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> there's really not much you can do apart from moving the whole damn planet out of the way. You can put something in between, a giant sun shade
by thebruce87m 1y ago
> there's really not much you can do apart from moving the whole damn planet out of the way.
You can put something in between, a giant sun shade
- WillAdams 1y agoOr a giant solar array?
- thfuran 1y agoCan you without making a ringworld?
- thebruce87m 1y agoI guess you’re thinking of something that orbits earth? If you build something that orbits the sun at the same rate as us then it could just be flat and circular. Maybe someone smarter than me can calculate the optimal parameters to get the smallest shade that orbits the sun. If we are looking to only block out a percentage of the sun then it doesn’t even need to be fully opaque, maybe a giant dream catcher would be fine.
- hinkley 1y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagrange_point https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagrange_point And already a known option for our current global warming situation.
- thfuran 1y ago>orbits the sun at the same rate as us That means you're heavily restricted in where you can put it. It has to be either right next to earth, in which case it's hard to keep away from Earth, or at L1, which is not stable. There's no other place you can put something where it will stay directly between us and the sun.
- thebruce87m 1y agoWhy restricted? Are we assuming it does not produce thrust here? Because it could.
- thfuran 1y agoIt's wildly impractical to try to keep something far from a stable orbit with active thrust long-term. I mean, why don't we all have flying houses? It'd be cool.
- rendall 1y agoShades could just orbit like any other artificial satellite. It does not have to block the sun all of the time, just part of the day. I suspect the atmosphere, ecology and albedo would adjust to radiate the extra energy away anyway.
- mattigames 1y agoChunks of other planets, we have always been pretty good at creating explosives previous generations couldn't even fathom so such destructive disposition may get to be a positive thing for once.
- bravesoul2 1y agoCan artificial clouds help? Geo hacking might be cheaper than building billions of acres of shade.
- looofooo0 1y agoWe just build an L1 Solar park for micro g manufacturing of space mined materials.