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The Russian Plan To Use Space Mirrors To Turn Night Into Day (vice.com)
merbs writes: Throughout the early 90s, a team of Russian astronomers and engineers were hellbent on literally turning night into day. By shining a giant mirror onto the earth from space, they figured they could bring sunlight to the depths of night, extending the workday, cutting back on lighting costs and allowing laborers to toil longer. If this sounds a bit like the plot of a Bond film, well, it's that too. The difference is that for a second there, the scientists, led by Vladimir Sergeevich Syromyatnikov, one of the most important astronautical engineers in history, actually pulled it off.
Has there been any thought given as to what this might do to the flora and fauna? Screwing up diurnal rhythms, mating seasons, migrations, etc. I mean seriously, this screams terrible idea.
Does take a certain something to try and recast a 20 year old failure as a great success
In Soviet Russia, night lights you!
"Ecological Consequences of Artificial Night Lighting"
[ http://www.urbanwildlands.org/... ]
...you are the one
Only you 'neath the moon or under the sun
Whether near to me or far
It's no matter, darling, where you are
I think of you day and night
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Since global warming is pretty slow. Gotta speed it up somehow.
Wuddooeyeno? IITYWYBMAD? Like nuts? eclecticallyincorrect.com
i've been told we need to know.
Of course the weapon was attributed to the Nazi's and the depiction of the "laser like reflection of the sun" was hilarious, but I don't watch it expecting to see hard science. According to movies and tv shows, those crazy Nazi's abandoned bunkers all over the place with all sorts of crazy inventions in them. - HEX
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If you believe the Russians are particularly concerned about global warming, I got some prime Siberian real estate to sell you.
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Would it have featured the ability to focus all the light onto a dissident-sized area?
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
It may block the same amount of sunlight as it passes over the day side of the earth (unless it is in a polar orbit that is synchronized with the earth's revolution around the sun).
Perhaps even more, since its reflective timeframe would be limited as it would pass into the earth's shadow. Also I assume the material's opacity is greater than its reflectivity.
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change a light bulb? 2.... 1 to call the electrician and 1 to mix the drinks. But really, just use a light bulb.
Please! Won't someone think of the fauna?
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I would think they would be more worried about Kessler Syndrome than global warming. The more stuff in space, the greater a chance some of it will smack other stuff, causing pieces to fly off and smack other stuff... rendering entire orbits unusable for centuries.
i will buy that real estate and wait for the equator to become a desert.
It isn't already?
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It has already been done - sort of - by a town in Norway that uses mirrors to reflect sunlight down into the valley to extend the daylight hours. At a reasonably high latitude in the northern hemisphere there are not many flora or fauna to worry about in the middle of winter in an urban setting.
The only time you'd need to worry about it is if they focus the light a lot to create a heat based-death ray. That would also be far more like the plot of a bond film...
It doesn't matter where you park a giant shade mirror, the effects of solar rays hitting a large surface would eventually move it anyway.
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Are you sure it wasn't the Russians who retarded Communism?
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
The thing about it is that it was built at a time of the Cold War SDI/Star Wars concepts. While as it might have had civilian uses, I suspect that it was a precursor to the equivalent of the American "Thousand Points of Light", a SDI concept that would use a ground based laser to fire into a orbiting mirror which would be redirected towards a target. However, if all you are doing is calibrating and orienting an orbiting mirror, you could sell it to the world as a purely scientific experiment.
The kicker in all of this is the protests mentioned which would disrupt the natural night environment. Now, we have been polluted with lots of light during the night time for the last hundred years, so I doubt that this is hardly a valid concern. I don't think that even the atomic bomb tests, which did irradiate a lot of people in the Pacific did not draw the same level of "concern".
Yeah, but we developed a pen that could write in space while the Russians just used a pencil. So I guess both sides overcomplicate things.
(It's a joke. Yes, I know that NASA didn't spend billions of dollars developing a space pen.)
Yes, of course it can. GoldenEye is soon to become reality (although it obviously wouldn't be as impressive as it was in the movie).
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Sure, just paint the whole planet with reflective paint to cool it down... problem is, that also keeps all the heat generated inside the planet from escaping too! This effect is seen in the decrease in ice sheets adding to global warming, ice sheets are the most reflective naturally occurring surface we have.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Mirror peer into you and take selfie!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Because if there's is one thing that labourers are crying out for, it's more time to toil...
Depends on how much of an effect you want. The light from a full moon is about one millionth as bright as the light from the sun (thanks Wikipedia), and its albedo is a lot less than a mirror (0.136 to be precise). All of which means...yes, it would take a gigantic mirror to get full sunlight, but you can get away with a relatively small one if you could be happy with something merely as bright as a full moon or three. It also means that your mirrors aren't necessarily dangerous as weapons--you don't need a big one for them to be useful.
Not worried.... the Vogon Constructor Fleet will be here to clear the obstructions for the intergalactic highway, long before it becomes an issue.
Actually, it would probably be a huge help to *reduce* global warming.
If I recall correctly burning enough fossil fuels to produce 1 watt-hour of thermal energy produces CO2 which, over the course of it's average lifetime in the atmosphere, will retain a million watt-hours of solar thermal energy. So, you could use reflected sunlight to light up cities a thousand times brighter than they are today, while still adding a thousand times less excess heat to the Earth.
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Not really. IIRC the CO2 from burning 1 watt-hour worth of fossil fuel will, over the course of it's average lifetime in that atmosphere, retain about 1,000,000 watt-hours worth of extra heat. By switching to reflected sunlight you could light cities radically brighter than today while still radically reducing global warming.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Yes, the Simpsons taught us the capitalist version of this plot: Local billionaire creates a device to blot out the Sun and sell electricity from his nuclear plant to the town 24/7.
It is in a sun synchronous (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun-synchronous_orbit) polar orbit in theory. So you need a fair few of them. However they are to small compared to the sun to cast a shadow (the sun is not a point source. Also the foot print moves pretty damn fast.
When illuminating the night side areas the rotate and change angle to point the reflected light at a specific location
I certainly wouldn't mind extra sunlight hours, especially in the winter. It's very depressing to wake up in the dark and come home in the dark. That being said, I absolutely wouldn't want it if it meant having to work longer hours.
They also use the Space Mirrors to Space Floss.