Dyson Swarm energy transmission

[Leader Bee]

OK A dyson Sphere is out of the question as a space based solar power station because 1) We'd be blocking out the entirety of the suns rays to earth causing major devastation to a huge list of things on earth and 2) im sure we probably don't even have enough material on eath to entirely encase the sun completely.

 

So I thought how about a dyson swarm instead.

 

Questions begin:

 

1) What would be the most efficient way of launching the swarm?

 

I am of the thinking that launching one or two of these would be the standard affair of using a rocket or space shuttle to carefully place them but there would be a much larger number of these to qualify as a swarm and I don't see anyone funding regular space flights to do that

 

1a) would it be more effective to wait until we can build an orbital elevator to get the things into space? Carbon Nanotubes are becoming a reality and I heard these could be a big step into us finally producing one of these.

 

2) Once the satellites are in orbit - Geostationary or not as long as they don't collide with one another or get sucked into the sun by it's gravity. How would the satellites transmit the energy they collected to earth for a useful purpose?

Theres something ticking in the back of my mind that this may have something to do with Nikola Tesla's free transmission of energy, then again we might also use relays like stepping stones - I dunno thats why i'm asking.

 

I mentioned an orbital elevator earlier and have a couple of questions about that too. Instead of starting a new thread I might as well ask here.

 

What is the main problem of building one and how could we solve it?

I know we'd need a counterweight of some kind on the other end so i'm guessing that it's supplying enough mass at the other end to stabilise it.

 

Do we capture an asteroid and use that to teather it? Do we get spacemen to go up with some sort of hose that sprays out expanding foam? not sure.

 

Wouldn't the large mass floating out in space have detrimental effects to the orbit of earth over time and sent us hurtling out into space uncontrollably? ( little over the top but you get the point about it destabilising earth somehow, and wouldnt the moons gravity pull on the mass too making the elevator sway like a skyskraper while the moon drags it?)

 

How would we initially deploy the large cable into space? That much cable surely just cant be carried into space??

[Sisyphus]

There's not even remotely enough material on Earth to make anything like a Dyson swarm, let alone to get everything in place. However, just talking about space-based solar power stations, you would probably be beaming power to Earth with lasers of some sort or another. Tesla's power transmission doesn't work (or, it does, but it's necessarily extremely inefficient, which is why we have power lines).

 

The primary obstacle to be overcome for building space elevators is finding a material to make it out of. It needs to have an extremely high tensile strength to weight ratio that is currently beyond anything we have. Carbon nanotubes are indeed the most promising avenue of research currently.

 

The counterweight doesn't have to be huge. In fact, it really can't be, as the tether has to hold it in place. It just needs enough mass far enough past geostationary orbit so that the tension caused by the Earth's rotation dragging it is enough to support the weight of the tether and any cargo on it. Most likely it will just be the equipment used to build the elevator in the first place. Alternatively, if you make the tether long enough, you don't even need a counterweight, as the extra length serves the same purpose.

[insane_alien]

you'd want to build these things in space rather than on earth. it would be much cheaper.

 

we would have to consume everything in the solar system to encase the sun.

 

as for power transimission, microwave beams are the favourite. they can be lasered and recievers can be highly efficient so energy losses can be kept to a minimum.

 

internal transmission on a module would be done by superconductors prefferably.

 

as for using stuff tesla came up with... no.

 

people seem to have built tesla up into some sort of super genius with technology centuries ahead of todays. this was not the case, the stuff he played around with was pretty primitive and very inefficeint. not to mention his increasing insanity in later years where he was just flat out wrong about nearly everything. he was a genius to begin with and his good ideas have been utilised, adapted and improved. but there was a lot of crap that he produced that was discarded. some people seem to have assumed that ince he done such good work earlier, he was unable to do anything badly so all his craziness must have been true.