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.""

Comments

Perhaps

[kaoshin]

They could seek the advice of street bums. They have lots of experience with forming structures from rubble and may provide valuable insight!

Re:Perhaps

[coryboehne]

Yeah but then everything in space would start to look like a soda can.... wait,, it already does! :)

just make sure you get the right channel

[Wantok]

OK, just tune the megatransmitter to a hiphop station for the structural elements...

classical for the smooth solar sails...

and talkback for all the crap that has to be cleared off the building site.

In Space no one can hear you build

[codeonezero]

Hehe,

Lets just hope the engineers aren't big Star Trek fans or they'll try building these structures with sound in outer space. :-)

Re:In Space no one can hear you build

[NanoGator]

"You do of course understand that the parent poster was well aware of that, which is why the joke was funny. Don't you? It's called a joke. "

Heh perhaps he didn't watch that episode where Data learned the human value known as 'humor'.

Can the opposite be done as well?

[codeonezero]

Ok,

So I haven't quite read the article but it occured to me.

Is it possible to demolish such a structure with radio waves? Or do the laws that lets you do things one way, prevent you form doing things the other way?

if you can't demolish the structures with radio waves, then what changes once you have built the structure that prevents you from doing so?

Re:Can the opposite be done as well?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's easy to protect the structure once you've built. I've studied this.. They fabricate and anneal a thin Sn-based alloy. Then, they shape it into a semi-conical, logarithmically-pitched manifold, which is then affixed to the perimeter of the structure. This creates an area where impinging radio waves create surface currents, which then create radio waves of their own. The two waves cancel, thus protecting the internal structures.

This theory also has medical applications: you can fashion a similar device to keep certain extraterrestrial radio signals from interfering from your neurotransmitters. There isn't much medical literature about this yet, but it's a growing field and doctors are beginning to appreciate the dangers of these radio waves.

I wear such a device myself.

Weapons Research

[N8F8]

And how long would it take to push debris into an enemy satellite? Or form a large enough mass to plunk down on an unsuspecting enemy?

I used one of these once...

[stefanlasiewski]

I was using one of these radio wave generators to construct my own personal spacecraft last week.

My friend and I were sitting there in the station, and were getting real tired of the annoying noise being picked up by our stereo. We were getting really bored bored, and as you know these things take hours, so we decided to see what would happen when we broadcast some hard rock via the device.

And it worked... mostly. All was going well until the end. All of a sudden, about 3/4 of the way through Jimmy Hendrix playing "All along the Watchtowner", the craft started spinning around wildly, and smashed itself to the moon where it shattered into a million pieces, and then it set itself on fire.

I can't figure it out...

And then my sister put in some Michael Jackson, but I don't even want to talk about that...

Clean up the space junk

[p3d0]

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.

what about?

[perrin5]

Newton's 3rd law (equal and opposite reaction...), according to their nifty little diagram, this would require satelites surrounding the object, and pushing them from all directions, so:
1) how do you keep the satelites around after they start generating their waves?
2) how do you keep them symmetrical? (the requirement is that they set up a resonator, I think, in which case, spacing is VERY important).

What about on earth, in water?

[btempleton]

Could this technique be used to take building blocks that have been tuned to be neutrally boyant, and then assemble them into structures using sound in the water, then slowly lower the water and weld each layer as it comes out of the water?

Of course neutrally boyant requires no gasses in the objects that can be compressed, though I could imagine you might have metal building blocks with a gas bladder inside that can be filled by computer controlled pump to make it neutrally boyant to some degree.

Imagine building the frame of a house in a big
tank.

Anybody done this?

Radio waves

[MongooseCN]

Dude: Dude, nice techno.

Technician: Actually I'm sending out the construction sequence for the storage module for the ISS.

Dude: Woaw.... Rock on.

Quick Q.

[DarkHelmet]

So, would that mean they'd use some Nine Inch Nails to fasten the structures together?

I like the sound of that.