jon@oddhack.UUCP (05/27/87)
In article <5893@brl-smoke.ARPA> gwyn@brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn (VLD/VMB) <gwyn>) writes: >I really think this (as well as similar ideas for beaming power >to Earth from solar-collector satellites) is extremely dangerous. >What is to keep someone (even a poor little bird) from flying >through the beam by accident? Restricting the airspace and having a radio beacon should suffice. It's not as though people would be flying through a death ray. Even in the case of SPS, the energy densities are comparable to sunlight. Powersats are pretty much a dead issue until the Soviets or Japanese build one, however. DOE and others did the basic research and then threw the idea away long ago (well, late 70's. That's long ago when you're 24) for political and economic rather than scientific reasons (i.e. SPS had no constituency in Congress, and the O($100G) projected costs found no friends). Birds can take their chances. We haven't stopped flying because the occasional bird gets sucked into an engine. I suspect they will quickly learn to avoid beams when they start feeling warm. -- Jon Leech (jon@csvax.caltech.edu || ...seismo!cit-vax!jon) Caltech Computer Science Graphics Group __@/