DonaldTrumpsFlaccidHairpiece
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Lets be honest, if DARPA is researching it, the "Energy transferal" they really want, is transferring as many watts into an enemy from as far away as they can. Popcorn optional.
SilverFoxChaser
Yea, the popcorn was a Real Genius reference. A space laser/microwave is a fucking stupid idea that will hopefully never happen.
JohnWickdidnothingwrong
In this case, not exactly, DARPA has always had a soft spot for this kind of powersat tech. Weapons tech will branch off it (or more likely hug it tightly) but free clean* power itself is the holy grail. Free clean* SPACE power is just that much cooler.
DocFunkenstein
But how much was lost during the transmission? That's kind of the key part.
widiwi
How much power did they put in ?
JohnSmithterms
800w is not a whole lot. But how much does that amount scale up the closer you get .... could be awesome for drone defence at 1 mile. Maybe .
Ionico
I thought the beam was very wide as to prevent accidently frying people, planes, peopke in planes, and plain people.
DonaldTrumpsFlaccidHairpiece
my assumption is, yes, that's how they are doing it now, and that makes sense. But anything wide, can be narrowed, and frying becomes possible, if not desired.
MostAwesomeDan
When did DARPA hire Styropyro?
StarscreamAndHutch
Love that guy’s content. Cannot stand his delivery.
Madchant
kickahippie
yougotredonyu
https://media1.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2lkPTY1YjkxZmJlem91ZTMxazZxZG10c3ZhczF3NXc0NHdsemgyZW1jMXE3OGl1ajQwbyZlcD12MV9naWZzX3NlYXJjaCZjdD1n/13G6MSc1sL91ra/200w.mp4
StarscreamAndHutch
Everybody wants to rule the world.
Madchant
yougotredonyu
It’s clear for me. Maybe not BFMGZ intergalactic quality but you get what you pay for eh
Madchant
You are using the phone app. On desktop, the is about 2 inches wide and full screen turns it into a puddle of pixels.
yougotredonyu
My fault.
Raventhief
There's a theory that we could move all our power plants (fission or solar) into orbit, then beam the power down.
Smidge204
The physics of doing so are pretty well established. The COST of doing it is beyond prohibitive,m though...
inconsistantsource
Sounds like a safer idea if they can get the space junk issue fixed first
q2grapple
Nuclear reactor debris raining down on us? Who wouldn’t like that?
inconsistantsource
Hey trains carry it right by us and we never know :)
foreverinchains
We would either need to make significant improvements to laser collimation or build an extremely large receiver for that to become feasible.
To be completely free of atmospheric drag, a satellite needs an altitude of at least 350 kilometers, and it would be really, really difficult to keep a laser beam tight enough to deliver meaningful amounts of power to the surface from that altitude.
Raventhief
I did say it was a theory.
foreverinchains
You're talking about a colloquial theory, then. That's a hypothesis, or a guess.
A lot of people get the colloquial and scientific meanings of theory mixed up.
Smidge204
Most proposals "shine" the power over a very large area so you wouldn't be making a death beam.
foreverinchains
Sure, but if we had better collimation, we could have geosychronous solar arrays beaming power down to single points, assuming we were also able to convert that beam back into useful energy.
With currect tech, we could have a geosynchronous satellite beaming power down to a solar farm, and we could continue to generate power even at night.
Smidge204
Yeah but... you don't want death beams. You NEED to keep the energy density down to a safe level. The system described in this post is for powering military things, so pubic safety is less a concern.
foreverinchains
You could have the satellite orbit a particular spot on the planet, directly above the power station. There are many ways to ensure the beam never goes anywhere other than right where it's supposed to.
In order to generate useful amounts of power from solar satellites, you either need absolutely massive receivers (like, city-sized) or unsafe power levels.
You just need to keep people away from where the beam lands.