Adrian Tymes wrote:
> Spike Jones wrote:
> > Adrian Tymes wrote:
> > > Micrometeorite and other space junk impacts. Unless you can come up
> > > with a way for the dish to be cheaply patched.
> >
> > Why would we need to patch holes? Assume an inflatable dish
> > could be coated on orbit, then no bother if it gets a few holes.
>
> A balloon deflates from only one hole. You can add internal structure
> to limit the deflation, but that adds mass.
What I had in mind is an inflatable structure that only needs
to hold up long enough to spray aluminum onto the surface.
then cut out a section, use lightweight spindly structures to
pull the spherical surface into a suitable nearly parabolic
concentrator. Then it doesnt matter if it gets holes from
micrometeoriods. The actual time to hold pressure would
only need to be a few days.
> A steam engine's harder to make on orbit, too. I was saying PVs for
> the place you'd be concentrating the sunlight on, instead of a steam
> engine for that spot.
Ja, I had in mind a sterling cycle, so it isnt quite so critical how
exactly you concentrate the solar rays. We could tolerate a
lot of imperfection in the concentrator surface. spike
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat May 11 2002 - 17:44:15 MDT