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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: Mon, 02 Sep 2024 09:01:39 -0700
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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
"Here lies the Tuscan poet Aretino,
Who evil spoke of everyone but God,
Giving as his excuse, 'I never knew him.'"