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From: kissell@flairvax.UUCP (Baba ROM DOS)
Newsgroups: net.followup
Subject: Re: Alternate Energy & Microwaves
Message-ID: <721@flairvax.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 15-Aug-84 14:08:50 EDT
Article-I.D.: flairvax.721
Posted: Wed Aug 15 14:08:50 1984
Date-Received: Sun, 19-Aug-84 09:53:52 EDT
References: <4196@utzoo.UUCP> <369@utastro.UUCP>, <762@dual.UUCP>
Organization: Fairchild AI Lab, Palo Alto, CA
Lines: 41

(ahem)

First off, Ed Nather's fears about the effect on ground-based astronomy
of an SPS (sunsat) system are shared by a lot of people.
 
Erik Fair's comment:

> Clearly the thing to do is put the astronomers up there in Reagan's Space
> Station, where the pesky atmosphere won't get in their way.
> After all, if we can put a few tons of Sunsat up, why not a few pounds of
> Astronomer?

misses a couple of points (though I suspect it was made lightheartedly).  
The problem is not to get a few pounds of astronomer into space, it is to 
get a few tons of telescope and other instruments up there.  The astronomers,
few of whom do much naked-eye work any more, can work down here.  This is
precisely the goal of the space telescope program.  Lots of neat work has
been done by unknown people in small observatories, the kind of people who
would not get any say in which way an orbital instrument will be pointed,
and it would be a shame to see them put out of business by SPS.

One question I've never heard answered has to do with the siting of receiving
antennas for the microwaved power.  The power satelites must presumably be
in a geostationary, and therefore equatorial, orbit.  Receiving stations
on the equator are a long way from the industrialized northern regions.
Overland power transmission losses from, say, Equador to the U.S. would be 
huge, perhaps prohibitive.  If the recieving sites are to be in the U.S., 
the beams would have to be angled through more atmosphere, and would strike
an enlongated "footprint".  Can anyone tell me the amount of distortion
that would be incurred angling from a geostationary orbit to central
Nevada, for instance?

Kevin D. Kissell
Fairchild Research Center
Advanced Processor Development
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"Any closing epigram, regardless of truth or wit, grows galling
 after a number of repetitions"