[AR] Re: space based solar
- From: Keith Henson <hkeithhenson@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: arocket@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, Power Satellite Economics <power-satellite-economics@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 20 Mar 2019 08:18:30 -0700
On Tue, Mar 19, 2019 at 10:08 PM Henry Spencer <hspencer@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
snip
Yes, the big fly in the ointment for sandwich designs is that the solar
array and the transmitter array typically want to point in different
directions, and the sandwich design makes it impossible to put a rotating
joint between the two. You can redirect the light before it reaches the
array, you can redirect the power beam after it leaves the array, or you
can play orbit games to reduce the range of motion required, and all three
options have snags of one kind or another.
Most of the current designs, including mine, redirect the light to
deal with the once a day rotation. The exception is Ian Cash's
distributed design which rotates the microwave power beam.
Mind you, rotating joints carrying multi-gigawatt amounts of power would
have their own issues...
Even if you don't have rotation, the lines to take 10 GW of power out
to the transmitter are a hard problem. This might be the best
solution available.
https://new.siemens.com/global/en/products/energy/high-voltage/power-transmission-lines/gas-insulated-lines.html
cc to PSE
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