jack asked:
Or to build a solar power generator?
Is it technically possible to collect solar power in orbit and transmit it to earth ?
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No…otherwise, we’d be able to radio power everywhere.
prolly – but it may expend as much energy to get it back as is collected
Maybe if you had a really long extension cable. You need cables to move electricity (I don’t think Tesla’s theories worked). If you don’t have the world’s longest extension cable then it won’t work.
1st Q yes
2nd Q no, not yet. however, the energy from the sun comes directly to us anyhooo, why harvest it in space?
Nuclear power is by far the safest source of power we have. There is no need to put power plants in orbit.
There is some thought on this but it is some what dangerous, using microwave beams to send power to a collector on earth from orbit….
It wouldn’t be as efficient as building them here on Earth….We just need more $$$ appropriated to Alt. Energy like Wind, Solar, Geothermal etc and have the Gov’t Subsidize it rather than subsidize bullstuff like autos etc. It’s a rather easy fix when you tilt your goals in the right direction!
Maybe, some day. However, if you tried to reflect it back to earth now you would probably do to us what we used to do to ants with a magnifying glass.
technically anything is possible, but the obvious way would be to send it via wire. but that isnt exactly acceptable.
you could change the electricity to some other form of energy.
microwave maybe?
i have seen magazine articles about upper atmosphere windmills that fly like a kite in the jet stream. so the same basic concept could be used to tether a solar array in lower orbit.
Yes, technically possible and it even has been done on a small scale by converting the raw electricity into a beam of microwaves. At the receiving end, the microwaves are converted back into raw electricity. On a small scale, this is used in smart RFID tags used by stores to tag pilfer able items. The radio beam powers the circuit in the tag so it can transmit a reply. There is no power source in the tag itself. They deactivate the tag by causing an overload which burns out the circuitry. The problem with large scale is one of focus of beam over large distances. The beam would have to be very strong to transmit usable power, and if the beam strayed, would cause heat damage, especially to living things, cooking them much like a microwave oven does.