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From: Paul S Person <psperson@old.netcom.invalid>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: OT: Surely there's an SF story with this.....
Date: Wed, 04 Sep 2024 09:27:47 -0700
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On Tue, 3 Sep 2024 13:49:53 -0500, Lynn McGuire
<lynnmcguire5@gmail.com> wrote:

>On 9/3/2024 1:13 PM, Cryptoengineer wrote:
>> On 9/2/2024 12:01 PM, Paul S Person wrote:
>>> On Sun, 1 Sep 2024 14:16:07 -0400, Cryptoengineer
>>> <petertrei@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> <snip-a-bit>
>>>> The Soviets did try a 20 meter mirror, which very
>>>> briefly provided light on a rapidly moving 5km spot
>>>> on the ground, equivalent to 'several full moons'.
>>>>
>>>> https://www.vice.com/en/article/the-man-who-turned-night-into-day/
>>>>
>>>> So, yes, maybe you could provide a light with some usefulness
>>>> for a few minutes, if the mirror was steered to point to one
>>>> spot. Reflect Orbitals claim is that they can provide
>>>> light for 4 minutes at a time.
>>>>
>>>> The ISS can be in sight for as long as 6.5 minutes on a pass, so
>>>> RO's mirrors must be lower. That's good for being bright, but also
>>>> means they're subject to a lot of drag from remnant traces of
>>>> atmosphere, and will need to either have propulsion to keep on
>>>> station, or be replaced frequently.
>>>
>>> If they were far enough out, they would be over the same spot for a
>>> lot longer than that. Have to be a /really/ big mirror, though.
>>>
>>>> The suggestion to use RO's mirrors to power solar plants is a
>>>> total non-starter. The mirror can't deliver more light than
>>>> falls on it, and if its spread over several kilometers on the
>>>> ground, its just not bright enough to do anything useful, quite
>>>> aside from the idea that powering one for less than 5 minutes
>>>> has a use case.
>>>>
>>>> Finally, you'd piss off every astronomer and stargazer on Earth.
>>>
>>> IIRC, Musk's satellite clouds have already done that.
>>=20
>> Yes, and Starlink has gone to considerable effort to
>> mitigate the problem, with significant (but not total)
>> success.
>>=20
>> The constellation the Chinese are starting to put up
>> looks like very bad news, though.
>>=20
>> pt
>
>Especially when the Chinese space ship broke apart in orbit into 300+=20
>pieces at 800 km LEO.
>    https://www.space.com/china-megaconstellation-launch-space-junk
>and
> =20
>https://www.reddit.com/r/space/comments/1eo0nbi/chinese_rocket_breaks_ap=
art_after/
>
>People are very unhappy as this is not the first time the Chinese have=20
>done this.

A classic case of externalized costs.

So, the Chicoms /are/ turning Capitalist after all.
--=20
"Here lies the Tuscan poet Aretino,
Who evil spoke of everyone but God,
Giving as his excuse, 'I never knew him.'"