[ExI] global warming again.

[painlord2k at libero.it]

Il 20/03/2009 15.45, Keith Henson ha scritto:

> They may not be the case today.  There are neither the designers nor
> the production facilities to make these highly specialized bombs now.

What was done in the past can be redone in the future.
We have more resources and capabilities and we know the goal better.



>> while I do not
>> exactly know in which dept store I can get 4GW lasers, or if my power
>> company is in a position to provide the juice to operate them to residential
>> users... :-)

> I would not be all that surprised if some department store does sell
> welding lasers.  You just need to buy a lot of them.  Jordin Kare, who
> knows far more than I do, says $10/watt is a good number.  As to
> power, they would need about 8GW input.  Three Gorges Dam puts out 22
> GW.  If the US built them (unlikely, I know) the best place to put
> them would be in south Texas with the first stage flying from the
> mouth of the Amazon.

Northrop Grumman's has a 105 kilowatt solid state laser. 100 kilowatts 
is considered the minimum for a battlefield laser
http://nextbigfuture.com/2009/03/northrop-grumman-has-105-kilowatt-solid.html

There is no need of a 4 GW laser cannon to put in orbit a SPS system.
You only need a Few launch of large missiles in LEO with the stuff 
needed to build a Space Elevator.

The materials needed for the cable are in the development phase.
After the basic SE is in place, you reinforce it until is large enough 
to put significative payloads in GEO. Then you build a second and a 
third SE (to redundancy). Then you put in GEO whatever you like.

A few MW class LASERs could be useful to put in orbit a continual stream 
of low weight payloads to feed the construction of the SE with bulk 
materials, to transfer energy to the climbers motor, to push the climber 
itself up and to deorbit the trash in orbit (shoot them with a powerful 
enough LASER and the ttrash will be vaporized or will be slowed enough 
to fall down in the atmosphere.


> I suppose I should mention Orion in power sat transportation talks.
> It would take launching a mid sized Orion--using over 1000
> bombs--every day to transport the materials needed for power sat
> production.  Big lasers look safe and sane in that context.

http://nextbigfuture.com have a few articles about Orion and its viability.
The only sane motive to not implement it is that people would go insane 
about inconsistent fears.

Mirco