3 ms·

Is there some reason that this doesn't scale up to however high you want if you add more input power? I would have thought that 60% efficiency would be the inte

by gpm 5y ago

Is there some reason that this doesn't scale up to however high you want if you add more input power? I would have thought that 60% efficiency would be the interesting figure, not 1.6 kW. I wonder if you could use this for "aerial refueling" of an electric drone - might be a cheaper way to make small long-endurance vehicles than trying to stick ICEs in them (though it has the downside of "tethering" them to a ground station).

walrus01 5y ago
google "microwave atmospheric path loss calculation" or "microwave free space path loss" - standard calculations for point to point microwave telecom systems, you lose quite a lot to the molecules in the air. probably would work a whole lot better in a vacuum.
buu700 5y ago
Is there any chance that this could ever be reliable enough to act as the primary power source for a plane? (In other words, you'd keep just enough fuel/battery onboard for emergency landings, and otherwise rely almost entirely on space microwaves.) If so, is there any possibility that it could also provide sufficient throughput to handle supersonic flight? What if we spent most of the journey at a very high altitude, or even in/near LEO?
- TaylorAlexander 5y ago
  Some day, probably. But right now others have pointed out that this system is actually only 1.8% efficient as the 60% figure was just loss from antenna to antenna, but the initial input was almost 100kW! And I don’t know much about this but it seems shooting high energy beams of radiation everywhere creates other issues.
- s5300 5y ago
  Hi buu700, Weird question - came across an earlier comment of yours. Do you happen to have a spare tube of Biomin F you’d be willing to sell me stateside? Thanks.
  - buu700 5y ago
    Well I do have a bunch of spare tubes, but I'm in the US and I just order them here: https://www.healthpulze.ca/collections/biomin-toothpaste https://www.healthpulze.ca/collections/biomin-toothpaste

by gpm 5y ago

walrus01 5y ago

google "microwave atmospheric path loss calculation" or "microwave free space path loss" - standard calculations for point to point microwave telecom systems, you lose quite a lot to the molecules in the air. probably would work a whole lot better in a vacuum.

buu700 5y ago

Is there any chance that this could ever be reliable enough to act as the primary power source for a plane? (In other words, you'd keep just enough fuel/battery onboard for emergency landings, and otherwise rely almost entirely on space microwaves.) If so, is there any possibility that it could also provide sufficient throughput to handle supersonic flight? What if we spent most of the journey at a very high altitude, or even in/near LEO?

TaylorAlexander 5y ago
Some day, probably. But right now others have pointed out that this system is actually only 1.8% efficient as the 60% figure was just loss from antenna to antenna, but the initial input was almost 100kW! And I don’t know much about this but it seems shooting high energy beams of radiation everywhere creates other issues.
s5300 5y ago
Hi buu700, Weird question - came across an earlier comment of yours. Do you happen to have a spare tube of Biomin F you’d be willing to sell me stateside? Thanks.
- buu700 5y ago
  Well I do have a bunch of spare tubes, but I'm in the US and I just order them here: https://www.healthpulze.ca/collections/biomin-toothpaste https://www.healthpulze.ca/collections/biomin-toothpaste