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In case you missed it, this is Hacker News. Where people post inspiring and interesting things we can learn from, we can aspire to and maybe even improve some

by grecy 3y ago

In case you missed it, this is Hacker News. Where people post inspiring and interesting things we can learn from, we can aspire to and maybe even improve some things from time to time. There's no need for all the negativity every time someone tries something new. It serves no purpose.

superkuh 3y ago
https://www.caltech.edu/about/news/caltech-announces-breakthrough-100-million-gift-to-fund-space-based-solar-power-project https://www.caltech.edu/about/news/caltech-announces-breakth... The only reason Caltech is doing this is that a really rich person with delusions gave them 100 million dollars to research space based solar power. They know as well as anyone with a bit of RF experience that what they're doing isn't really increasing the TRL of space based solar power transmission. It's just humoring the donor for the money. The best that can be said is that it's the first flex pcb RF system in orbit. That's kind of cool but as a person looking to be inspired and improve things it seems like a significant waste of money. It's not like high power RF transmitters haven't been tested in vacuum in LEO before. There have been many, many radar satellites. They should've been spending they $100 million attempting to make coherent kilometer scale transmitting apertures on Earth and actually demo something that'd prove the feasibility of space based solar power transmission.
- grecy 3y ago
  > They should've been spending they $100 million attempting to make... I'm not sure you understand how the world works. You don't get to decide how institutions spend money that is donated to them, and I really don't know why you think you do.
  - superkuh 3y ago
    If the donor really wanted to work towards space based power the experts could convince them the first step is achieving KM-scale coherent transmitting aperatures on Earth. If they just want the money and have no intention of fulfilling the goal, or if the dude is as you say... not open to input, then yeah, you end up with waste like here.

by grecy 3y ago

superkuh 3y ago

https://www.caltech.edu/about/news/caltech-announces-breakthrough-100-million-gift-to-fund-space-based-solar-power-project https://www.caltech.edu/about/news/caltech-announces-breakth... The only reason Caltech is doing this is that a really rich person with delusions gave them 100 million dollars to research space based solar power. They know as well as anyone with a bit of RF experience that what they're doing isn't really increasing the TRL of space based solar power transmission. It's just humoring the donor for the money. The best that can be said is that it's the first flex pcb RF system in orbit. That's kind of cool but as a person looking to be inspired and improve things it seems like a significant waste of money. It's not like high power RF transmitters haven't been tested in vacuum in LEO before. There have been many, many radar satellites. They should've been spending they $100 million attempting to make coherent kilometer scale transmitting apertures on Earth and actually demo something that'd prove the feasibility of space based solar power transmission.

grecy 3y ago
> They should've been spending they $100 million attempting to make... I'm not sure you understand how the world works. You don't get to decide how institutions spend money that is donated to them, and I really don't know why you think you do.
- superkuh 3y ago
  If the donor really wanted to work towards space based power the experts could convince them the first step is achieving KM-scale coherent transmitting aperatures on Earth. If they just want the money and have no intention of fulfilling the goal, or if the dude is as you say... not open to input, then yeah, you end up with waste like here.