Re: Western governments lack of vision
Posted by Pasti on Jan 07, 2004 at 08:15
(67.69.236.195)Re: Western governments lack of vision (danno might)
There are some rather major problems with your microwave transmission system,when you actually come down to it.
First of all, you will need MASERS,not just some microwave generators, in the first place.And for the amount of energy that you are talking about, I am not even sure such MASERS actually exist.But let's suppose they do exist.
Aside from the absorption of the microwaves in the atmosphere, which is what Bill Gill was talking about,you have the beam focusing problem.You see, any beam of light, no matter how accurate you make it a parallel beam,it will diverge along the way.A simple calculation tells you that a beam with initial angular divergence of say 0.1 degrees on the Moon (the beam Bill is talking about)needs a receiver of ~200 mile diameter (think about Arrecibo, for comparison).Rather cumbersome to build.Moreover, you are limited for the output power of the MASERS by constructive requirements (among which is say, cooling the emitters).
And this is just part of the story.Another part is diffraction.Microwaves, as the name suggests, have micron size wavelengths, and are easily scattered by anything with comparable size.This produces additional divergencies in the beam, and also loss of power in the beam.
I am afraid that as much as your plans for the future sound very nice, you will have to ammend them according to the actual possibilities.
Follow Ups:
- thanks danno might 07/1 08:45 (2)
- Re: thanks Pasti 07/1 09:41 (1)
- Re: thanks victor 19/1 22:45 (0)