i read in the latest Nature (v395 p833) that the russians are to deploy a
2.5-metre mirror from the Mir space station; they claim it should be
visible from some northern cities as a moving spot with the brightess of 5
to 10 full moons. this is a proof-of-principle experiment, but i think
the idea is that in future, bigger and more numerous mirrors will be deployed
to supply light during power failures, rescue operations, etc.
now, the question i ask is, does this have any military applications? i know
we're getting very good at nightfighting, but if the force with space
superiority is able to deploy these fellas, might it help them? what about
shining the light onto suspected enemy positions - illuminate them and
overload their nightsights so they can't see you? how about as a planetary
defence - put thousands of them (they're cheap, being made of silvered
plastic film) into low orbit, so when the high-tech attacker comes
rolling
over your planet, you can offset your lack of expensive night-vision
goggles with reflected light. they would have civilian uses too (light during
blackouts and disasters), and so the military use would just be a nice
spinoff.
just a random thought.
Tom
> Thomas Anderson wrote:
> now, the question i ask is, does this have any military applications?
i
> know we're getting very good at nightfighting, but if the force with
They could just a switch to thermals. Actually we have a similar thing in
operation today. It's on the AC130 spectre gunship. This powerful
gazillion-candle watt(?) searchlight can illuminate a football
field-sized
area to even bright than day. It's used to scare the heck out of locals.
Especially if they know every inch of that illumination is about a second away
from being fille dwith 7.62, 20mm, 40mm and 105mm ordanance. I've seen it in
operation and it's very impressive.
> defence - put thousands of them (they're cheap, being made of silvered
Probably a good idea.
Thomas spake thusly upon matters weighty:
Easy to target and fire back at if you can fire earth-to-orbit
ordinance....
> i read in the latest Nature (v395 p833) that the russians are to
i
> know we're getting very good at nightfighting, but if the force with
/************************************************
> Thomas Anderson <thomas.anderson@university-college.oxford.ac.uk> wrote:
The concept, if I recall correctly, is that the Russians intend to put up an
extremely large mirror to increase the temperature in various siberian cities
by several degrees by reflecting the sun's light on to the ground. So making
the place easier to live in at winter. I don't think it was intended to be an
extra source of illumination at night. I think a space mirror would be easily
cleared by using a space ship to catch it and tow it away. Assuming enemy
space craft aren't available, the reverse, a sun shield, could decrease
temperatures in opponents cities, could help freeze over rivers in cold
climates, darken key intersections (I don't think that this would have a
significant effect).
> On Sat, 31 Oct 1998, Thomas Barclay wrote:
> On Sun, 1 Nov 1998, Andrew & Alex wrote:
wrote:
> >i read in the latest Nature (v395 p833) that the russians are to
aha. the article didn't specify ultimate objectives, but ancient memories have
just crawled out of my limbic system which agree with you. i'm skeptical of
this: warming up Archangelsk is going to take a lot of reflected sunlight...
> I don't think it was intended to be an extra source of
i'm sure it could double as one, provided it was in the right orbit.
> I think a space mirror would be easily cleared by using a space
so deploy thousands of disposable mirrors.
> Assuming enemy space craft aren't available, the reverse, a sun
a sun shield is a whole different ball game - it would have to be
absolutely immense.
Tom
> Thomas Anderson <thomas.anderson@university-college.oxford.ac.uk> wrote:
The full system was intended, if I recall correctly, to be several kilometers
in diameter and there to be several.
> a sun shield is a whole different ball game - it would have to be
Use a solar sail (not the DS9 version, though!). Fairly easy to get several
kilometers in diameter. Again though it would be vulnerable to space tugs.
Is it just me or have people missed some of the potential for these things.
Think about it. The Russians were planning to warm up cities with these
things. Now given some advances in tech (not a lot) so that your mirror can be
focused like the new telescope in Haiwaii (I forget the name of it) and you
can be a really big kid with a magnifiing glass and set fire to things. As I
grew up on a farm my first thought was setting fire to the Russian steppes or
much of North America about a week before harvest. All those lovely grain
fields up in smoke......
> On Mon, 2 Nov 1998, Andrew & Alex wrote:
wrote:
> >I'm
still skeptical, for totally unscientic reasons - archangelsk is big and
cold. surely space mirros can't heat the whole thing up much? still, if the
russians reckon it will, chances are those lads have done their homework. i'll
buy it.
> >a sun shield is a whole different ball game - it would have to be
still not all that much good; your thing in orbit has to have an angular size
as seen from the surface quite a bit bigger than the sun, to cover a large
area. if i've got this right, then:
s radius of patch of ground you want to darken r radius of block R radius of
sun d distance from ground to block D distance from ground to sun
r = s + (R - s)d/D
R - s pretty much equals R:
r = s + Rd/D
if it's in geosync (as it would have to be to darken a fixed point), d = 40e6
metres. for earth, D = 150e9 metres, R is... erm... lots. hang on
-
the web says 700e6 m. let's darken a 10e3 m patch.
r = 10e3 + 700e6 * 40e6 / 150e9
= 210e3 m
right, it would have to be 210 km across. the size of the sun is the dominant
term, so you can cover a larger area without much more size. remember that
area is proportional to r squared, so cost is probably protportional to (r^2
log r).
of course, we're all well aware of how wonderful my maths is, so ymmv.
Tom
> > defence - put thousands of them (they're cheap, being made of
not all that practical, I'd sweep them outta orbit once i realized what they
are for.
later
> On Tue, 3 Nov 1998, Christopher Pratt wrote:
the point is that there are lots and lots and lots of them and they're
undetectable until they unfurl, sou you can't just go in and sweep them out.
as soon as i unfurl and use one, you can sweep it, but who cares? i've still
got 999 left.
sort of reminds me of something from the Aliens tech manual: huge grids made
of nanofibre or something, too fine to detect, put on orbit around a planet
and going the wrong way. an enemy ship comes into orbit without having details
of the orbits of these things and rams into one. bang: both take a beating,
but a ship costs a lot more.
Tom
> Thomas Anderson wrote:
both
> take a beating, but a ship costs a lot more.
I'm not to sure about that...wouldn't it be expensive to cover any decent
sized area