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Missile Defense

Technology has always found its greatest consumer in a nation's war and defense efforts. Since the last attempts at a "Star Wars" defense system, has technology changed considerably enough to make the latest Missile Defense initiatives more successful? Can such an application of science be successful? Is a militarized space inevitable, necessary or impossible?

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rshow55 - 11:55am Jul 17, 2003 EST (# 13039 of 13042)
Can we do a better job of finding truth? YES. Click "rshow55" for some things Lchic and I have done and worked for on this thread.

This week's TIME magazine has an excellent article, which concentrates on issues of "attention span" where I'd look instead at technical and organizational details.

WHY AMERICA IS RUNNING OUT OF GAS: By DONALD L. BARLETT AND JAMES B. STEELE http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1101030721-464406,00.html starts:

Sunday, Jul. 13, 2003 . . . If all goes according to plan, the U.S. Senate in the next few weeks will follow the House and approve the latest in a long line of national energy policies. This one incorporates a favorite initiative of President George W. Bush's—the hydrogen-powered car. In his State of the Union address in January, the President proposed "$1.2 billion in research funding so that America can lead the world in developing clean, hydrogen-powered automobiles." As the President explained, his goal was "to promote energy independence ... in ways that generations before us could not have imagined."

Democrats joined euphoric Republicans in signing on to the proposal. "The supply of hydrogen is inexhaustible," Senator Byron Dorgan, North Dakota Democrat, told his colleagues. "Hydrogen is in water. You can take the energy from the wind and use the electricity in the process of electrolysis, separate the hydrogen from the oxygen and store the hydrogen and use it in vehicles. The fact is, hydrogen is ubiquitous. It is everywhere."

But the energy has to come from somewhere.

Could a "permanent solution" to the world energy problem be done from where we are - without any new research results - but with competent engineering?

rshow55 - 12:01pm Jul 17, 2003 EST (# 13040 of 13042)
Can we do a better job of finding truth? YES. Click "rshow55" for some things Lchic and I have done and worked for on this thread.

A Proposed solution:

Very large area, thin, light floating photocell mats -

Thin glass photocells, small enough to accomodate wave motion (perhaps 10-20 cm square or rectangular plates - or perhaps hexanal plates, 1 mm thick) - bonded to "bubble wrap" floatation, with gaps between the plates, and leakage paths, large enough to shed rainfall.

Each photocell plate would be a "solar battery" - which can be connected to other batteries, and electrical loads, in parallel or series, as other batteries are.

Photocell plates would float on "bubble wrap" or modified bubble wrap - polyethylene with air floatation. (Glass bead floatation, or other floatation, could substitute.)

Very low water displacement for these mat assemblies ( mean water displacement around 1/8" - .3 cm ). Assembly would be well connected inertially to water - would conform to waves, with some damping - ( with a bubble wrap with a top and bottom sheet layer, - quite a lot of damping. )

High area for these collection assemblies - (perhaps 1 km X 10 km standard) .

Assemblies towed to "follow the sun" on the oceans between the tropics so that the photocell collector assemblies are always at or near the center of illumination and convection

At the latitude of maximum illumination, water is very calm (with some chop from thunderstorms ).

Towing means no chunk of water is under the photocell mats for long.

Towing rate of about .5 km/hr would take a few horsepower for 1 km X 10 km assembly.

Peak electrical energy per assembly = peak illumination of 10^10 watts times efficiency - - 20 gigawatts/collecter for 20% efficiency ) At earth's center of illumination, on oceans - about 8 hours worth of peak energy absorbtion per day.

Electrical energy electrolyzed to hydrogen in 50-100 electrolysis assemblies per collector - with hydrogen collected periodically

Collectors would be "industrial scale" assemblies - but it would take a lot of area and a lot of assemblies. At 30% efficiency - would take 5,300 collector assemblies to supply the equivalent of current oil production ( 75 mbd ) . ( This is about half the area of Pennsylvania - a tiny fraction of the ocean area available. ) At 3% efficiency, 10 times that area, about 75% of the area of Texas (still a tiny fraction of available area), and ten times the number of collectors.

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New York Times on the Web Forums Science Missile Defense