Space based mirrors for asteroid mining. Bounce a sh*tton of light from the sun around and just melt asteroids. Love that in the Troy Rising series.
Lots of problems getting there irl (need a better way to get out of the gravity well, and light speed lag for command and control would be a real issue) but the idea is just too fun.
That sounds like a great way to accidentally muzzle sweep a thousand international satellites with a billion-kWh laser beam. Not saying it’s entirely a bad idea, but having invisible unshielded beams of stupendous energy bouncing all over the solar system sounds like a recipe for a couple accidental meltings. I could just see someone making an adjustment to the next mining target without informing China and whoops, that secret manned satellite you sent up a couple months ago is now slag.
Depends how it’s focused. It wouldn’t be a straight coherent beam, because that would actually break thermodynamics if you could produce it from sunlight.
Space based mirrors for asteroid mining. Bounce a sh*tton of light from the sun around and just melt asteroids. Love that in the Troy Rising series.
Lots of problems getting there irl (need a better way to get out of the gravity well, and light speed lag for command and control would be a real issue) but the idea is just too fun.
That sounds like a great way to accidentally muzzle sweep a thousand international satellites with a billion-kWh laser beam. Not saying it’s entirely a bad idea, but having invisible unshielded beams of stupendous energy bouncing all over the solar system sounds like a recipe for a couple accidental meltings. I could just see someone making an adjustment to the next mining target without informing China and whoops, that secret manned satellite you sent up a couple months ago is now slag.
Depends how it’s focused. It wouldn’t be a straight coherent beam, because that would actually break thermodynamics if you could produce it from sunlight.
Ooh, this is new info. How so?