Lol it’ll be on Friday the 13th too!
I was unaware of all the excitement surrounding this object until I got a note from a relative (who watches a lot of edgy YouTube videos) telling me to keep an eye out for it.
Guess this can go here-the original thread I would have sworn we had here doesn’t come up on search (tho a couple of tangential ones do)-I was hoping another media outlet would have the story (I also don’t want to link a video), but for now you’ll have to deal with the Scientific American paywall:
How a Billionaire’s Plan to Reach Another Star Fell Apart
Yes, Breakthrough Starshot, the idea of propelling a bunch of tiny probes via a superpowered laser to Alpha Centauri, is now moribund. The tl;dr is that while the basic idea may be sound in the long run, the current state of the art for the tech required isn’t going to get her done anytime soon, AND there were political concerns around building a possible superweapon.
I bet the thread you want is this one:
'the Cygnus supply ship was docked after a glitch prevented robot arm capture. No actual defect, just a software adjustment.
A not quite successful test of the booster stage for Firefly Aerospace’s next Alpha rocket:
China is going to try to put up a space based solar power system. You, know beaming power back to Earth. Here’s an analysis of why it won’t work.
It does say some stuff about SpaceX Starship, which some here may find interesting.
However, most of the article is on how any space-solar-power system will not be cost effective until launch costs drop by at least an order of magnitude.
So is the concept of Starship having an airliner standard of turnaround now officially dead? Or is that just pessimism on the part of the writer?
ETA: I’m glad the author acknowledged that geosynchronous power was never considered viable without in situ manufacturing in space like the famous O’Neill concept.
Another thing I meant to highlight in that article is this (emphasis mine):
Provided of course that some practical solution to the ground-based intermittency problem comes to pass. Which admittedly sounds less challenging than building an entire space-based industrial infrastructure.
Instead of beaming power down as microwaves, what about large orbiting reflectors that would beam plain old light down 24 hours a day to isolated locations where solar farms would be built? Simpler technology in space, no worries about frying birds and planes in flight, etc.
Might be tough on life forms that depend on a district day/night cycle for various reasons.
Yeah, about 30 seconds after posting that, I thought of a bunch of objections, the most significant of which is that if you get sunlight in a given location eight hours a day on average, the space project has to cost less than three times the price of the ground-based solar farm, or it would be cheaper just to expand the farm by 200%. Getting light 24 hours a day, vs 8 to 12, just isn’t enough of an advantage to justify the enormous cost and complexity of a space-based system, even if it’s just reflecting sunlight.
Unless you significantly increase the intensity over natural sunlight, in which case you would probably get a bunch of ecological problems such as you suggest, and add to global warming, as well.