs - for a very
large-scale system, we are talking about maybe $0.05 per kWh, or perhaps
less, but a small-scale system would cost a lot more - even a
medium-large system at today's launch rates would be hard pressed to get
$1 per kWh.
That's cost-plus-profit, domestic price should be about $0.20 and
industrial price about $0.06 per kWh. You could do even better, see at
the end below.
Consider a single 100 GW system - at $0.05 per kWh the income is $44
billion per annum. Allowing $10 billion per annum for maintenance etc,
at fairly average interest rates and timescale, you could spend maybe
$100 billion on the system and still make a profit.
The system cost can be divided into ground hardware, space hardware, and
launch costs.
Considering first ground hardware, each system, large or small, would
need about the same area in ground antenna - which is going to be
expensive. even in a desert, and in somewhere like Northern Maine it
would be extremely expensive.
Also there would have to be a connection to the nearby distribution
system, where a lot of the cost is in easements, public enquiries, and
permissions, which would be roughly the same per station for any size of
system. The terrestrial transmission hardware for a very large system
would cost more overall, but much less on a per-unit basis.
So larger systems win out on these grounds alone.
On space hardware, again a larger systems win out. This gets a bit
complex, for instance whether you are using solar cells or a Brayton
cycle (a Stirling cycle is probably not as good for a very large system,
though it's good for small-to-medium sizes).
On large systems, and especially on very large systems, a Brayton cycle
system would be lighter and cheaper than an equivalent capacity solar
cell system, and as even solar cell systems get cheaper the larger they
are (benefits of scale etc), a very large system wins out either way
over smaller systems.
If you are using solar cells, the lifetime of the cells is limited and
they would have to be replaced every 10-20 years at a huge cost.
Replacing the mirrors on a Brayton cycle system every 10-20 years would
cost much less, as mirrors are much cheaper than solar cells, and much
lighter. Mirrors should also last longer than solar cells, and have to
be replaced less often.
On launch costs, the present problem is both cost per pound launched and
launch capacity. For best economy, and for a less-than-$1 per kWh cost,
a new launch system would be needed, with high per-annum capacity and
much lower per pound cost than present systems.
There is another, not obvious, advantage in building such a
high-capacity launch system (almost certainly it would be a TSTO with a
winged reusable first stage) - the lower the cost per pound of launch,
the cheaper the hardware gets.
If you can launch cheaper, you can use heavier hardware, which will be
more robust and cost less. You don't need to fight for the last ounce of
payload, just send the extra mass up as part of another one. If a part
breaks, just send up another - which means that the required reliability
of parts is lower, and thus the parts are cheaper.
Typically payloads cost about 2.5 times the cost of launch, though it
varies a lot, of course. If a launch costs ten times less, and this
trend continues, then hardware in orbit will cost ten times less per lb
- looked at another way, you can have ten times as much mass in orbit
for the same money, and then you start to build things cheap because
they don't have to be expensive, high-tech, ultralight solutions, you
can use steel rather than titanium if you want.
I agree, the problem is money, and confidence in the vision to invest
the money, not technology. SSP needs a whole lot of capital to do it so
it works well.
But then the energy market is very large indeed, and spending even $50
billion just on developing a suitable launch system is not economically
out of the question.
A really large investment, say $200 billion over ten years into a launch
system and six 100 GW stations, could bring the cost down to maybe $0.01
per kWh, cheaper than natural gas or coal generation, and even
comparable to burning coal for heat - and it could still make a very
nice profit :)
And that's just for US domestic consumption. Building say 30 systems
throughout the world could make an almost unimaginable profit, wipe out
the national debt, reverse global warming, and so on.
-- Peter Fairbrother
Peter Fairbrother
> In sci.physics Jonathan <Ho...@again.net> wrote:
>> "BradGuth" <brad...@gmail.com> wrote in message
>> news:6b4a5e28-24e8-423a...@x5g2000prf.googlegroups.com...
>>
>>
>>> 64% all-inclusive efficiency isn't half bad,
>>> Getting so much created, deployed and serviced is likely going to
>>> consume most every megawatt of energy it produces, and then some.
>>> Is this energy going to cost us $1/kw.h?
>> It doesn't really matter, the greater benefit would be
>> the effect on all other energy sources.
>
>
> The cost of electricity increasing by a factor of around 5 would be
> an economic catastrophe.
I wonder what the cost of electricity decreasing by a factor of five
would do?
>
> Technical problems are trivial compared to economic issues.
Yep.
-- Peter Fairbrother
Peter Fairbrother
> Peter Fairbrother wrote:
>> BTW there are a lot of studies available at
>> http://www.nss.org/settlement/ssp/library/index.htm if you are
>> interested, though I think many of them seem to miss the point a bit -
>> for instance, providing power to forward troops is not going to work
>> well politically, inciting claims of cooking the enemy etc.
>
> The military is still interested in that concept the last I heard; how
> to get the rectenna into position in the field is a good question - some
> sort of a thing that rolls up like a carpet for air transport?
> If you could be sure it wouldn't wander off target, you might be able to
> send down the power as a laser beam and run some sort of steam generator
> with it at the ground end... although that would be something that could
> be converted into a weapon in no time flat.
Yes, supplying forward troop is really a non-starter from the political
and military point of view - complaints fof weaponizing space (whether
to use as a direct weapon or just to supply power to forward troops,
UAV's etc), claims of cooking your enemies and your own troops,
technically challenged - that's not the way to go.
>> The real money is in supplying fixed domestic and industrial power,
>> which has very few unwanted domestic (and pretty well zero
>> international) political consequences if done right.
>
> The initial cost though is going to be a real whopper to fund.
Indeed, but the potential return is very large.
> This sounds like something the Chinese would do, as they seem really
> enthralled with giant projects at the moment.
>
>>
>> And no greenhouse gases, or very few, and no nuclear waste, and almost
>> zero environmental impact (except for some at the ground sites, which
>> IMO should be situated in deserts or otherwise empty areas).
>>
>> Personally I'd go for 100 GW Brayton cycle turbine systems rather than
>> a 400 MW direct semiconductor conversion system, with maybe 5 km
>> diameter space antennas and 8 km ground antennas - though I haven't
>> done any detailed studies on this, it's very BOTE.
>
> NASA seriously considered Brayton Cycle power generation for the ISS,
> but decided to go with the solar arrays instead.
> They did run a test Brayton or Stirling Cycle generator for a year or
> two nonstop with no problems though, IIRC.
> One problem with solar arrays in GEO is that solar storms slowly degrade
> them with their radiation, and that every decade or two you would need
> to replace them...not a easy thing to do considering the altitude of the
> orbit and size of the SPS.
> So maybe some sort of thermal system might have the advantage over solar
> arrays in this regard.
There are other advantages too, so my last-post-but-one.
-- Peter Fairbrother
Rick Jones
> "Exclusion zones" are not foolproof. We have had several cases of
> unregulated aircraft inadvertently violating the Washington D.C. no-
> fly zone recently.
> I'm sure that would be of great consolation to the families of the
> victims.
You word that like it would be the fault of the exclusion zone and not
the pilot.
A tall building is something of an exclusion zone - do we fault the
building if a pilot flies into it?
rick jones
--
A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
A: Top-posting.
Q: What is the most annoying thing on usenet and in e-mail?
zzbu...@netscape.net
> Peter Fairbrother wrote:
> > BTW there are a lot of studies available at
> > interested, though I think many of them seem to miss the point a bit -
> > for instance, providing power to forward troops is not going to work
> > well politically, inciting claims of cooking the enemy etc.
>
> The military is still interested in that concept the last I heard; how
> to get the rectenna into position in the field is a good question - some
> sort of a thing that rolls up like a carpet for air transport?
> If you could be sure it wouldn't wander off target, you might be able to
> send down the power as a laser beam and run some sort of steam generator
> with it at the ground end... although that would be something that could
> be converted into a weapon in no time flat.
> It would at least get the size of the receiver device down somewhat
> compared to microwaves, but it still might be pretty wide if it came all
> the way down from GEO.
>
>
>
> > The real money is in supplying fixed domestic and industrial power,
> > which has very few unwanted domestic (and pretty well zero
> > international) political consequences if done right.
>
> The initial cost though is going to be a real whopper to fund.
> This sounds like something the Chinese would do, as they seem really
> enthralled with giant projects at the moment.
The Chinese may be the only option with NASA anymore.
Since their screw-ups with optics, has put the ground people
on an entirely different approach to systems development.
And their screwups with computer clearances has also led
the computer engineers to forever bequeath Fortran to
the Game Theory cranks in AI.
And their screwups with contracting has also led the
people who are serious about high-tech jobs into
the field of rapid prototyping, and let them work
with Hollywood and the Suez Canalers.
Androcles
"Rick Jones" <rick....@hp.com> wrote in message
news:hgba70$hpl$4...@usenet01.boi.hp.com...
> In sci.space.history tadchem <tad...@comcast.net> wrote:
>> "Exclusion zones" are not foolproof. We have had several cases of
>> unregulated aircraft inadvertently violating the Washington D.C. no-
>> fly zone recently.
>
>> I'm sure that would be of great consolation to the families of the
>> victims.
>
> You word that like it would be the fault of the exclusion zone and not
> the pilot.
>
> A tall building is something of an exclusion zone - do we fault the
> building if a pilot flies into it?
>
> rick jones
> --
> A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text.
> Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
American
wrote:
> On Dec 15, 10:21 pm, Pat Flannery <flan...@daktel.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > Peter Fairbrother wrote:
> > > BTW there are a lot of studies available at
>
> - Show quoted text -- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
Are you referring to "cranks" in the sense of
(a) the great unwashed
or
(b) undiscovered genius
or
? anything in the Moby Thesaurus words for "crank" ?
L, Tartar, abnormal, aficionado, alien, angle, angle off,
anomalous, apex, bar, beam, bear, bee, bellyacher, bend,
bifurcate,
bifurcation, bight, boom, boutade, brainstorm, branch, branks,
buff, bug, cant, cant hook, capriccio, caprice, case, character,
chevron, circle, circulate, circumrotate, circumvolute, claw bar,
coin, complainant, complainer, conceit, corner, crab, crackbrain,
crackpot, crank in, crankish, cranky, craze, crazy idea, croaker,
crook, crosspatch, crotchet, crotchety, crow, crowbar,
cucking stool, cuckoo, deflection, deviant, deviative, devotee,
different, ding-a-ling, divergent, dogleg, dotty, dragon, draw
in,
draw taut, ducking stool, eccentric, elbow, ell, energumen,
enthusiast, erratic, exceptional, fad, fan, fanatic, fanatico,
fancy, fantastic notion, fantasy, faultfinder, feist, fey,
finger pillory, fire-eater, flake, flaky, flimflam, fool notion,
fork, freak, freakish, freakish inspiration, frondeur, funny,
furcate, furcation, fury, go around, go round, griper,
grizzly bear, grouch, grouser, growler, grumbler, gyrate, gyre,
handspike, harebrain, harebrained idea, hermit, hobo, hook,
hothead, hotspur, humor, idiocratic, idiosyncratic, infatuate,
inflection, iron crow, irregular, jimmy, kicker, kink, kinky,
knee,
kook, kooky, kvetch, lever, limb, lone wolf, loner, lunatic,
lunatic fringe, maggot, maggoty, malcontent, marlinespike,
maverick, megrim, meshuggenah, monomaniac, murmurer, mutterer,
natural, nonconformist, nook, notion, nut, nutty, odd, odd
fellow,
oddball, oddity, original, outrigger, outsider, pariah,
passing fancy, peavey, peculiar, pedal, pillory, pinch bar,
pirouette, pivot, point, prize, pry, pull in, queer, queer duck,
queer fish, queer specimen, querulous person, quirk, quirky,
quoin,
rara avis, reactionary, reactionist, rebel, recluse, reel, reel
in,
revolve, ripping bar, rotate, round, screw, screwball, screwy,
singular, solitary, sorehead, sourpuss, spar, spin, stocks,
strange, strange duck, swerve, swing, swivel, tackle, tauten,
tighten, toy, tramp, treadle, treadmill, trebuchet, triangle,
triangles, trim, turn, turn a pirouette, turn around, turn round,
twist, twisted, type, ugly customer, unconventional, unnatural,
vagary, veer, vertex, wacky, wamble, weirdo, wheel, whim,
whim-wham, whimsical, whimsy, whiner, whipping post, winch, wind,
wind in, windlass, wooden horse, wrecking bar, zag, zealot, zig,
zigzag
Oh, well, sorry I asked, but it just seems like there's wayyyy too
many weeds in here...
American
"Eat the meat and spit out the bones"
- anonymous
American
>
> - Show quoted text -
Fortran CAN do frame processing - even frame processing used by
programs like e.g. ANGIE described in:
http://www.d-s-t-g.com/neu/media/pdf/docs-ex_d/Generative_Programming_with_Frame_Technology.pdf
It really depends on which of the programs you want to use to pilot
the ANGIE interface - in my own research, you can use a daughter card
to output to the chip as the components require.
Components of each cell in the ANGIE 64 channel pixel include a
discriminator for which a Discriminate frequency, TTL input, TTL
output, Accurate & robust, and Digital Frequency used.
Discriminator Calculation can be performed at this link:
http://www.ele.auckland.ac.nz/archives/design/tools/conv.htm
The 8 X 8 chip requires a discriminate frequency for each cell and may
be tuned for reception of the individual transition frequency
emissions of the precious metals. With 100 frames at 64 cells per
frame, swaths can be programmed for several transition frequencies
simultaneously.
In addition to the discriminator frequency, a GHz counter can be
programmed by coupling dual modulus-prescaling technique with
available phase-locked-loop synthesizer chips that control a prescaler
in the TTL-programmable counter.
American
"for wherever the bird must fly... it flys on...."
Greg D. Moore (Strider)
news:fqrnv6-...@mail.specsol.com...
>
> For existing things there is the concept of minimum enroute altitude
> which ensures you are above all the obstacles for a significant distance.
>
> There is no getting above an energy beam from space.
>
And yet people still fly into the ground or buildings. Again, it's the
pilot's fault. Not the build, ground or beam.
--
Greg Moore
Ask me about lily, an RPI based CMC.
Pat Flannery
>
>
> There is another, not obvious, advantage in building such a
> high-capacity launch system (almost certainly it would be a TSTO with a
> winged reusable first stage) - the lower the cost per pound of launch,
> the cheaper the hardware gets.
When these systems were first proposed in the 1970s-80s the favored
launch system was a massive single or two-stage-to-orbit vehicle that
did a vertical takeoff and landing. One design used no less than twenty
F-1 engines, all firing during ascent, and six firing for landing.
Building a horizontal takeoff and landing or vertical
take-off/horizontal landing first stage for the size payload required to
make it economical would be daunting, as it would probably dwarf a C-5B
Galaxy as far as size and weight went. Also, since most booster designs
that use this design philosophy try to get up to around Mach 6-7 before
they release the orbital stage, you are going to have a huge square-foot
area of thermal protection materials that will need going over after
every flight to check them for damage, and that's a real pain in the
rear with even the far smaller Shuttle as far as man-hours go.
The fewer flights you need to get all of the materials for the SPS into
LEO (it can be moved slowly out to GEO via ion engines once assembled,
and building it in LEO really cuts back on assembly crew launch costs,
as well as removing the radiation threat to the assembly crew from solar
storms) the better from a economic viewpoint, and if you want to go that
route, you may want to consider building huge low-cost expendable
boosters around the size of the Sea Dragon concept, and get everything
up there with just a few launches:
http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/searagon.htm
Although clunky as hell from a engineering viewpoint, this might end up
costing less in the long run than a reusable system if the Shuttle is
anything to go by.
Also, maybe the expendable upper stage can be used for something once
it's in orbit, like the proposals to use the Shuttle ET as a cheap space
station module.
Pat
Pat Flannery
> In which case, one presumes a flight path that went withing some
> chosen distance of these beams would have a minimum enroute altitude
> of GEO expressed in whatever the customary units would be right?
Considering that:
1.) The rectennas would be built in uninhabited areas, like deserts or
unproductive farmland.
2.) They would be only a few miles in diameter (that sounds big, but
when you compare it to the total land area of the US, it's minuscule)
...your odds of flying through one by chance would be very low, even if
your GPS navigation system couldn't be set to warn you if you were
approaching one, and suggest you navigate around it.
Even if an airliner flew right through one, its speed would mean it
would be clear of it in a matter of seconds, before the skin suffered
any noticeable heating.
Although I'm sure the FAA would make the beams a no-fly zone, the worst
you probably would encounter from passing through one is a short
interruption to communications and a possible cut-out of GPS data while
you were in the beam.
And of course, if these SPS systems came into use, aircraft avionics
would be modified to make sure no damage occurred if you did
accidentally fly through one, in the same way present aircraft avionics
are designed to tolerate lightning strikes on the aircraft.
Pat
Dr J R Stockton
>, Tue, 15 Dec 2009 11:55:56, Sylvia Else <syl...@not.at.this.address>
posted:
>
>Yes, and if the transmitter could run at the temperature of the surface
>of the sun, there'd be no problem.
We know that a body at Earth's distance from the Sun, heated by solar
radiation and cooled by its own natural radiation, has an equilibrium
temperature of about (a little below?) the melting-point of ice. (The
Earth is such a body, but has an atmospheric greenhouse effect making
the surface warmer.)
Such an object that is transmitting a large portion of the incident
energy as microwaves to Earth must necessarily tend to run cooler than
that, overall.
The transmitting components themselves will dissipate heat, and must be
cooled; but it is only necessary to transfer that heat to the rest of
the structure. The components will be distributed across the structure,
so the transfer should not be unduly difficult.
Perhaps you do not have a background in the physical sciences?
--
(c) John Stockton, nr London, UK. ?@merlyn.demon.co.uk Turnpike v6.05 MIME.
Web <URL:http://www.merlyn.demon.co.uk/> - FAQqish topics, acronyms & links;
Astro stuff via astron-1.htm, gravity0.htm ; quotings.htm, pascal.htm, etc.
No Encoding. Quotes before replies. Snip well. Write clearly. Don't Mail News.
Rick Jones
> Rick Jones wrote:
> > In which case, one presumes a flight path that went withing some
> > chosen distance of these beams would have a minimum enroute altitude
> > of GEO expressed in whatever the customary units would be right?
> Considering that:
> 1.) The rectennas would be built in uninhabited areas, like deserts
> or unproductive farmland.
I don't think that "a plane might fly through the beam" is a
sufficient reason to veto SSP, yet, just how far out into the boonies
are power plants these days? Sure, you want these things out in the
sticks, but the farther out, the more of your hard-earned, somewhat
expensive, space-electricity you lose to terrestrial transmission
losses right?
> 2.) They would be only a few miles in diameter (that sounds big, but
> when you compare it to the total land area of the US, it's
> minuscule)
> ...your odds of flying through one by chance would be very low, even
> if your GPS navigation system couldn't be set to warn you if you
> were approaching one, and suggest you navigate around it. Even if
> an airliner flew right through one, its speed would mean it would be
> clear of it in a matter of seconds, before the skin suffered any
> noticeable heating.
There is more in the skies than just UFOs and airliners :)
And if you were flying past in your kit-built Rutan Long-EZ?
For the "if it saves a single child" crowd - how about if that hoax
runaway balloon with the kid inside story were real?
http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/10/18/colorado.balloon.investigation/index.html
> Although I'm sure the FAA would make the beams a no-fly zone, the
> worst you probably would encounter from passing through one is a
> short interruption to communications and a possible cut-out of GPS
> data while you were in the beam.
Would the chocolate bar in your pocket start to melt?-)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microwave_oven#History
rick jones
--
I don't interest myself in "why." I think more often in terms of
"when," sometimes "where;" always "how much." - Joubert
these opinions are mine, all mine; HP might not want them anyway... :)
feel free to post, OR email to rick.jones2 in hp.com but NOT BOTH...
Peter Fairbrother
> Peter Fairbrother wrote:
>>
>>
>> There is another, not obvious, advantage in building such a
>> high-capacity launch system (almost certainly it would be a TSTO with
>> a winged reusable first stage) - the lower the cost per pound of
>> launch, the cheaper the hardware gets.
>
> When these systems were first proposed in the 1970s-80s the favored
> launch system was a massive single or two-stage-to-orbit vehicle that
> did a vertical takeoff and landing. One design used no less than twenty
> F-1 engines, all firing during ascent, and six firing for landing.
That's a different sort of system, a very large one and not winged.
> Building a horizontal takeoff and landing or vertical
> take-off/horizontal landing first stage for the size payload required to
> make it economical would be daunting, as it would probably dwarf a C-5B
> Galaxy as far as size and weight went.
I'd try stick to something which could still land at an airport - which
means a maximum of about 450 tons MTOW for a HTHL, and 1000 tons for a
VTHL (it only has to land, empty).
Using Lox/kero first stages and LOX/LH2 second stages a 1,000 ton VTHL
could launch maybe 25-30 tons, and a 450 ton MTOW HTHL could launch
maybe 8-9 tons into equatorial LEO.
The difference is partly from scale, and partly because a HTHL would
probably need to take off from an airport on jets rather than rockets -
but this also means a HTHL TSTO booster stage can go-around, and loiter,
on the landing approach.
I favour the lighter system, about a 450 tons MTOW HTHL SSTO - about the
MTOW of a 747, but a bit smaller. It also means you can use existing
aircraft parts for eg landing gear, flap actuators, and so on.
Also a HTVL has to be carrier from the airstrip to the expensive launch
pad, then winched from horizontal to vertical between flights. The
lighter VTVL option just uses an existing airfield.
Also, since most booster designs
> that use this design philosophy try to get up to around Mach 6-7 before
> they release the orbital stage, you are going to have a huge square-foot
> area of thermal protection materials that will need going over after
> every flight to check them for damage, and that's a real pain in the
> rear with even the far smaller Shuttle as far as man-hours go.
John Carmack once said that the first stage should just go up and down,
and the second stage should do the translation - but I don't entirely agree.
The Shuttle TPS is made from carbon-reinforced-carbon, foamed silica
tiles, and silica blankets in order of heat rejection capacity. CRC and
foamed silica are very fragile, although silica blankets aren't nearly
so fragile.
A winged first stage, even with a Mach 6-7 horizontal component, has to
dissipate less than a *tenth* of the energy per unit mass than a Shuttle
re-entry.
While it would some sort of TPS, we are not talking about the kind used
by Shuttle, something much simpler and much more robust would be enough.
We are talking about less than the silica blanket end of the range, not
CRC or foamed silica.
Also there isn't such a need for ultra-light weight in the TPS [*] so a
much heavier TPS could be used. There are several possibilities, and in
general it is quite do-able. It's a bit of a challenge but not in any
way a deal-breaker.
[*] it's a first stage, a bit of extra mass here has much less effect on
overall performance than a bit of extra mass on a second or orbiting stage.
> The fewer flights you need to get all of the materials for the SPS into
> LEO (it can be moved slowly out to GEO via ion engines once assembled,
> and building it in LEO really cuts back on assembly crew launch costs,
> as well as removing the radiation threat to the assembly crew from solar
> storms) the better from a economic viewpoint,
NO NO NO! The number of flights is not relevant, the cost for the total
mass launched is the important metric (okay there are other
considerations like minimum component size and assembly costs, but
that's the most important one).
Large is not necessary if you can fly several times per day - I envisage
a 10 ton payload HTHL TSTO flying once every 90 minutes from a ground
site to a location in orbit with three launchers, giving a turnaround
time of 4.5 hours.
Break-even for a resuable system vs a disposable system comes at about
15 flights per year (general opinion, lower range) or 30 flights per
year (NASA/Congress opinion), or 50 flights per year (pessimistic) - but
if you are flying 1,000 flights per year the saving is enormous, and
undoubted, even if the solution is high-tech - and we are not talking
about high-tech in the Shuttle sense (and price range), but in the
reliability sense.
Jets fly that often or more, and much of the rocket technology (engines
etc) pretty well already exists.
[...]
> Also, maybe the expendable upper stage can be used for something once
> it's in orbit, like the proposals to use the Shuttle ET as a cheap space
> station module.
Yes, that sort of thing could be done - my preferred system returns the
second stage engines, electronics, RCS and (maybe) LOX tank, but the LH2
tank is left in orbit for either living space or constructional
material. There are other possibilities.
-- Peter Fairbrother
Sylvia Else
> In sci.space.history message <00851e07$0$16793$c3e...@news.astraweb.com
>> , Tue, 15 Dec 2009 11:55:56, Sylvia Else <syl...@not.at.this.address>
> posted:
>> Yes, and if the transmitter could run at the temperature of the surface
>> of the sun, there'd be no problem.
>
>
> We know that a body at Earth's distance from the Sun, heated by solar
> radiation and cooled by its own natural radiation, has an equilibrium
> temperature of about (a little below?) the melting-point of ice. (The
> Earth is such a body, but has an atmospheric greenhouse effect making
> the surface warmer.)
Did you overlook the fact that half the Earth is in darkness at any one
time?
>
> Such an object that is transmitting a large portion of the incident
> energy as microwaves to Earth must necessarily tend to run cooler than
> that, overall.
Did you overlook the fact that the transmitter is not the part of the
system that's receiving the solar energy because they have different
orientation requirements?
>
> The transmitting components themselves will dissipate heat, and must be
> cooled; but it is only necessary to transfer that heat to the rest of
> the structure. The components will be distributed across the structure,
> so the transfer should not be unduly difficult.
Did you overlook the fact that that imposes requirements on the area of
the structure.
Did you overlook the fact that that imposes requirements on the thermal
conductivity of the structure, and therefore the materials from which it
is made?
>
> Perhaps you do not have a background in the physical sciences?
>
Perhaps you're not as clever as you think you are.
Sylvia.
zzbu...@netscape.net
Fortran CAN do anything any other general purpose computer language
can do.
But it doesn't do Home Broadband, for the simple reason that
University idiots
invented Fortran.
It's doesn't do XML for the even siimpler reason that AT&T wrote
the
C - Fortran cross compilers for Fortran,
It's doesn't do Blue Ray and USB for the trivial reason that the
only thing Fortran
programmers even know about i/o is LISP.
It's doesn't do Flat Screen Software Debuggers, Flash Memory, and
Data Fusion
for the obvious reason that the only thing even know Fortran
Programmers even know about
code debugging is The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics.
It's doesn't do All-in-One Printers, Holographic Integration, and
Rapid Prototyping
for the well-known Historic Reason that the only thing Fortran
Programmers
even know about integration is mathmatica.
It's doesn't do Desktop Publishing for the quite apparent reason
that
Fortran only does HTML Publishing.
>
> http://www.d-s-t-g.com/neu/media/pdf/docs-ex_d/Generative_Programming...
>
> It really depends on which of the programs you want to use to pilot
> the ANGIE interface - in my own research, you can use a daughter card
> to output to the chip as the components require.
>
> Components of each cell in the ANGIE 64 channel pixel include a
> discriminator for which a Discriminate frequency, TTL input, TTL
> output, Accurate & robust, and Digital Frequency used.
>
> Discriminator Calculation can be performed at this link:
>
> http://www.ele.auckland.ac.nz/archives/design/tools/conv.htm
>
> The 8 X 8 chip requires a discriminate frequency for each cell and may
> be tuned for reception of the individual transition frequency
> emissions of the precious metals. With 100 frames at 64 cells per
> frame, swaths can be programmed for several transition frequencies
> simultaneously.
>
> In addition to the discriminator frequency, a GHz counter can be
> programmed by coupling dual modulus-prescaling technique with
> available phase-locked-loop synthesizer chips that control a prescaler
> in the TTL-programmable counter.
>
> American
>
> "for wherever the bird must fly... it flys on...."- Hide quoted text -
Jonathan
"Sylvia Else" <syl...@not.at.this.address> wrote in message
news:00a54b65$0$23681$c3e...@news.astraweb.com...
>> Perhaps you do not have a background in the physical sciences?
>>
> Perhaps you're not as clever as you think you are.
>
....replies Sylvia, as she attempts to toss her cognac in the face of
the rude dinner quest. But he stops her just in time, their hands
now locked in anger, their eyes engage, and as suddenly
the crescendo is transformed into two coequal legacies.
An anger with no boundaries, and a lust as capacious as the sea.
With Elysium now only as far as to the very nearest room.
The opening of a door, felicity or doom?
Jonathan
<ji...@specsol.spam.sux.com> wrote in message
news:ls1mv6-...@mail.specsol.com...
> In sci.physics Jonathan <Ho...@again.net> wrote:
>>
>> "BradGuth" <brad...@gmail.com> wrote in message
>> news:6b4a5e28-24e8-423a...@x5g2000prf.googlegroups.com...
>>
>>
>>> 64% all-inclusive efficiency isn't half bad,
>>
>>> Getting so much created, deployed and serviced is likely going to
>>> consume most every megawatt of energy it produces, and then some.
>>
>>> Is this energy going to cost us $1/kw.h?
>>
>> It doesn't really matter, the greater benefit would be
>> the effect on all other energy sources.
>
> Yes, it does, and a lot.
>
> The cost of electricity increasing by a factor of around 5 would be
> an economic catastrophe.
>
The initial costs are not so important, what counts is the
new /trend/ that would be established. Space Solar Power
would be very expensive at first, but over time would become
steadily ...cheaper... and more ...plentiful. Adding clean energy
into the mix. The trend with fossil fuels is ....exactly...the reverse.
More expensive and harder to find over time, while adding
more and more dirty ...coal...into the mix.
Reversing that trend is an absolute necessity.
s
Alain Fournier
Another possibility than having super lift capabilities from Earth
is to go for a space based economy. Build the SPSs from asteroid
material. I'm not saying that this would clearly be cheaper.
But it would be worth evaluating the possibility. I suspect that
for a single SPS, launching it from Earth would be cheaper,
but if you want to build several, I don't know.
Alain Fournier
Peter Fairbrother
Up to the level of enough manufacturing capacity to supply the Earth's
present energy needs, it's still cheaper to make the parts on Earth and
lift them, assuming something like the systems I described (and that's
true even if they cost a whole lot more than I estimated, it's quite a
bit cheaper).
However there would be other benefits to starting a space-based economy,
for instance things can be made in space which are impossible or
expensive to make on Earth - and in the longer-term it's a no-brainer,
energy and materials are available in much greater abundance than on
Earth, which we don't want to mess up too much with mining etc.
Earth should be a good place for people, and that means heavy industry
should be located elsewhere, as wherever it is done usually tends to be
less hospitable.
-- Peter Fairbrother
Alain Fournier
> Alain Fournier wrote:
>
>>
>> Another possibility than having super lift capabilities from Earth
>> is to go for a space based economy. Build the SPSs from asteroid
>> material. I'm not saying that this would clearly be cheaper.
>> But it would be worth evaluating the possibility. I suspect that
>> for a single SPS, launching it from Earth would be cheaper,
>> but if you want to build several, I don't know.
>
>
> Up to the level of enough manufacturing capacity to supply the Earth's
> present energy needs, it's still cheaper to make the parts on Earth and
> lift them, assuming something like the systems I described (and that's
> true even if they cost a whole lot more than I estimated, it's quite a
> bit cheaper).
Probably true. But until we actually build space based manufacturing
capacity, or at least do serious work on trying to do so, estimates
of what such a thing would cost are quite unreliable. It might be
much cheaper than it seems to be (but it is expensive).
> However there would be other benefits to starting a space-based economy,
> for instance things can be made in space which are impossible or
> expensive to make on Earth - and in the longer-term it's a no-brainer,
> energy and materials are available in much greater abundance than on
> Earth, which we don't want to mess up too much with mining etc.
Agreed.
Alain Fournier
Sylvia Else
I know. I shouldn't let people drag me down to their level. But
sometimes it's hard to resist the temptation.
Sylvia.
Greg D. Moore (Strider)
news:lc3ov6-...@mail.specsol.com...
> In sci.physics "Greg D. Moore \(Strider\)"
>> <ji...@specsol.spam.sux.com> wrote in message
>> news:fqrnv6-...@mail.specsol.com...
>>>
>>> For existing things there is the concept of minimum enroute altitude
>>> which ensures you are above all the obstacles for a significant
>>> distance.
>>>
>>> There is no getting above an energy beam from space.
>>>
>>
>> And yet people still fly into the ground or buildings. Again, it's the
>> pilot's fault. Not the build, ground or beam.
>
>
> How do you avoid something that is invisible to all existing aviation
> sensors?
Same way pilots avoid no-fly zones now. They consult their maps and NOTAMs
and fly around them.
>
> While flying VFR, obstacles are avoided by eyesight and altitude, neither
> of which will work with an energy beam from space.
>
Pilots flying VFR avoid no-fly zones now. I'm not sure why in the future
you think they're suddenly going to become stupid.
In any case, at the energies discussed, the power levels just aren't that
dangerous.
Jonathan
"Greg D. Moore (Strider)" <mooregr_d...@greenms.com> wrote in message
news:Y5KdnWoHtKD7x7TW...@earthlink.com...
> <ji...@specsol.spam.sux.com> wrote in message
> news:fqrnv6-...@mail.specsol.com...
>>
>> For existing things there is the concept of minimum enroute altitude
>> which ensures you are above all the obstacles for a significant distance.
>>
>> There is no getting above an energy beam from space.
>>
>
> And yet people still fly into the ground or buildings. Again, it's the
> pilot's fault. Not the build, ground or beam.
Let's see, two different futures here. One future where the FAA
has to write some new regulations, or devise some new-fangled
warning system, to make sure SSP is safe for aviation
and birds alike.
Or another future where one day the oil market panics, and
collapses. Sending much of the world into a pre-industrial
state, with wars breaking out all over. But not those nice 'clean'
modern wars fought with cruise missiles v. car bombs. But the
good old fashioned pre-industrial wars, with human wave assaults
numbering in the hundreds of thousands. People that can't wait
to become cannon fodder, to die for hate instead of slowly
starving to death in an agrarian society that can no longer
handle the crush of the cheap-energy spawned masses.
Back to the time tested forms of population control, routine
genocide's. For the good of all.
Not to be too melodramatic or anything~