3 ms·
? Thin foil in space, forming a covex mirror, ray of light focused on the surface, melting the spot over and over until its flat glass?
by OneTimePetes 5y ago
? Thin foil in space, forming a covex mirror, ray of light focused on the surface, melting the spot over and over until its flat glass?
- LeifCarrotson 5y agoHolding that foil in a well-focused lens shape, and keeping it focused on one spot on the surface while in orbit around the moon, would be pretty tough. Even though a mirror surface can be like 90% efficient, I think you'd have a better chance of putting down more energy by collecting the energy with 30% efficient solar panels, and transmitting it with a tightly collimated, easily focused, easily aimed laser that may only be 30% efficient. That's only 9% of your incident energy output to do useful work, but I doubt you could be as successful with a foil mirror. And when you've got those constraints, why would you not land it on the surface as a rover and work from a meter away instead of working in orbit many kilometers above the surface? The latter saves some landing energy and rover mechanisms at the cost of collimation requirements. It gains you the freedom to put your landing pad anywhere on the surface instead of having to drive there, but I don't think we need that yet.