New comic on space mirrors

[sundogplanets@mastodon.social]

@jensorensen THANK YOU! Sharing with my astronomer friends who are fighting this as hard as we can!

[glutto@mastodon.social]

@jensorensen

And with a different focus they can make a space laser, which the MAGA nutcases were flipping out about a while ago.

[ivorytusk@kolektiva.social]

@hyc @jensorensen some rare earths are needed for solar panels, and china has kinda cornered that market. That may just be due to inaction of others though.

[ovoao@mastodon.social]

@jensorensen

After this cartoon I can see the act to abolish daylight saving time in a whole new light!

[hyc@mastodon.social]

@ivorytusk @jensorensen probably only a temporary issue. The primary ingredient in PV cells is still just sand. Everything else is less than 1% of the solar cell.

[dougjayne@mastodon.social]

@jensorensen I haven't looked into this business model very seriously but I'm assuming the orbital dynamics don't make sense. You're either going to have to park these things way far away, at which they will be uselessly dim, or make a constellation of them, with giant sails being dragged down by our atmosphere at a rate that would make a Starlink engineer blush.

[f4grx@chaos.social]

@jensorensen This is not funny at all.

[passwordsarehard4@mastodon.social]

@hyc @ivorytusk @jensorensen only 1.5% of the human body is calcium. Pretty useless without a skeleton aren’t we?

[hyc@mastodon.social]

@passwordsarehard4 @ivorytusk @jensorensen nobody said that 1% wasn't essential. But getting adequate quantities isn't really a big deal.

[chemicaleyeguy@mstdn.science]

@jensorensen How many laser pointers targeting a #SpaceMirror would it take to disrupt its necessarily precise aim, if not alter its orbit? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_sail

#Resist #fascism with #physics.

[thriftwicker@mastodon.social]

@Chavestoteles @jensorensen Since the dawn of time, man has yearned to destroy the sun.

[mifoodie@social.vivaldi.net]

@ChemicalEyeGuy @jensorensen

This should be the next XKCD’s What If video (look that up on YouTube if you have no idea what I’m talking about!)

[ahltorp@mastodon.nu]

@Chavestoteles @jensorensen There are literally two Bond movies doing this, one in 1971 and one in 2002.

[glitzersachen@hachyderm.io]

@DougJayne @jensorensen
My understanding was, that they're just using many of them and are changing between satellites all the time.

[glitzersachen@hachyderm.io]

@woozle @jensorensen

I see a couple of services we can offer for a competitive market. Like "your company head-quarters not being razed" as a service. The cost is actually very small. You just have to convey a couple of plans to the shredder (yes, all copies) and never talk about them again ever.

[botally54@mastodon.social]

@jensorensen And guess who owns Space ?

[ldmay65@universeodon.com]

@jensorensen
Brilliant!
Your comic, not the asshats building those things.

[stefan_s_from_h@mastodon.social]

@jensorensen do investors really believe this is a good idea?

A mirror with the area x is directed in a way so it directs sunlight into area y. But with y > x, wouldn't this just be some dim light? The mirror doesn't magically increase the sunlight.

[olofknight@mastodon.gamedev.place]

@jensorensen this is the first I heard of this. Ain't no way someone is stupid enough to even suggest such a dumb idea.
The massive cost of it, the social backlash, the political and international backlash and just the engineering of it all.
For what? Just to have the giant mirror break because of some 1cm space debris?

[olofknight@mastodon.gamedev.place]

@nacly season 6, episode final?
The school finds oil, Mr burns steals it, blocks the sun, gets shot, ends in a cliff hanger on "who shot Mr burns?" Which should help you narrow it down