[LMB] (chat) new essay

[Michael R N Dolbear]

> From: Mark A. Mandel <thnidu at yahoo.com>
> Date: 27 October 2007 23:48
> 
> If we're getting into the soletta, _that_ project is itself impossible.
The mirrors can't reflect more energy than they receive from Komarr's sun.
If the soletta reflects all its energy onto a planetary "footprint" with
the same area as the mirrors*, that footprint _and nowhere else_ will get
full one-sun insolation from the soletta in addition to whatever it gets
directly from the sun. If the reflection is spread out to cover the whole
visible (almost-)hemisphere, or indeed any significant fraction of the
planet's surface, it will fade to insignificance. I'm afraid Her Ladyship
just made a boo-boo here, and I can't see any reasonable way to fix it.
> 
> * ignoring issues of angle of incidence, which would make the reflected
insolation even weaker

Were you around for previous soletta discussions ?

Old archives 990729-2589 for example and I joined the list in 1999 in part
to discuss the soletta. See also the R/G/B Mars novels.

The soletta is big, that's BIG the size of a small continent otherwise, as
you say, it is of little use. I calculated that the mirror would have to be
5,000 kilometers
diameter to intercept and redirect enough sunlight to raise the planetary
temperature by 10 C (18 F).

It is probably effectively a flat mirror, I suggested double mirror cells
to get round the angle of incidence problem, so if it has 10 % of the
cross-sectional area of Komarr itself  that's of the order of an extra 10 %
 insolation.

The textev is that the soletta array is in the same orbit as Komarr, about
30 degress off the Komarr-sun vector and about a million km away. 

Little Egret