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IMO there's two safe ways to implement this: - Ground-satellite-ground relaying, with at least one geostationary satellite between the ground stations. The sat
by _verandaguy 1y ago
IMO there's two safe ways to implement this:
- Ground-satellite-ground relaying, with at least one geostationary satellite between the ground stations. The satellites being geostationary means that the path of the beam through the atmosphere is constant, and air traffic can be routed around them in a reasonable way. (You could do this with lower orbits, but it'd be a hassle with current aviation industry technology).
- Beaming by tunnel! Can't get hit by a laser if it's under your feet. Obviously, this negates the benefits of the technology, and just turns into fibre lines without the fibre, over shorter distances, with all the pain in the ass of laying underground cable.
In the first approach, there'd have to be an effective exclusion zone around the receiving station (how big, I don't know), and it'd be nice to have satellites fail safe, so that if they end up pitching or rolling off axis, the beam will be shut off before becoming an accidental weapon.
- iwontberude 1y agoGeostationary orbit is way way too far and tunnels? Really?
- cap11235 1y agoAs opposed to?
- _verandaguy 1y agoGeostationary orbit is very far, yes. If you read my comment you can see my reasoning for this. And tunnels, not really, no, if you read my comment you'll see that this is a comically impractical option.
- iwontberude 1y agoI loved both of the ideas I just scratched my head about the feasibility.
- pjaffeva 1y agoSafety has been demonstrated with a "virtual enclosure", albeit at a smaller scale: https://youtu.be/Xb9THqrXd4I https://youtu.be/Xb9THqrXd4I
- kanemcgrath 1y agoYou could also fire smaller lower power beams from multiple sources that converge on the receiver, like a gamma knife. 9 points around a large dish could fire beams close together, but only at the intersection would it be at full power.
- ghthor 1y agoArtemis does something like this. https://www.artemis.com/ https://www.artemis.com/