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It would be. Anything space based and big enough to rival or exceed planet sizes would take some very interesting engineering and management. They would take
by a3n 6y ago
It would be.
Anything space based and big enough to rival or exceed planet sizes would take some very interesting engineering and management.
They would take a long time. Technology would advance tremendously during their construction. In fact, their construction might be planned to never end.
The first bits might not even be functional; their only purpose might be to act as a place to build the next bits on to.
Even when we get to the functional bits, they might be designed and built to be replaced, or built over, like Mike Mulligan's steam shovel.
They would also have to be designed and built to be safe even if civilization collapses. An interesting challenge would be to leave behind instructions, constantly updated while we're still around, to any future civilization to be able to "take up the tools" when they're ready.
- rsync 6y ago"Anything space based and big enough to rival or exceed planet sizes would take some very interesting engineering and management." Actually I think this would be quite small and manageable. A space shade shades more area as it moves further away from the Earth. Further, the percentage of solar energy we would want to mitigate would be relatively small. A modest sized shade made of reflective foil, in a solar orbit interior to the Earths orbit, could probably be done quite cheaply.
- taneq 6y agoHow would you keep it in position? I’d have thought any effective space shade would necessarily also act like a solar sail.
- unchocked 6y agoYep. The solution is a stationkeeping orbit around Sun-Earth Lagrange 1.
- colanderman 6y ago> A space shade shades more area as it moves further away from the Earth. The moon can eclipse the sun in its entirety. Mercury is larger, yet barely visible with a telescope when it transits the sun. I think the opposite of what you said is true. (What you said I believe is correct in the case that the sun is much smaller than the Earth.)
- dumbfoundded 6y agoYes, it's a essentially a cone with the point at Earth. The circular cross sections only get bigger as you move towards the sun. Only reason it works with the moon is b/c it's 400x smaller and 400x closer. Cool fact is that won't happen forever, the moon's orbit is slowly increasing.