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I imagine beaming power to space (for powering space devices) and from space (from orbital solar power stations) would be pretty useful.

petschge 4y ago
If you are doing solar anyway and need a decently transparent atmosphere to get power through, why not leave the solar panels on the ground?
- DennisP 4y ago
  Because from a geostationary satellite, you'll collect power all through the night for most of the year. It's like having noon sun for 24 hours a day.
  - jiveturkey 4y ago
    How so? A geostationary satellite sees night time.
    - DennisP 4y ago
      Not on most days, because the Earth is a lot smaller in the satellite's sky than it is from LEO, and the equator is tilted with respect to the Earth's orbit. So there's a 44-day period around each equinox, during which there will be shadow for a few minutes per day, up to 72 minutes at the equinox itself. The rest of the time, the satellite gets full sun for 24 hours. https://www.viasat.com/about/newsroom/blog/how-satellites-are-affected-by-the-spring-and-autumn-equinoxes/ https://www.viasat.com/about/newsroom/blog/how-satellites-ar...
- JoeAltmaier 4y ago
  Right-of-way, transmission lines running through expensive real estate, cooling towers heating up rivers, limits to size (you can run out of ground, but you'll never run out of space). And on the ground you get this annoying eclipse phenomenon called 'night'. Takes away half your potential collecting time. Also solar flux is like 9X more dense outside the atmosphere. So it takes far smaller surface to collect the same energy.
chongli 4y ago
They had this in SimCity 2000. You'd build these microwave receivers in your city and the orbital solar power stations would beam it down to you. Very clean and convenient. But occasionally the satellite would drift out of alignment and fry part of your city with what you would basically describe as an ultra-high-powered MASER.
- XorNot 4y ago
  Practical designs of this sort of system don't use anything that concentrated - the idea is to build receiver arrays over farmland, since the microwave receivers are really just an array of towers with loops of wire suspended from them. The on-the-ground RF intensity even in the middle of the rectenna would be low - not "advisable to stay in low" but you wouldn't suffer any ill-effects if you strayed in there accidentally for a while while.

petschge 4y ago

If you are doing solar anyway and need a decently transparent atmosphere to get power through, why not leave the solar panels on the ground?

DennisP 4y ago
Because from a geostationary satellite, you'll collect power all through the night for most of the year. It's like having noon sun for 24 hours a day.
- jiveturkey 4y ago
  How so? A geostationary satellite sees night time.
  - DennisP 4y ago
    Not on most days, because the Earth is a lot smaller in the satellite's sky than it is from LEO, and the equator is tilted with respect to the Earth's orbit. So there's a 44-day period around each equinox, during which there will be shadow for a few minutes per day, up to 72 minutes at the equinox itself. The rest of the time, the satellite gets full sun for 24 hours. https://www.viasat.com/about/newsroom/blog/how-satellites-are-affected-by-the-spring-and-autumn-equinoxes/ https://www.viasat.com/about/newsroom/blog/how-satellites-ar...
JoeAltmaier 4y ago
Right-of-way, transmission lines running through expensive real estate, cooling towers heating up rivers, limits to size (you can run out of ground, but you'll never run out of space). And on the ground you get this annoying eclipse phenomenon called 'night'. Takes away half your potential collecting time. Also solar flux is like 9X more dense outside the atmosphere. So it takes far smaller surface to collect the same energy.

chongli 4y ago

They had this in SimCity 2000. You'd build these microwave receivers in your city and the orbital solar power stations would beam it down to you. Very clean and convenient. But occasionally the satellite would drift out of alignment and fry part of your city with what you would basically describe as an ultra-high-powered MASER.

XorNot 4y ago
Practical designs of this sort of system don't use anything that concentrated - the idea is to build receiver arrays over farmland, since the microwave receivers are really just an array of towers with loops of wire suspended from them. The on-the-ground RF intensity even in the middle of the rectenna would be low - not "advisable to stay in low" but you wouldn't suffer any ill-effects if you strayed in there accidentally for a while while.