[extropy-chat] Nanoengineered terrestrial solar vs.nanoengineered space solar power

[Eugen Leitl]

On Sat, Apr 07, 2007 at 07:52:03AM -0700, spike wrote:

> Yes, but the old fashioned gallium arsenide cells are remarkably durable.

At current launch costs, the cells can be unobtainium. Very different
from terrestrial applications.
 
> Yes.  Over time the output gradually decreases from impacts from high energy
> particles.  Occasionally you get a cell shorted out from an extremely high
> energy cosmic ray that causes an SEGR or single event gate rupture.  A
> particle whacks a cell hard enough to cause an ionized path across the NP
> region.

You also get micrometeorite surface abrasion, and in lower orbit plasma
glow in ram direction.
 
> 
> Not exactly corrosion as we think of it down here, oxidation.  Metals can

In lower orbit, it can be oxidation. But there you'd get a lot of drag from
a large array, so one would have to use electric or plasma thruster propulsion
to counteract that. Slightly higher orbits are probably the way to go.

> migrate but I wouldn't call that corrosion.
> 
> > Impact?
> 
> If you meant micrometeoroid, there are so sparse they aren't a major factor.

Really? They're a considerable factor on Moon surface, I thought.

-- 
Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org
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