So in the 90s a friend and I were walking at night in Australia when suddenly the whole valley was lit up for a few seconds. We had no idea what happened until we saw on the news the next day that it was an experimental Russian solar reflector satellite that had crossed or area for a few seconds. It was an experience that we both never forgot.
You can still only focus it so much. You aren’t going to get a pin point at such a long distance. In full sun it might focus down enough to make a hot spot, but at low orbit it won’t be able to stay in 1 spot for long.
I used to know Vladimir personally. He was brilliant engineer and scientist. Find and read his book "100 Stories About Docking" in which he spilled many intricate facts and personal impressions about Soviet/Russian space program. The book is a rarity, though.
That’s awesome! Do you still live in the former USSR? I have to ask, what do you think of the current Russia/Ukraine situation? No offense if you don’t answer.
@@Boccaccio-ii1fl I love politics, I hate the unrighteous people involved in politics. I disagree with bloodshed Russia is causing to their Ukrainian neighbors,but I understand why they do it. It's too dangerous to have your neighbors being partners and friends with your enemies.
I worked in Usinsk, Komi of the old USSR. OTs just Soith of the Arctic Circle. Cold and dark in the winter. This would be a godsend for those people up there.
Archimedes was killed by a Roman who the commander asked to meet Archimedes. The soldier came to Archimedes while Archimedes has concentrating on solving a problem and failed to respond to the Roman soldier who killed him on the spot for impudence.
And Sheppard on Apollo 14. They even let Glenn fly on the shuttle. It’s cool that NASA got the pioneers back into space. In the day Glenn’s life was too valuable and Alan and Deke had medical issues. That being said, both Dele and Alan were much more valuable as managers than they ever would be as astronauts. They set the tone of the old NASA. A tone lost with Apollo. NASA needs to leave manned spaceflight to the experts and focus on unmanned telescopes and probes. They have proven themselves inept at manned spaceflight.
I think the original hope was that the orbit would take care of the tracking. Adding active attitude adjustment is a whole different level of complexity for a 'space mirror'.
To have any accuracy, the change in focus would have to cause the entire mirror to change its concavity, with mathematical precision. It's not as simple as adjusting the distance between 2 lenses like on a camera. The entire surface of the mirror would have to change shape, which also means the diameter of the mirror will have to change. You would have to add mechanisms to deform the mirror, power for those systems, and a way to control it all precisely, all pf whitch is going to add weight and complexity to the overall design, making it harder to get into orbit and more likely to break down.
@@Scudboy17 We’d be ta;king about an array here, not a single mirror, but even broken down to each individual mirror, we have many ways of distorting even rigid reflector materials accurately, with extremely accurate control systems to measure the distortion & compensate hundreds of thousands of tomes per second. Operating this in a controlled manner in such an environment as space would be easier than when we a;ready do this down here on the surface. Aero teams have engineered solutions to more complicated problems with slide rules & an abacus in the early days of the space program.
@Spuzzmacher I never said it was impossible. You are just increasing the weight and complexity of the satellite to allow for it focus as needed. Multiply that by the number of satalites you would need (especially with reflective material as poor as shown in use by said satellite, the less reflective that material is, the less focasable it is, the more satalites you will need) and the chances of failure grow exponentially. It's entirely possible, it's just not feasible or practical.
You are wrong, focal point of mirror can be pretty far. For example ELT has effective diameter of mirror(s) 40 meters and focal point is 750 m. So if you aproximate those values to 9sqkm, you can get focal point 320km. In fact, it is possible to make mirrors even with larger curvature and get focal point in thousands of kilometers for such mirror sizes.
And if you network many smaller mirrors together and aim them at one spot it's like having a far larger mirror. It's exactly how solar thermal power works, and how the solar smelter furnace in France works
Yeah I was like "this guy doesn't have a clue". You can focus a mirror to just about any distance you desire, it works exactly opposite of something like the JWST.
@@RedHammerBodyShop Haarp poped in my mind. Simpelveld, 31-03-2018 As of tomorrow, the first mobile HAARP Antenna will be put into use by Happy Rent Verhuur to influence the weather during an Easter event in Maastricht in such a way that the clouds within a radius of 5 km have no space. The mobile HAARP antenna uses radio waves at high frequencies, the electrons and ions in the ionosphere can be manipulated so that no rain can fall locally. The technology has been extensively tested for years and will finally be able to be used at major events this year. 🤣🤣🤣 You should Google Haarp it is no joke.
My first thought as well. Is there some physics reason this can't be done? And if so, why? It just sounds like math to me. Just reduce the curvature of the reflector until the focal point is 1,000 miles away. Why is this impossible? Why would this even be difficult?
An accurate and/or tunable parabolic mirror could be used .. but the cost would be absurd compared to alternatives. For that reason, it's just a stupid idea... which is a good thing ... nobody should want zillions of such mirrors up there shining down adding to global warming.
yes, the concept actually would work, the hardest part being creating a mirror that you could adjust the focus of, to ensure the focal point is on the earths surface, which is a variable height when compared by objects in orbit.
I believe there is a Norwegian town, which gets no direct sunlight during in winter months, that has set up a mirror on a nearby mountain to give the folks a little reflected sunlight.
The idea to use a gigantic space mirror to illuminate Northern regions was first proposed by a Russian/Soviet Sci-Fi writer Alexander Beliayev in his novel "K.E.Ts. Star" published in 1936 (the name of the artificial "star" being an initialism of "Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky")
Tsiolkovsky... the venerable grandfather of space explaration. It's impressive how much of the things he imagined have come to be - he definitely deserves more stuff named in his honor, besides his famous equation
"I'm glad it didn't work out" Meanwhile a company is currently working on this very project stating they will rent areas of daylight for events and emergency work like tornado/ hurricane cleanup.
There's actually no good reason to think that something so dim (5 to 10x full moon brightness) would harm anything. Our artificial lights in cities are at least that bright. And the orbiting reflector would not have to be shining at all hours.
Actually, back in the year 2002 there WAS another giant space mirror that was successfully launched into space and it was used as a weapon that had devastating results -even melting the ice while nearly dodging a motorist in an Aston Martin. Facts!
@andrew1717xx The weapon depicted in Die Another Day is not a laser, it is indeed a Sonnengewehr falsely marketed for philanthropic purposes which utilizes a diamond-coated filament orbiting the planet to reflect and focus sunlight onto the surface.
That would be quite a feat though, since the Soyuz design was initially flown on April 23, 1967, and the last flight of the Mercury spacecraft design flew on May 15, 1963. Perhaps Russia also had time-machines!?
Certainly he could've made blinding flashes, in attempt to focus to a point. The focal point was probably way short of the fleet, and as they got withing bow range, Archimedes and helpers still trying to focus the large mirrors may have caused some burns and small damage, but not enough before falling to the arrow storm.
Folks, as a russian citizen i bielive that space race is something very good that happend in human history. Think about this, instead of killing each other in some stupid war, the best minds explore the solar system.
Well it would have been better if the US allow the Soviet Union to join NATO back in 1954 after Stalin's Death. With a Peace agreement, the Iron curtain would have collapsed in the 1950s. Meanwhile the US installed a New (N)A(Z)1 regime in Ukr to attack Russia.
Unfortunately is seems we are back to killing each other in order to shift boarders a few miles this way or that way. And by the way both sides have legitimate claims and different peoples are pockmarked on either sides of these boarders.
I believe there is a Norwegian town, which gets no sunlight during in winter months, that has set up a mirror on a nearby mountain to give the folks a little reflected sunlight.
I believe Echo 2 was effective at bouncing radio waves for over the horizon communications, basically the first communication satellite proof of concept. Echo 1 was launched in 1960.
I think the important thing is to consider the long-term negative effects these mirrors might pose to the earth, and landscapes that might be effective with too much sunlight redirecting to it.
There is a village in Italy, Viganella, that uses mirrors to beam sun into there deep valley during winter months. The villagers all agree that this improved their lives by a huge percentage.
@@alexeykrylov9995 When it comes to new ways of technology and altering the atmosphere of the planet that always comes with ethical applications and safety of people.
The men who designed and built the V-2 were not idiots: a 9-Km²-area mirror with even an 8200-Km focal length would be able to do some significant damage. Assuming the mirror is circular, a 9-Km² mirror area implies a diameter of ~ 1.6 Km (i.e., a mirror that is ~ 1 *mile* in diameter). For a focal distance of 8200 Km and using the peak-illuminance wavelength for sunlight of ~ 590 nm, we get a minimum spot diameter d in the focal plane of d = 2.4 (590e-12 Km) (8200 Km) / (1.69 Km) ≈ 6.9 mm Assuming a (very conservative) solar constant and mirror efficiency of 1 kilowatt / m², the mirror would focus ~ *9 megawatts* of solar energy into a spot that would be perhaps 15-mm in diameter after atmospheric scattering - creating more than enough intensity to instantly vaporize steel or anything else in its path. (~ 1.3 megawatts / cm² over a large spot size).
The limiting factor for minimum spot size is actually the angular diameter of the sun. The formula you are using holds only for a perfectly collimated initial source (zero etendue). The ~0.5 degree angular diameter of the sun over a distance of 8200 km gives a ~70 km spot diameter. From the point of view of the ground, a lens or mirror in space cannot appear brighter than the original light source. It can only make it take up more of the apparent sky. In the best-case scenario, the mirror would appear as a disk of ~0.02 deg angular diameter with the same emissivity as the sun, not enough to burn anything.
@@SamuelLiJ We're not talking about brightness (W/cm² • sr), but rather, intensity (W/cm²). Your argument would apply only if the mirror were flat. Consider what happens when kids fry ants on a sidewalk: the magnifying lens will produce a "hot spot" that corresponds to an image of the pupil of the lens. The light forming this image originates from a spot on the Sun that has the same diameter as that of the lens, and whose subtense is given by the lens' diameter divided by the distance to the Sun. The Brightness Theorem has not been violated because the lens is a spatial filter that isn't trying to capture all of the light emitted into 4π sr from the Sun - it's just trying to produce enough intensity to fry an ant. While the ant-frying spot isn't brighter than the Sun, it's certainly more intense.
@@ScrewFlanders Yes, that was precisely my point. If the intensity (W/cm^2) received on the ground is greater than or equal to that of sunlight, then the angular diameter of the mirror (as viewed from the ground) must be greater than or equal to that of the sun, regardless of the shape of the mirror. But this isn't the case.
Great space video, I never heard of this, thanks! It reminds me of the people in Rjukan that built a mirror on a mountain to have some light in their town square half the year to avoid depression.
Your illustration is funny. 8km2 would be like a sandcorn above the earth! The way you depicted it it would be more the size of the diameter of the moon 😂
It does not have to be all or nothing. The mirror can adjust its lighting to any level, 0-100%. the original idea or winter light could be used for food groth or other plants.
How it it possible that I just finished a video by Mustard about the Nautilus, and at the end he teased a video on this topic (which I cannot access without paying for a streaming service), and this gets posted today
its not even correct about the focal length thing that apparently makes this impossible. you can change the focal length by changing the shape of the mirror.
Living in south/east Norway and having those long winter days/nights where at minimum theres 6 hours of sunlight on 21 December where I live (not too bad), it would be cool to extend it by a couple of hours in the evening to get up to 8 hours of light, if the mirror had some kind of on/off switch and not melt the snow too much 😁
Uhhm no,how about use more lithium batteries and make light where and when you need it. We don't want or need your solar death rays of global warming☝🏾
Now there are many countries more than capable of achieving amazing things in this regard. There are things some people don't understand, or remember, that made those times memorable.
@3:04 - the problem with your diagram of a mirror producing a death ray from space is drawn wrong. The mirror's focal length must be the distance between the mirror and the item you wish to burn.
Yep. The graphic makes it appear that a lens or mirror cannot be built with a focal length suitable to the separation distance. The claim that a giant mirror in space could not be used as a heat type death ray is nonsense. There are other reasons that make it highly impractical, but not the focal length.
Love the way you go. Anyway maybe you need more knowledge to understand why there is still a similar problem. On the other hand, why were things rigurous only in before the nineties? Now everything is inaccurate, as this video.
@@buggsy5 Earth is already accustom to receiving very bright sunlight. The amount of light from one of these mirrors, after going through the atmosphere, seems unlikely to compete with a clear day on a beach in the Caribbean. More likely it would be comparable to moon light. Perhaps in the distant future if they get the technology perfected. Though, if it did work, then nuclear weapons wouldn't be needed anymore. That would be a good thing.
Ha. I had actually read about this in the Italian "Focus" magazine in late 1998, and always wondered what was its fate after nothing spectacular happened the entire year of 1999, especially nothing like "a second sun in the sky". Thank you shedding some light (heh) on this topic.
I vaguely recall reading that France deployed a mirror not to test as a mirror system per se but to test the materials it was made of: some kind of memory material that was used to construct the mirror framework on Earth, then be folded up and launched to space where sunlight was supposed to make the material to return to it constructed shape. This was probably around 1996, and I haven't been able to find anything about it in the last several years. After watching this video it occurred to me that a sail for a light-propelled craft could be built with such technology so that as the craft got farther away the sail could be expanded in sections, while the propulsive light came from mirrors in Earth orbit.
The "focussing sunlight only works at short range" is false as it depends on the fcal length of the lens/mirror. If the mirror has a focal length equivalent to it's orbital distance to the Earth's surface it could work. I'm not taking in to account any other factors.
A couple of things right off. First, the space mirror with FIXED optics would indeed not roast anything on the ground as it would, for the most part not be at the primary focus. With that said, with adaptive optics, this is not the case. One can make any point on the surface the focal point with proper range finding equipment: From wide base split optics to laser range finders, we could hold focus. Second, it was an Apollo space craft that meat the Soviets in space, not a Mercury... come on man!
A giant orbital mirror would be most excellent for orbital smelting operations intended to build additional orbital platforms out of ores mined from asteroids. However it would best be in a high orbit, possibly geosynchronous or beyond, to minimize the dangers involved in bringing those asteroidal ores into low orbit.
@@dustermcclean2517 Sure. Park giant versions at the leading and trailing LaGrange points and reflect sunlight onto Mars. But you wouldn't want to use those once plants could grow since they would effectively eliminate the day/night cycle; then you'd have to switch to mirrors placed to increase light during the day
Or for cooling the Earth; orbit a ring of them to reflect light away from the polar regions to keep them cold, maybe even to reduce insolation in deserts -- until we get our act together and stop this unintended experiment in global warming.
There is a very good reason for keeping northern latitude solar farms lit at night. Solar concentration plants in particular do not need much light to keep salt warm at their centers. Clouds are caused by cooling of warmer air that rises, so there is a chance that such plants would naturally have no clouds above them if the light can be kept on a single path.
I remember hearing of this concept as early as 1970. The headline was that light would be 7 times brighter than the full moon. Streetlights could be eliminated and cities would be safer. This never got off the drawing board because of concerns about the biological cycles of various plants and animals.
Damn, we better turn off those street lights immediately! ... I would prefer that they perfect it more, focus it down, and aim it an solar concentration plants at night so that they energy output can be more consistent. Particularly in the far north.
"The obsessive militarization of the Soviet Union," and I'm bloody glad he was! Are we supposed to be upset that the Soviets managed to defeat the Nazis?!?
@@brothergrimaldus3836 80% of Axis casualties were caused by the Soviets. The vast majority of lend-lease didn't arrive until after Stalingrad. The Soviets defeated the Nazis.
Instead of one giant mirror I think it'd be more practical to have a whole bunch of smaller mirrors and then you can automate it to measure the distance and finely adjust the mirrors to all focus on the same spot. You'd need a whole lot more surface area than the theory calls for but it's theoretically possible. I wonder if the Atmosphere would cause problems though- it'd probably defract too much of the light to be able to be accurate with or you'd just need even more/bigger mirrors to overcome. Impractical but I think it could work.
Actually there are several giant mirrors in space right now. They all face away from earth and are used in telescopes, not to reflect sunlight onto earth.
The Space Race, remember your poll from June 13 saying that IFT 5 will most likely lift off in JULY? Yeah, I do 😂😂😂 I voted for “September+” only because there was no “October+” lol 😂😂😂
I remember the headlines in the weeks before. It would be helpful in disaster areas turning night into day. On the night, I was watching the sky and saw nothing. And because of no internet back then, I could not find any information on why not. But a few articles of people claiming to have seen a kind of diamond high above. Strange thing I was recently thinking about never ever hearing about this helpful spotlight in the sky again.
You don't need a super-focused beam to be a "death ray." You just need to increase the radiation concentration to screw up enough stuff that an enemy is defeated. For example, if the intensity of sunlight in a city were doubled, then the temperature would be higher--maybe not deadly, but AC consumption would skyrocket, water use would go up, and it's likely that some piece of utility infrastructure would fail.
To have any accuracy, the change in focus would have to cause the entire mirror to change its concavity, with mathematical precision. It's not as simple as adjusting the distance between 2 lenses like on a camera. The entire surface of the mirror would have to change shape, which also means the diameter of the mirror will have to change. You would have to add mechanisms to deform the mirror, power for those systems, and a way to control it all precisely, all pf whitch is going to add weight and complexity to the overall design, making it harder to get into orbit and more likely to break down.
On a similar note, scientists have proposed collecting solar energy in space and then transmitting it down to Earth. I remember one of Isaac Asimov’s robot stories had this premise. Since it was dangerous if the energy wasn’t aimed at exactly the proper reception point on the planet, (in the story) they would shut off the transmission satellites during bad space weather like a coronal mass ejection. IIRC, that story is in the I, Robot collection of robot-based short stories.
I have imagined a similar space mirror, but closer to the sun. But the purpose i envisioned was not that it be used as a weapon, but that it be used to solve the climate crisis by diverting a precisely calculated amount of the sun's energy away from the Earth, offsetting the effect of greenhouse gasses being added to the atmosphere. As an added bonus, it could be used to interfere with hurricanes and other storms to affect the weather.
Giant space mirrors would indeed make the Arctic and Antarctic regions more liveable. Even if the watts beamed down are not enough to heat the area significantly, just having a full moon's light equivalent would both reduce the lightning expenditures AND reduce the isolation/depression feelings that people living in continual darkness for 3 months typically get. Imagine that: reducing the suicide rate of places like Alaska or Finland, thanks to making winter a bit less dark' at the cost of a few satellite launches. I for one say LET'S DO IT AGAIN
The mirror would be a godsent during a emergency situation where additional sunlight is needed.. as in a collapse of a building where rescue efforts are needed or a natural disaster when you need to be able to see people to rescue them.. The additional sunlight would make a big plus in such efforts..
1:57 Note that the drawing is not to scale. The height there looks more like 80% of earth radius compared to just below 30%. And the 1 km radius reflektor isn't even a pixel on that scale. 🙂
The mirror would STILL be a solar sail, and would still exhibibt forces from the reflected light. Granted that it's small, but a constant propulsion system would need to be employed to maintain it's orbit over time.
Space mirrors could have great uses for lighting if they can be done cost effectively. Not cost effective or desirable to light the whole planet in perpetual daylight levels, but would be great as they mentioned for northern city to give a short break from winter darkness or after natural disasters or small areas for events.
I, for one, would've liked it to work. If you can illuminate vast areas at a moment's notice without an electrical grid and with less energy than a city of LEDs it would still be useful for farmlands and disaster areas. Netter than starlink monopolizong the sky, they need to break up that company due to antitrust.
What is old is new. . . A company called Reflect Orbital is proposing a constellation of such satellites. Proposed uses vary, but one would allow customers to call for sunlight on a specific position. Who knows if they'll actually make a go of it though.
mad, i've seen 4 different documentaries on soviet space mirrors now but one of them showed the space mirrors focussing light down on to a giant solar PV farm generating electricity. This idea didn't seem unreasonable to me, I think there might be something to that.
re 2:44 The illustration is farcical, and does not describe the also nonsensical narration. The main problem is that the beam would probably be distorted by atmospheric turbulence, and aiming would also be difficult. Modern technology might make it possible, but I presume not practical (or it would already be in use).
I think you can absolutely weaponize a giant mirror, it just won't work as a death ray, but instead only slightly raise the temperature. Like let's say you could heat up a city to a perpetual 50°C. You can't survive that kind of temperature for long. Imagine the battle of Fallujah, but instead of weeks of fighting you just turn up the temperature in the city to beyond human tolerance and force a surrender.
I hate unskippable ads and worse when theres 2..i stopped watching tv because of ads, this teaches me to not use youtube unless i have ad blocker Um archimedes died because the invaders got in after the residents threw a victory party where practically everyone was wasted. The enemy walked in and threw open the gates...the rest is history
There was a USA company called SBSP - Space Based Solar Power - aka Special BS Project - back in the noughties. And it had a successor. But the whole project has many practical problems.
Personally i don't think it was a bad idea. Say we launched a space mirror we could turn the lights on specific areas on and off depending on circumstances
Another reflective mirror was launched around 2017 by the Russians. The satellite, named "Mayak" or beacon, holds four reflective mirror surfaces. The mirrors consist of thin reflective sheets. When unfolded, they form a tetrahedral structure. I did not see any reference on what purpose does it serve.
"it is highly questionable that there would be substantial benefit for any living thing for having perpetual sunlight" This is the same problem again: I haven't seen it, so it must be bad! The idea was to bring sunlight to polar areas during the polar night. Those areas also experience polar summer with 24-hour sunlight, and the plants and animals manage just fine. The extra light wouldn’t compensate for the snow and -50°C temperatures anyway. I think this is a great idea and will be implemented in the future for obvious reasons. What are these obvious reasons, then? In the future, after global warming intensifies (unless we stop it-yeah, right!), there will come a time when the polar areas are ice-free. Unfortunately, this won't change the light cycle in these regions. Even if the mean temperature at the poles were +25°C year-round, the sunlight needed to sustain conventional forests still wouldn’t be there. The animals and plants that populated Antarctica the last time such an environment existed are long gone. Space mirrors would solve this problem.
So in the 90s a friend and I were walking at night in Australia when suddenly the whole valley was lit up for a few seconds. We had no idea what happened until we saw on the news the next day that it was an experimental Russian solar reflector satellite that had crossed or area for a few seconds. It was an experience that we both never forgot.
I remember this but would have loved to see it in action..
😊
too cool!
How bright?
@@KK_on_KKenough to light up the night sky in Australia.
This is why I love UA-cam, so many cool stories
the narrator is 100 % wrong the Focal point can be adjusted to keep it's Focal point at any distance .
I agree, they could set it anywhere they wanted.
Its why idiots shouldn't be allowed to make videos
You can still only focus it so much. You aren’t going to get a pin point at such a long distance.
In full sun it might focus down enough to make a hot spot, but at low orbit it won’t be able to stay in 1 spot for long.
@@NBSV1 this is depending on the DIAMETER intern determines the Focal Point also increases the ENERGY OUTPUT
The things falling 15,000mph around the earth there’s no time to sit in one spot and focus light
Those shots of the craft and mirror spinning are awesome. Even to this day we have few such clear and dynamic images of spacecraft maneuvering
I used to know Vladimir personally. He was brilliant engineer and scientist. Find and read his book "100 Stories About Docking" in which he spilled many intricate facts and personal impressions about Soviet/Russian space program. The book is a rarity, though.
That’s awesome! Do you still live in the former USSR?
I have to ask, what do you think of the current Russia/Ukraine situation?
No offense if you don’t answer.
@@Frankthetank-zr5mc I left the USSR long ago. As for the Russia/Ukraine situation, it goes beyond the scope of discussion for this forum.
@@Frankthetank-zr5mc I am sorry but I don't make politic, I am not interested. Please do not ask me again this kind of things !
@@Boccaccio-ii1fl
I love politics, I hate the unrighteous people involved in politics. I disagree with bloodshed Russia is causing to their Ukrainian neighbors,but I understand why they do it. It's too dangerous to have your neighbors being partners and friends with your enemies.
How do I get a copy
I worked in Usinsk, Komi of the old USSR. OTs just Soith of the Arctic Circle. Cold and dark in the winter.
This would be a godsend for those people up there.
Archimedes was killed by a Roman who the commander asked to meet Archimedes. The soldier came to Archimedes while Archimedes has concentrating on solving a problem and failed to respond to the Roman soldier who killed him on the spot for impudence.
Do not disturb my circles.
Major mistake. You used Mercury / Soyuz at 3:53 when it was Soyuz / Apollo in the 70s - where Deke Slayton finally got to fly
And Sheppard on Apollo 14. They even let Glenn fly on the shuttle. It’s cool that NASA got the pioneers back into space. In the day Glenn’s life was too valuable and Alan and Deke had medical issues.
That being said, both Dele and Alan were much more valuable as managers than they ever would be as astronauts. They set the tone of the old NASA. A tone lost with Apollo.
NASA needs to leave manned spaceflight to the experts and focus on unmanned telescopes and probes. They have proven themselves inept at manned spaceflight.
Wait what? What genius said you can’t design your reflector to focus where you need it? That makes no sense at all.
I think the original hope was that the orbit would take care of the tracking. Adding active attitude adjustment is a whole different level of complexity for a 'space mirror'.
To have any accuracy, the change in focus would have to cause the entire mirror to change its concavity, with mathematical precision. It's not as simple as adjusting the distance between 2 lenses like on a camera. The entire surface of the mirror would have to change shape, which also means the diameter of the mirror will have to change. You would have to add mechanisms to deform the mirror, power for those systems, and a way to control it all precisely, all pf whitch is going to add weight and complexity to the overall design, making it harder to get into orbit and more likely to break down.
@@Scudboy17 That's basically the most expensive bit in the jwst.It's always funny to hear people say "just focus it man".
@@Scudboy17 We’d be ta;king about an array here, not a single mirror, but even broken down to each individual mirror, we have many ways of distorting even rigid reflector materials accurately, with extremely accurate control systems to measure the distortion & compensate hundreds of thousands of tomes per second. Operating this in a controlled manner in such an environment as space would be easier than when we a;ready do this down here on the surface. Aero teams have engineered solutions to more complicated problems with slide rules & an abacus in the early days of the space program.
@Spuzzmacher I never said it was impossible. You are just increasing the weight and complexity of the satellite to allow for it focus as needed. Multiply that by the number of satalites you would need (especially with reflective material as poor as shown in use by said satellite, the less reflective that material is, the less focasable it is, the more satalites you will need) and the chances of failure grow exponentially. It's entirely possible, it's just not feasible or practical.
You are wrong, focal point of mirror can be pretty far. For example ELT has effective diameter of mirror(s) 40 meters and focal point is 750 m. So if you aproximate those values to 9sqkm, you can get focal point 320km. In fact, it is possible to make mirrors even with larger curvature and get focal point in thousands of kilometers for such mirror sizes.
Laser lenses?
And if you network many smaller mirrors together and aim them at one spot it's like having a far larger mirror. It's exactly how solar thermal power works, and how the solar smelter furnace in France works
Yeah I was like "this guy doesn't have a clue". You can focus a mirror to just about any distance you desire, it works exactly opposite of something like the JWST.
@@RedHammerBodyShop Haarp poped in my mind.
Simpelveld, 31-03-2018
As of tomorrow, the first mobile HAARP Antenna will be put into use by Happy Rent Verhuur to influence the weather during an Easter event in Maastricht in such a way that the clouds within a radius of 5 km have no space. The mobile HAARP antenna uses radio waves at high frequencies, the electrons and ions in the ionosphere can be manipulated so that no rain can fall locally. The technology has been extensively tested for years and will finally be able to be used at major events this year.
🤣🤣🤣
You should Google Haarp it is no joke.
@@Solnoric Then focus them to a solar grid and have a constant power source.
2:30 But a lens is not a mirror. The focal length of a concave mirror can be whatever you want it to be depending on the curvature.
My first thought as well. Is there some physics reason this can't be done? And if so, why?
It just sounds like math to me. Just reduce the curvature of the reflector until the focal point is 1,000 miles away. Why is this impossible? Why would this even be difficult?
Exactly. These exist and have been used. Many melted stone sites in the world.
An accurate and/or tunable parabolic mirror could be used .. but the cost would be absurd compared to alternatives. For that reason, it's just a stupid idea... which is a good thing ... nobody should want zillions of such mirrors up there shining down adding to global warming.
yes, the concept actually would work, the hardest part being creating a mirror that you could adjust the focus of, to ensure the focal point is on the earths surface, which is a variable height when compared by objects in orbit.
Why did this video make me think of the theories about the firestorm disaster in Hawaii...
I believe there is a Norwegian town, which gets no direct sunlight during in winter months, that has set up a mirror on a nearby mountain to give the folks a little reflected sunlight.
Yes. You're correct
There is one in Italy city of Viganella
That would be Tromsø. I heard that the population celebrate when the Sunlight makes an appearance. 😎
The idea to use a gigantic space mirror to illuminate Northern regions was first proposed by a Russian/Soviet Sci-Fi writer Alexander Beliayev in his novel "K.E.Ts. Star" published in 1936 (the name of the artificial "star" being an initialism of "Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky")
Tsiolkovsky... the venerable grandfather of space explaration. It's impressive how much of the things he imagined have come to be - he definitely deserves more stuff named in his honor, besides his famous equation
"I'm glad it didn't work out"
Meanwhile a company is currently working on this very project stating they will rent areas of daylight for events and emergency work like tornado/ hurricane cleanup.
Or… Solar panels could generate some power at “night”. Or… generate microwaves to antennas on the ground…
There's actually no good reason to think that something so dim (5 to 10x full moon brightness) would harm anything. Our artificial lights in cities are at least that bright. And the orbiting reflector would not have to be shining at all hours.
0:35
@@aquietpatron7281We already have obal warming, we don't want or need anymore hot arse Sun radiation
The idea is dead on arrival.
Actually, back in the year 2002 there WAS another giant space mirror that was successfully launched into space and it was used as a weapon that had devastating results -even melting the ice while nearly dodging a motorist in an Aston Martin.
Facts!
What was its name?
@@andrew1717xx I’ve never watched a single Bond film, but I’m sure that’s what they are talking about
@@wheeze_sanchez That was a laser and Pierce 'Bondman' had a good performance.
Even earlier in 1971 (Diamonds forever).
@andrew1717xx
The weapon depicted in Die Another Day is not a laser, it is indeed a Sonnengewehr falsely marketed for philanthropic purposes which utilizes a diamond-coated filament orbiting the planet to reflect and focus sunlight onto the surface.
Uhhh you docked a Soyuz and a Mercury together……it was an Apollo capsule…..
Great video anyway!
That would be quite a feat though, since the Soyuz design was initially flown on April 23, 1967, and the last flight of the Mercury spacecraft design flew on May 15, 1963. Perhaps Russia also had time-machines!?
Yes, the AI failed. Probably guided by dimensions. Soyuz is smaller than Apollo.
2:41 is wrong. You just need the right focal length. IDK if it would work from space, but your example is ridiculous.
Him dying in the battle doesn't mean it didn't happen, it means the tactic wasn't as effective as intended at the very least though.
Is it a line from a song?
Certainly he could've made blinding flashes, in attempt to focus to a point. The focal point was probably way short of the fleet, and as they got withing bow range, Archimedes and helpers still trying to focus the large mirrors may have caused some burns and small damage, but not enough before falling to the arrow storm.
I think it could have been effective but he could have died anyway.
Folks, as a russian citizen i bielive that space race is something very good that happend in human history.
Think about this, instead of killing each other in some stupid war, the best minds explore the solar system.
Well it would have been better if the US allow the Soviet Union to join NATO back in 1954 after Stalin's Death. With a Peace agreement, the Iron curtain would have collapsed in the 1950s.
Meanwhile the US installed a New (N)A(Z)1 regime in Ukr to attack Russia.
Unfortunately is seems we are back to killing each other in order to shift boarders a few miles this way or that way. And by the way both sides have legitimate claims and different peoples are pockmarked on either sides of these boarders.
Remember Echo 2? January, 26th, 1964? 135 foot diameter inflatable silver sphere?
I believe there is a Norwegian town, which gets no sunlight during in winter months, that has set up a mirror on a nearby mountain to give the folks a little reflected sunlight.
It was a convex reflective surface, so much dimmer than direct sunlight.
I believe Echo 2 was effective at bouncing radio waves for over the horizon communications, basically the first communication satellite proof of concept.
Echo 1 was launched in 1960.
I think the important thing is to consider the long-term negative effects these mirrors might pose to the earth, and landscapes that might be effective with too much sunlight redirecting to it.
There is a village in Italy, Viganella, that uses mirrors to beam sun into there deep valley during winter months. The villagers all agree that this improved their lives by a huge percentage.
Yes, the additional atmospheric heating would be the major concern.
@@DeontjieThis energy you point out is already in the Earths biosphere, Space energy is not..!
A little bit brighter than the full moon is not "too much sunlight" as you call it.
@@alexeykrylov9995 When it comes to new ways of technology and altering the atmosphere of the planet that always comes with ethical applications and safety of people.
And now the idea is coming back as an “awesome new innovation from the Silicon Valley tech bros”
2:30 that's wrong, the focal point depends entirely on the curvature of the surface, it doesn't have to be "short '
No ants were harmed in the production of this video.
Why not?
The men who designed and built the V-2 were not idiots: a 9-Km²-area mirror with even an 8200-Km focal length would be able to do some significant damage.
Assuming the mirror is circular, a 9-Km² mirror area implies a diameter of ~ 1.6 Km (i.e., a mirror that is ~ 1 *mile* in diameter). For a focal distance of 8200 Km and using the peak-illuminance wavelength for sunlight of ~ 590 nm, we get a minimum spot diameter d in the focal plane of
d = 2.4 (590e-12 Km) (8200 Km) / (1.69 Km)
≈ 6.9 mm
Assuming a (very conservative) solar constant and mirror efficiency of 1 kilowatt / m², the mirror would focus ~ *9 megawatts* of solar energy into a spot that would be perhaps 15-mm in diameter after atmospheric scattering - creating more than enough intensity to instantly vaporize steel or anything else in its path. (~ 1.3 megawatts / cm² over a large spot size).
You forget to factor in Earth's atmosphere and the dispersion effect of clouds, air and water molecules, etc.
@@thatjeff7550 Read my post again. I clearly mention the effect of atmospheric scattering.
The limiting factor for minimum spot size is actually the angular diameter of the sun. The formula you are using holds only for a perfectly collimated initial source (zero etendue). The ~0.5 degree angular diameter of the sun over a distance of 8200 km gives a ~70 km spot diameter.
From the point of view of the ground, a lens or mirror in space cannot appear brighter than the original light source. It can only make it take up more of the apparent sky. In the best-case scenario, the mirror would appear as a disk of ~0.02 deg angular diameter with the same emissivity as the sun, not enough to burn anything.
@@SamuelLiJ We're not talking about brightness (W/cm² • sr), but rather, intensity (W/cm²). Your argument would apply only if the mirror were flat.
Consider what happens when kids fry ants on a sidewalk: the magnifying lens will produce a "hot spot" that corresponds to an image of the pupil of the lens. The light forming this image originates from a spot on the Sun that has the same diameter as that of the lens, and whose subtense is given by the lens' diameter divided by the distance to the Sun.
The Brightness Theorem has not been violated because the lens is a spatial filter that isn't trying to capture all of the light emitted into 4π sr from the Sun - it's just trying to produce enough intensity to fry an ant. While the ant-frying spot isn't brighter than the Sun, it's certainly more intense.
@@ScrewFlanders Yes, that was precisely my point. If the intensity (W/cm^2) received on the ground is greater than or equal to that of sunlight, then the angular diameter of the mirror (as viewed from the ground) must be greater than or equal to that of the sun, regardless of the shape of the mirror. But this isn't the case.
Great space video, I never heard of this, thanks! It reminds me of the people in Rjukan that built a mirror on a mountain to have some light in their town square half the year to avoid depression.
Your illustration is funny. 8km2 would be like a sandcorn above the earth! The way you depicted it it would be more the size of the diameter of the moon 😂
It does not have to be all or nothing. The mirror can adjust its lighting to any level, 0-100%. the original idea or winter light could be used for food groth or other plants.
exactly, also it could be used to terraform Venus quickly and cheaply. A giant mirror could reflect sunlight and cool down Venus.
Love the intro
There is a company marketing precisely this at the moment. Making sun in areas which have night using these satellites as a startup
How it it possible that I just finished a video by Mustard about the Nautilus, and at the end he teased a video on this topic (which I cannot access without paying for a streaming service), and this gets posted today
its not even correct about the focal length thing that apparently makes this impossible.
you can change the focal length by changing the shape of the mirror.
@cdz9400
The algorithm knows what you want, so go ahead and pay your fair share for what you seek....nothing is free☝🏾
Living in south/east Norway and having those long winter days/nights where at minimum theres 6 hours of sunlight on 21 December where I live (not too bad), it would be cool to extend it by a couple of hours in the evening to get up to 8 hours of light, if the mirror had some kind of on/off switch and not melt the snow too much 😁
Uhhm no,how about use more lithium batteries and make light where and when you need it. We don't want or need your solar death rays of global warming☝🏾
Hello from Moscow, it is sad to realize how Russia slowed down space race after Cold War and deconstruction of USSR
Maybe dont invade other countries?
Frees up resources
Now there are many countries more than capable of achieving amazing things in this regard. There are things some people don't understand, or remember, that made those times memorable.
@@GurumeierhansRussia isn’t famous for invading countries, the US is
@@kaboonali5466 Murica is a warmonger, thats true.
Still Russia is fighting an illegal war...
@@kaboonali5466 This is how russia is a biggest country in the world.
Excellent video 😮!
@3:04 - the problem with your diagram of a mirror producing a death ray from space is drawn wrong. The mirror's focal length must be the distance between the mirror and the item you wish to burn.
Yep. The graphic makes it appear that a lens or mirror cannot be built with a focal length suitable to the separation distance. The claim that a giant mirror in space could not be used as a heat type death ray is nonsense. There are other reasons that make it highly impractical, but not the focal length.
Love the way you go. Anyway maybe you need more knowledge to understand why there is still a similar problem. On the other hand, why were things rigurous only in before the nineties? Now everything is inaccurate, as this video.
@@buggsy5 Earth is already accustom to receiving very bright sunlight. The amount of light from one of these mirrors, after going through the atmosphere, seems unlikely to compete with a clear day on a beach in the Caribbean. More likely it would be comparable to moon light. Perhaps in the distant future if they get the technology perfected. Though, if it did work, then nuclear weapons wouldn't be needed anymore. That would be a good thing.
Thanks! Really interesting, I knew nothing about this project..
Ha. I had actually read about this in the Italian "Focus" magazine in late 1998, and always wondered what was its fate after nothing spectacular happened the entire year of 1999, especially nothing like "a second sun in the sky". Thank you shedding some light (heh) on this topic.
I vaguely recall reading that France deployed a mirror not to test as a mirror system per se but to test the materials it was made of: some kind of memory material that was used to construct the mirror framework on Earth, then be folded up and launched to space where sunlight was supposed to make the material to return to it constructed shape. This was probably around 1996, and I haven't been able to find anything about it in the last several years. After watching this video it occurred to me that a sail for a light-propelled craft could be built with such technology so that as the craft got farther away the sail could be expanded in sections, while the propulsive light came from mirrors in Earth orbit.
The "focussing sunlight only works at short range" is false as it depends on the fcal length of the lens/mirror. If the mirror has a focal length equivalent to it's orbital distance to the Earth's surface it could work. I'm not taking in to account any other factors.
This was the plot point for one of the later James Bond films.
Focus is the critical factor for the sun gun.
They already have lasers that can be much more effective and powered by solar energy to their batteries.
@asianometry just did a video on this
this guy's just copying @asianometry
And it was better.
A couple of things right off. First, the space mirror with FIXED optics would indeed not roast anything on the ground as it would, for the most part not be at the primary focus. With that said, with adaptive optics, this is not the case. One can make any point on the surface the focal point with proper range finding equipment: From wide base split optics to laser range finders, we could hold focus.
Second, it was an Apollo space craft that meat the Soviets in space, not a Mercury... come on man!
Yes, heat up the Arctic. Beach properties everywhere. Don't tell donnie.
Man, that intro was epic!! 😎
that is hands down coolest thing humanity has done in space!
this influenced alot of modern day scifi books and anime. cool idea
James Webb telescope is a huge mirror, Hubble is a huge mirror. So yes they have launched huge mirrors into space.
A giant orbital mirror would be most excellent for orbital smelting operations intended to build additional orbital platforms out of ores mined from asteroids. However it would best be in a high orbit, possibly geosynchronous or beyond, to minimize the dangers involved in bringing those asteroidal ores into low orbit.
Sounds useful for Mars terraforming
Really?😂😂😂
@@dustermcclean2517 Sure. Park giant versions at the leading and trailing LaGrange points and reflect sunlight onto Mars. But you wouldn't want to use those once plants could grow since they would effectively eliminate the day/night cycle; then you'd have to switch to mirrors placed to increase light during the day
Or for cooling the Earth; orbit a ring of them to reflect light away from the polar regions to keep them cold, maybe even to reduce insolation in deserts -- until we get our act together and stop this unintended experiment in global warming.
@@traildude7538Might pair nicely with a research station powered by fusion with extra magnets for a solar shield for both Mars and the station.
There is a very good reason for keeping northern latitude solar farms lit at night. Solar concentration plants in particular do not need much light to keep salt warm at their centers. Clouds are caused by cooling of warmer air that rises, so there is a chance that such plants would naturally have no clouds above them if the light can be kept on a single path.
3:56 Apollo Soyuz used an Apollo CSM, not a Mercury capsule
I remember hearing of this concept as early as 1970. The headline was that light would be 7 times brighter than the full moon. Streetlights could be eliminated and cities would be safer. This never got off the drawing board because of concerns about the biological cycles of various plants and animals.
Damn, we better turn off those street lights immediately! ... I would prefer that they perfect it more, focus it down, and aim it an solar concentration plants at night so that they energy output can be more consistent. Particularly in the far north.
"The obsessive militarization of the Soviet Union," and I'm bloody glad he was! Are we supposed to be upset that the Soviets managed to defeat the Nazis?!?
The allies defeated Germany.
Not the Soviets.
@@brothergrimaldus3836 80% of Axis casualties were caused by the Soviets. The vast majority of lend-lease didn't arrive until after Stalingrad. The Soviets defeated the Nazis.
@@brothergrimaldus3836 yes, that was plenty american troops in Stalingrad and Kursk batle
@@АнтонДоленко-т1щ oh... you got me.
Hey, what is that going on over in the east? It's probably nothing.
@@brothergrimaldus3836 event west historians consider that is most key batles in WW2
Great video!
The solar sail is a very old concept that made it into a number of sci-fi books.
Instead of one giant mirror I think it'd be more practical to have a whole bunch of smaller mirrors and then you can automate it to measure the distance and finely adjust the mirrors to all focus on the same spot. You'd need a whole lot more surface area than the theory calls for but it's theoretically possible. I wonder if the Atmosphere would cause problems though- it'd probably defract too much of the light to be able to be accurate with or you'd just need even more/bigger mirrors to overcome. Impractical but I think it could work.
Actually there are several giant mirrors in space right now. They all face away from earth and are used in telescopes, not to reflect sunlight onto earth.
The Space Race, remember your poll from June 13 saying that IFT 5 will most likely lift off in JULY? Yeah, I do 😂😂😂 I voted for “September+” only because there was no “October+” lol 😂😂😂
I remember the headlines in the weeks before. It would be helpful in disaster areas turning night into day. On the night, I was watching the sky and saw nothing. And because of no internet back then, I could not find any information on why not. But a few articles of people claiming to have seen a kind of diamond high above.
Strange thing I was recently thinking about never ever hearing about this helpful spotlight in the sky again.
You don't need a super-focused beam to be a "death ray." You just need to increase the radiation concentration to screw up enough stuff that an enemy is defeated.
For example, if the intensity of sunlight in a city were doubled, then the temperature would be higher--maybe not deadly, but AC consumption would skyrocket, water use would go up, and it's likely that some piece of utility infrastructure would fail.
If he turned it into a solar sail, it could have got to mars and back by now.
To have any accuracy, the change in focus would have to cause the entire mirror to change its concavity, with mathematical precision. It's not as simple as adjusting the distance between 2 lenses like on a camera. The entire surface of the mirror would have to change shape, which also means the diameter of the mirror will have to change. You would have to add mechanisms to deform the mirror, power for those systems, and a way to control it all precisely, all pf whitch is going to add weight and complexity to the overall design, making it harder to get into orbit and more likely to break down.
On a similar note, scientists have proposed collecting solar energy in space and then transmitting it down to Earth. I remember one of Isaac Asimov’s robot stories had this premise.
Since it was dangerous if the energy wasn’t aimed at exactly the proper reception point on the planet, (in the story) they would shut off the transmission satellites during bad space weather like a coronal mass ejection.
IIRC, that story is in the I, Robot collection of robot-based short stories.
I have imagined a similar space mirror, but closer to the sun. But the purpose i envisioned was not that it be used as a weapon, but that it be used to solve the climate crisis by diverting a precisely calculated amount of the sun's energy away from the Earth, offsetting the effect of greenhouse gasses being added to the atmosphere. As an added bonus, it could be used to interfere with hurricanes and other storms to affect the weather.
Your correct pronunciation of Syracuse earns you 2 extra points “ devil is in the details”
Very detailed video, great job 👍
Giant space mirrors would indeed make the Arctic and Antarctic regions more liveable. Even if the watts beamed down are not enough to heat the area significantly, just having a full moon's light equivalent would both reduce the lightning expenditures AND reduce the isolation/depression feelings that people living in continual darkness for 3 months typically get. Imagine that: reducing the suicide rate of places like Alaska or Finland, thanks to making winter a bit less dark' at the cost of a few satellite launches. I for one say LET'S DO IT AGAIN
Reaching out for permission to react to your videos
The mirror would be a godsent during a emergency situation where additional sunlight is needed.. as in a collapse of a building where rescue efforts are needed or a natural disaster when you need to be able to see people to rescue them.. The additional sunlight would make a big plus in such efforts..
Mobile solar energy, programmed from space, would be very useful in many situations.
50X brighter than the full moon is maybe about the equivalent of what it looks like 5 minutes before the start of nautical twilight
I have more confidence in the Russian Venusian Sun shield now!
1:57 Note that the drawing is not to scale. The height there looks more like 80% of earth radius compared to just below 30%. And the 1 km radius reflektor isn't even a pixel on that scale. 🙂
It was a good way to see Uranus.
I just love your enthusiasm
Starts at 7:40
The mirror would STILL be a solar sail, and would still exhibibt forces from the reflected light. Granted that it's small, but a constant propulsion system would need to be employed to maintain it's orbit over time.
Space mirrors could have great uses for lighting if they can be done cost effectively. Not cost effective or desirable to light the whole planet in perpetual daylight levels, but would be great as they mentioned for northern city to give a short break from winter darkness or after natural disasters or small areas for events.
So we can warm the planet with mirrors. Hmm can we cool it with a shade screen?
I been saying that for a while. Found out It’s been debated
I, for one, would've liked it to work. If you can illuminate vast areas at a moment's notice without an electrical grid and with less energy than a city of LEDs it would still be useful for farmlands and disaster areas. Netter than starlink monopolizong the sky, they need to break up that company due to antitrust.
What is old is new. . . A company called Reflect Orbital is proposing a constellation of such satellites. Proposed uses vary, but one would allow customers to call for sunlight on a specific position. Who knows if they'll actually make a go of it though.
How did they get the footage of that mirror spinning? Didnt even know it was filmed. was this deployed after a visit to MIR or something?
It's pronounced "Znumya". Stress on "U". U as in the word "run".
3:56 uhh it's Apollo Soyuz, not mercury soyuz
it's on purpose to get people to leave comments. he sometimes makes ridiculous mistakes
Detente
mad, i've seen 4 different documentaries on soviet space mirrors now but one of them showed the space mirrors focussing light down on to a giant solar PV farm generating electricity. This idea didn't seem unreasonable to me, I think there might be something to that.
re 2:44 The illustration is farcical, and does not describe the also nonsensical narration. The main problem is that the beam would probably be distorted by atmospheric turbulence, and aiming would also be difficult. Modern technology might make it possible, but I presume not practical (or it would already be in use).
This is really cool but there’s no private funds in the Soviet Union not sure I heard you correctly this was private funded after 1992?
I can say i was here since 100k subscribers once you'll hit 3 million subs.
I think you can absolutely weaponize a giant mirror, it just won't work as a death ray, but instead only slightly raise the temperature. Like let's say you could heat up a city to a perpetual 50°C. You can't survive that kind of temperature for long. Imagine the battle of Fallujah, but instead of weeks of fighting you just turn up the temperature in the city to beyond human tolerance and force a surrender.
I hate unskippable ads and worse when theres 2..i stopped watching tv because of ads, this teaches me to not use youtube unless i have ad blocker
Um archimedes died because the invaders got in after the residents threw a victory party where practically everyone was wasted. The enemy walked in and threw open the gates...the rest is history
Space ships with solar sails, that woulda been a trip
There was a USA company called SBSP - Space Based Solar Power - aka Special BS Project - back in the noughties. And it had a successor. But the whole project has many practical problems.
I think the focal point is not the problem. It is a number game. Just put 1000 of them in‘a stable orbit.
Personally i don't think it was a bad idea. Say we launched a space mirror we could turn the lights on specific areas on and off depending on circumstances
Germany have built a sun simulator recently that is full of mirrors.👍
Reminds me of my attempt (aged 10) to build a laser with silver paint, a yogurt container and a light bulb...
Our orbital telescopes have some pretty immaculate mirrors
That pic of a teeny Soyuz docked with a gigantic Mercury capsule nearly made me press unsubscribe. Please don't do that again.
Today's environmentalists would lose their minds
Archimedes did not die in any battle. He was murdered by a Roman Centurion after Syracuse had fallen.
Another reflective mirror was launched around 2017 by the Russians. The satellite, named "Mayak" or beacon, holds four reflective mirror surfaces. The mirrors consist of thin reflective sheets. When unfolded, they form a tetrahedral structure. I did not see any reference on what purpose does it serve.
"it is highly questionable that there would be substantial benefit for any living thing for having perpetual sunlight"
This is the same problem again: I haven't seen it, so it must be bad! The idea was to bring sunlight to polar areas during the polar night. Those areas also experience polar summer with 24-hour sunlight, and the plants and animals manage just fine. The extra light wouldn’t compensate for the snow and -50°C temperatures anyway. I think this is a great idea and will be implemented in the future for obvious reasons.
What are these obvious reasons, then? In the future, after global warming intensifies (unless we stop it-yeah, right!), there will come a time when the polar areas are ice-free. Unfortunately, this won't change the light cycle in these regions. Even if the mean temperature at the poles were +25°C year-round, the sunlight needed to sustain conventional forests still wouldn’t be there. The animals and plants that populated Antarctica the last time such an environment existed are long gone. Space mirrors would solve this problem.