chiaraviglio@husc2.UUCP (lucius) (11/02/86)
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One thing to remember when comparing the standard idea of powersats
(microwave transmission) versus passive mirrors is that, for all its potential
environmental hazards, microwave transmission requires electronic (as opposed
to merely mechanical) coordination of the transmitted radiation, which means
that it is much easier to insure that it will fail safe in case of
misalignment. If your powersat beam begins to go off course, it doesn't get
tracking signals from the ground station any more, and it broadcasts jumbled
radiation, which will have an effectiveness much reduced from that of the
coherent beam.
On the other hand, passively reflected beams consist of incoherent
radiation from the start, so that more has to be transmitted to give the same
amount of useable energy on the other end. This means not only that they will
generate more heat on Earth (which we don't need, with the CO[2] already
warming things up), but that if they go off course no dropping of tracking
signal or anything like that will be able to ensure that their effectiveness
is reduced (the beam is already incoherent), and the stray beams will have
much potential to make things very unpleasant wherever they hit. This would
include but not be limited to the possible severe local climactic effects
described in an earlier article by someone else (how do you think it would be
to be in a location where suddenly a second sun appeared in the sky --
bad news).
--
-- Lucius Chiaraviglio
lucius@tardis.harvard.edu
{insert your favorite brave system here}!seismo!tardis!lucius
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