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Radio Waves Employed in Space Construction
CDeity writes "Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology claim that radio waves could be used to shape and fuse debris in space to form massive structures according to this article. Scientists have in the past employed sound and light waves to position small particles, and every expectation indicates these techniques could work on a large scale. One engineer estimates " it would take approximately one hour to form a rubble cloud into a 50-meter long enclosed structure.""
Quite a cool idea. But consider how much output power would be required -- more than any earthly transmitter; and the zappers would require jets and fuel to keep them stationary while they zapped, and an extensive control system for the jets would be needed to shape the rubble into the astroid-sized bust of Jaromir Jagr.
What if his smiling face was looking down at us from orbit? Imagine how many astronomers we could scare!
hi, I like pancakes -.-- -.-- --..
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You forget two things: intertia and mass.
If I have a rather large satelite using waves to push rather small objects, the satelite won't move, much.
It would be very simple to counteract the marginal amount of force generated by pushing the particles around.
"All the things I really like to do are either immoral, illegal, or fattening."
- Alexandar Woolcot
Could this be used to solve that nasty space junk problem? As I understand it, there is no known way to clean this stuff up.
From the link above: The oldest debris still on orbit is the second US satellite, the Vanguard I, launched on 1958, March, the 17th, which worked only for 6 years.
NASA should take it down with one of the shuttles and sell it on Ebay... I bet some billionaire would buy it.