On Tue, 24 Jun 1997, Dejan Vucinic wrote:
> In fact, I can hardly see how else can a Dyson sphere be built.
> One would start from seeds that would "sail" near the star and
> expand themselves in such a way that the gravitational stress at
> any point during the construction is kept at an absolute minimum.
The original, and so far almost only realistic, proposal was not a
solid shell but a swarm of independently orbiting solar collectors.
There are no gravitational stresses at all. Some traffic control will
be needed, but it is certainly not an insurmountable problem.
Note that we have already started building a Dyson sphere by sending
interplanetary probes with solar collectors into solar orbit.
See the Dyson sphere FAQ for more details:
http://www.nada.kth.se/~nv91-asa/dysonFAQ.html
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Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension!
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