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The Sun is our friend. Really! Image: NASA
Once more around the Sun
This is final Thursday Things of 2022 so I wish all our Happy Subscribers a happy, healthy, and prosperous new year!
Years, and year ends, are a human construct. The Earth, along with all the other planets, keeps revolving around the Sun according to the dictates of gravity and without any regard to what we mere humans are doing. Marking off each lap around the Sun and calling it the end of one year and the start of another is our thing, but the Sun don’t care. It just keeps shining.1
The Sun may not need us, but we sure need the Sun. And we better make the most of it while we can. Read on …
Image: Space Studies Institute. These images are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License.
Solar energy done right!
Here at Thursday Things we have several space-based fixations:
Pluto was, is, and shall always be a planet, no matter what the Plutophobes say or how they try to rewrite history and the textbooks to conform to their anti-Pluto heresy.
Space Force is awesome. Because Space Force!
The Moon should be a state. Possibly called Moonsylvania or Moontana, but I am open to other suggestions.
It is humankind’s destiny to colonize space — to the Moon, Mars, the asteroid belt, and beyond!
Space-based solar power is the best solar power.
It’s the last of those items I want to discuss today, because I recently came across this article:
Can space-based solar power really work? Here are the pros and cons
Beaming solar power from space used to be considered science fiction. But in recent years, space agencies from all over the world have launched studies looking at the feasibility of constructing orbiting power plants for real…
Solar power plants in space, exposed to constant sunshine with no clouds or air limiting the efficiency of their photovoltaic arrays, could have a place in this future emissions-free infrastructure. But these structures, beaming energy to Earth in the form of microwaves, would be quite difficult to build and maintain.
Here are the main pros and cons of this technology.
I’ll list the pros here, but please read the article for a more detailed discussion of each:
The technology is less science fiction than you might think: Nothing new needs to be invented. It is mainly an engineering challenge at this point.
It would provide 13 times more energy than an identical ground-based plant: A space-based solar installation could generate gigawatts of power, on par with that of a nuclear plant.
It provides perfectly clean electricity 24/7: There is no cloud cover in space. The sun is always shining.
It could be beamed anywhere without wires and power lines: Good thing, because you’d need a really long wire.
It is theoretically safe from Earth-based conflict: Honestly, I don’t buy this one, but it’s in the article. The argument is that a geostationary satellite is too high up for current anti-satellite weapons to reach. Key word: current. Also, the ground stations are on Earth and so, by definition, subject to Earth-based conflict.
The infrastructure on the ground will be allegedly less obtrusive than that of other renewables: No giant bird-killing windmills needed.
It could power flying airplanes: I might pass on this one. I think I’d prefer my plane to have its own self-contained power source.
The article lists several cons too, but go read it for yourself if you want those. Sure, you can turn a space-based energy beam into a weapon of mass destruction, but it’s not like we don’t have plenty of those already. Let’s build those SPSs (solar power satellites) and start beaming that glorious energy down!
The idea of SPS has been around since at least the 1970s. So why haven’t we done it yet? I think the big barriers are cost and political will to undertake the project. We don’t get into politics at Thursday Things, but on the cost side, the development of reusable rockets by Space X and others has cut the potential launch costs for an SPS project significantly. So I remain hopeful that we’ll finally get a significant space-based solar project underway.
It’s an undertaking that would require international cooperation and provide international benefits, so maybe some or all of the major spacefaring powers — the US, China, Russia, Europe (via the ESA), Japan, India, and others — can find common ground developing space-based solar. Access to energy and the costs thereof drive many international conflicts today. Cheap, abundant energy from space could take a lot of those conflict drivers off the table. Just a thought.
Optimists … in … spaaaace!
I'll take this moment to again plug the books of the late Princeton physicist and space colonization activist Gerard K. O'Neill. As I’ve discussed previously in Thursday Things I read his book 2081: A Hopeful View of the Human Future in high school, and later found his earlier book The High Frontier. Among other topics, these books detail his ideas for permanent orbiting space colonies, and for beaming cheap, abundant energy to earth from solar power satellites.
I credit O’Neill’s book, along with the books of Alvin and Heidi Toffler (especially Future Shock, The Third Wave, and Powershift) with developing my own “techno-optimism”. I’d also credit classic Star Trek’s optimistic vision of the future.
And, of course, Carl Sagan and Cosmos:
"We live on a hunk of rock and metal that circles a humdrum star that is one of 400 billion other stars that make up the Milky Way Galaxy, which is one of billions of other galaxies which make up a universe which may be one of a very large number, perhaps an infinite number, of other universes. That is a perspective on human life and our culture that is well worth pondering." — Carl Sagan
Fun with asteroids
Still, while outer space has many benefits, it also has many dangers. Among the biggest threats from space are killer asteroids.
Just ask the dinosaurs about that.
How bad could an asteroid strike be? I’m glad you asked! Because I found a website that let’s you see for yourself.
It’s called Asteroid Launcher and it is pretty much what is says on the tin.
You choose the size, composition (stone, iron, gold, etc) of your asteroid, the angle of descent, and where on the earth you want it to hit. The simulator then tells you in the sidebar how deep and wide the crater will be, how hot and widespread the fireball will be, the strength of the shockwave, the speed of the wind blast, and the magnitude of the earthquake. If you drop your asteroid in the ocean you get the height and speed of the resulting tsunami. The damage caused by each of these effects is estimated, including number of people who would likely be killed.
You can choose an asteroid up to 1 mile in diameter with a strike speed of up to 250,000 mph hour. A 90 degree angle of descent gives the deepest crater. Did I drop mile-wide asteroids of every possible composition on New York at maximum speed?
Maybe.
I’ll leave it to you to figure out which type of asteroid hits the hardest. Have fun!
Sorry, New York! Nothing personal. Image: Asteroid Launcher
And what did we learn by dropping asteroids on our planet?
First, I don’t know about you, but I think NASA or Elon Musk or Space Force or whoever is in charge of defending the Earth from rogue asteroids needs to redouble their efforts!
Second, whether it is establishing permanent settlements on other planets, harvesting minerals and other resources from asteroids, beaming down solar power to meet our energy needs, or protecting the planet from asteroid strikes, one thing is clear: Space is too big for any one country to tackle alone. We need to work together.
If Carl Sagan taught me anything, it was that.
Thank you for reading!
Please click the hearts, leave a comment, and use the share feature to send this issue to a friend who might enjoy it. See you in 2023!
At at least for the next 5 billion years or so. Then it will explode and kill us all.