I saw this, and I just had to share it. I know there's a good few physicists here, so...
This is "Luna Ring", something the Japanese based Shimizu Corporation want to build, and, well... see for yourself.
Link [http://www.wfs.org/content/solar-power-moon]
This has got to be the dumbest idea I've ever heard.
My first complaint would be "do you have any idea how expensive it'd be to launch that many solar panels to the moon?" (never mind the energy cost of it), but, no, they've thought of that. Their solution? Launch the entire infrastructure necessary to build solar panels to the moon!
You can't just bang two rocks together and get a solar panel. Bear in mind, to date there's been no serious attempts at actually building something on the moon, and to start, these guys want to put a whole factory complex up there? Presumably they're not going to want to have a permanent staff up there either, so it'd have to be a completely automated factory complex, that's something that hasn't even been done one earth, and they want to do it on the moon?
Ok, space based solar power is definitely one of the most efficient power generation system we've found to date, there's no denying that, but there are so many easier ways of doing it! This feels like the sort of thing Aperture Science would come up this...
This is "Luna Ring", something the Japanese based Shimizu Corporation want to build, and, well... see for yourself.
Link [http://www.wfs.org/content/solar-power-moon]
This has got to be the dumbest idea I've ever heard.
My first complaint would be "do you have any idea how expensive it'd be to launch that many solar panels to the moon?" (never mind the energy cost of it), but, no, they've thought of that. Their solution? Launch the entire infrastructure necessary to build solar panels to the moon!
You can't just bang two rocks together and get a solar panel. Bear in mind, to date there's been no serious attempts at actually building something on the moon, and to start, these guys want to put a whole factory complex up there? Presumably they're not going to want to have a permanent staff up there either, so it'd have to be a completely automated factory complex, that's something that hasn't even been done one earth, and they want to do it on the moon?
Ok, space based solar power is definitely one of the most efficient power generation system we've found to date, there's no denying that, but there are so many easier ways of doing it! This feels like the sort of thing Aperture Science would come up this...
