[ExI] Trying for a minimum technical comment

[Adrian Tymes]

On Sun, Dec 16, 2012 at 7:14 AM, Keith Henson <hkeithhenson at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sun, Dec 16, 2012 at 4:00 AM,  Adrian Tymes <atymes at gmail.com>> wrote:
>> I meant, test the specific beam tracking & focusing mechanism
>> the large sat would use.  Comm sats don't try to focus their
>> output on one particular point.
>
> Some do control where the beam power comes down.  Ever seen one where
> the microwave feeder out in front of a parabolic reflector is a mirror
> image of the US?  They switch the power around to get higher bandwidth
> to particular spots on the ground.  Big spots to be sure because of
> the relatively small optics.

Right, but do *you* have the specific blueprints that they used?
Could you bend metal to put that particular thing together?

Just because it's been done - even if it's been done many times -
does not, by itself, mean that all further ventures will be able to
do it.  Yes, this is wasteful duplication of effort from certain
perspectives, but that is how engineering projects proceed.