this post was submitted on 10 Jul 2026
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A 60 foot square mirror, assuming it's 100 km above the surface, will have an angular diameter of like 0.01 degrees. It would be occluded by a housefly 35 meters away.
It's supposed to spread the sunlight across an area 3 miles across. 60x60 feet is like 334 square meters. Sunlight intensity in space peaks at like 1300 watts per square meter, so this is reflecting maximum of like 440,000 watts TOPS. Spread that across an area 3 miles by 3 miles, that's 23 million square meters. Assuming no loss of energy to the atmosphere, this would reflect 0.02 watts per square meter onto its target area
So just put a 23 million square meter lens near the ground to focus it onto a smaller solar panel. Do I have to do ALL the thinking around here?
(/s because that lens would be so big)
Uh, Mauritania and west Sahara are like... right here.