5 ms·

And the difference between a space solar farm and a military grade space ray is ? If you are beaming serous amount of energy toward earth, you better have a go

by folbec 5y ago

And the difference between a space solar farm and a military grade space ray is ? If you are beaming serous amount of energy toward earth, you better have a good answer to that. Or you will get the visit of very serious people with no sense of humor.

henearkr 5y ago
> is ? is the presence of failsafe mechanisms using lasers around the energy beam so that if any of these lasers are not anymore aligned with its receptors (or if they are interrupted by any obstacle) then the energy beam is immediately cut. It can even be implemented via optomechanical systems, to be better failure resilient.
- vkou 5y ago
  That's not the problem. The problem is 'What assurance does the Department of State have that your space death ray is not going to be deliberately pointed at the next RNC?' and 'What assurances does the Ministry of Foreign Affairs have that it is not going to be deliberately pointed at the May Day Parade?' You're incredibly unlikely to explain yourself to the satisfaction of both of those groups of people at the same time. Never mind that this is also a multiple-orders-of-magnitude-impractical means of generating energy.
  - WJW 5y ago
    Not to mention: - What assurances does the Department of Defense have that North Koreas orbital death ray will not cook the white house at any moment.
    - henearkr 5y ago
      Well obviously what I said only stands in non-dictatorship. I don't care to comment on the dictatorship case, that's bad anyway if they launch any satellite at all, we'll never know what's in, so that's not an actionable subject of discussion (except, shoot down all of their spacecrafts).
      - vkou 5y ago
        Democracies have throughout history conducted plenty of assassinations, and started wars of aggression. Some of them have even killed a few hundred thousand people with firebombing and nuclear weapons. Any country with ASW capabilities would find it prudent to shoot this thing down, because there is no defense from it being used against it - with exactly zero warning.
        henearkr 5y ago
        Yes but again, the distinction is that, in democracies, such evil projects can only be conducted under military secret. So, any project conducted for the sake of energy production, i.e. in the civilian realm, would have no chance to include these elements of aggression. Heck, in democracies, even for military projects that are too evil, there are whistleblowers. Especially in high-tech projects, because among scientists there is quite a bit this kind of mindset.
  - henearkr 5y ago
    That's just baseless fear from the moment that the system has been designed to be safe. Plus, you can count on the bazillion scientists working on it to whistleblow any sticks that would have been put in their wheels during the design if the military wanted to middle. There are only two kinds of projects: secret projects for the military, and civil projects where the design and the safety are pretty much the thing of hundreds engineers not bound by military oaths.
    - vkou 5y ago
      'Trust me, I'm an engineer' doesn't fly with me, and it sure as hell isn't going to fly with another country's government - for the same reason that an engineering firm using nuclear bombs to dig canals isn't going to fly. It's a dual-use technology that can be trivially repurposed for aggression, that cannot be defended against.
      - henearkr 5y ago
        You don't seem to understand what I mean. If the system is designed to be cut in the event that it would be unaligned with its on-ground receptors, through opto-mechanical interrupters, then you cannot use it for an aggression, unless you move the on-ground receptors all the way to your target, but that would be very flagrant and difficult to hide, and every worker at the receptor facility would see it, as well as any other civilian far or near the project. The only way that such satellite could go wrong is if it actually does not integrate such failsafe mechanisms, and if its real design is hidden, and ill-known to anybody except a handful of military-secret-bound engineers. If I were to follow your reasoning, then by the same rule any energy plant or even any technological artifact would be incredibly unsafe. But the fact is that we integrate security mechanisms in those, and are mostly satisfied with them, such that we accept to use these technologies. Of course accidents happen, but the security mechanisms evolve too. Some are so good that they rarely fail anymore, like for example the master cylinder in car brakes (it is an actuator that enhances your effort on the brakes, but if it fails then you end up just pushing raw on the brakes and thus it works anyway, just a little harder). Of course, this kind of Dyson sphere project will require quite a bit of popular education to convince and explain why its mechanisms make it safe. This reminds me of the company who developed RNA vaccines because they don't risk to change cells' DNA and they are safer globally, and then they have to explain endlessly to people that no, it's not an evil design, and, no, it does not even include nano-5G-antennas....
adwn 5y ago
> And the difference between a space solar farm and a military grade space ray is ? And the difference between an airliner and a cruise missile is? And the difference between a rocket and an ICBM is? By your argument, we wouldn't be using those technologies. And yet we do, on a daily basis.
- folbec 5y ago
  You will notice that ballistic missiles are regulated. Rocket launch are very publicly announced (and tracked). The known reaction time window of a ballistic missile is ~15 minutes (for russia) to 30m (for the USA) and is already too short, leading to near russian launch at least once that we know of. The reaction time for any space based weapon is down to minutes to seconds. Putting them into orbit is already a war declaration. This is not something that will be allowed without heavy international control and multi national regulation.

by folbec 5y ago

henearkr 5y ago

> is ? is the presence of failsafe mechanisms using lasers around the energy beam so that if any of these lasers are not anymore aligned with its receptors (or if they are interrupted by any obstacle) then the energy beam is immediately cut. It can even be implemented via optomechanical systems, to be better failure resilient.

vkou 5y ago
That's not the problem. The problem is 'What assurance does the Department of State have that your space death ray is not going to be deliberately pointed at the next RNC?' and 'What assurances does the Ministry of Foreign Affairs have that it is not going to be deliberately pointed at the May Day Parade?' You're incredibly unlikely to explain yourself to the satisfaction of both of those groups of people at the same time. Never mind that this is also a multiple-orders-of-magnitude-impractical means of generating energy.
- WJW 5y ago
  Not to mention: - What assurances does the Department of Defense have that North Koreas orbital death ray will not cook the white house at any moment.
  - henearkr 5y ago
    Well obviously what I said only stands in non-dictatorship. I don't care to comment on the dictatorship case, that's bad anyway if they launch any satellite at all, we'll never know what's in, so that's not an actionable subject of discussion (except, shoot down all of their spacecrafts).
    - vkou 5y ago
      Democracies have throughout history conducted plenty of assassinations, and started wars of aggression. Some of them have even killed a few hundred thousand people with firebombing and nuclear weapons. Any country with ASW capabilities would find it prudent to shoot this thing down, because there is no defense from it being used against it - with exactly zero warning.
      - henearkr 5y ago
        Yes but again, the distinction is that, in democracies, such evil projects can only be conducted under military secret. So, any project conducted for the sake of energy production, i.e. in the civilian realm, would have no chance to include these elements of aggression. Heck, in democracies, even for military projects that are too evil, there are whistleblowers. Especially in high-tech projects, because among scientists there is quite a bit this kind of mindset.
- henearkr 5y ago
  That's just baseless fear from the moment that the system has been designed to be safe. Plus, you can count on the bazillion scientists working on it to whistleblow any sticks that would have been put in their wheels during the design if the military wanted to middle. There are only two kinds of projects: secret projects for the military, and civil projects where the design and the safety are pretty much the thing of hundreds engineers not bound by military oaths.
  - vkou 5y ago
    'Trust me, I'm an engineer' doesn't fly with me, and it sure as hell isn't going to fly with another country's government - for the same reason that an engineering firm using nuclear bombs to dig canals isn't going to fly. It's a dual-use technology that can be trivially repurposed for aggression, that cannot be defended against.
    - henearkr 5y ago
      You don't seem to understand what I mean. If the system is designed to be cut in the event that it would be unaligned with its on-ground receptors, through opto-mechanical interrupters, then you cannot use it for an aggression, unless you move the on-ground receptors all the way to your target, but that would be very flagrant and difficult to hide, and every worker at the receptor facility would see it, as well as any other civilian far or near the project. The only way that such satellite could go wrong is if it actually does not integrate such failsafe mechanisms, and if its real design is hidden, and ill-known to anybody except a handful of military-secret-bound engineers. If I were to follow your reasoning, then by the same rule any energy plant or even any technological artifact would be incredibly unsafe. But the fact is that we integrate security mechanisms in those, and are mostly satisfied with them, such that we accept to use these technologies. Of course accidents happen, but the security mechanisms evolve too. Some are so good that they rarely fail anymore, like for example the master cylinder in car brakes (it is an actuator that enhances your effort on the brakes, but if it fails then you end up just pushing raw on the brakes and thus it works anyway, just a little harder). Of course, this kind of Dyson sphere project will require quite a bit of popular education to convince and explain why its mechanisms make it safe. This reminds me of the company who developed RNA vaccines because they don't risk to change cells' DNA and they are safer globally, and then they have to explain endlessly to people that no, it's not an evil design, and, no, it does not even include nano-5G-antennas....

adwn 5y ago

> And the difference between a space solar farm and a military grade space ray is ? And the difference between an airliner and a cruise missile is? And the difference between a rocket and an ICBM is? By your argument, we wouldn't be using those technologies. And yet we do, on a daily basis.

folbec 5y ago
You will notice that ballistic missiles are regulated. Rocket launch are very publicly announced (and tracked). The known reaction time window of a ballistic missile is ~15 minutes (for russia) to 30m (for the USA) and is already too short, leading to near russian launch at least once that we know of. The reaction time for any space based weapon is down to minutes to seconds. Putting them into orbit is already a war declaration. This is not something that will be allowed without heavy international control and multi national regulation.