Giant space umbrella tethered to asteroid could protect Earth from climate crisis, study says
Giant space ‘umbrella’ tethered to asteroid could protect Earth from climate crisis
I'm sure nothing can possibly go wrong with this plan.
While this is still obviously not a realistic solution to the damage we're doing to our climate because it still involves launching 35,000 tonnes of material in to space and moving 100 times that much to the right location, the solar sail thing has been accounted for in the paper. Basically you stick it slightly closer to the sun than the actual L1 point, where the force from solar radiation balances out the slightly higher pull of the sun's gravity
We keep stuff in unstable orbit all the time using thrusters.
We can easily counteract the solar wind with a reasonable amount of thruster fuel.
And remember kids: when the fuel isn't being burnt on earth, and it's being burnt outside our planets stuff. Pollution is no longer our problem.
Surely it's not me who is out is out of touch, is it?
No, it's the kids sun that is wrong
I'm pretty sure it showed up in Futurama too!
It's a technological antisolution.
Thank you for sharing this!
You're very welcome! I'm so glad you enjoyed it.
This line represents one of my biggest peeves with political thinking in general:
A Technological Antisolution is a product that attempts to replace a boring but solvable political or social problem with a much sexier technological one that won’t work.
The assumption that because there’s a “political or social” problem, then it must be solvable.
Why? “Because if everyone just did X …”
People skip over political problems. They model humanity’s political and behavioral inertia as zero, and they don’t treat it as an ecosystem.
So many “political or social” solutions are assumed to take zero energy. The only reason a “political or social” problem won’t work is those “durned right wingers”.
What this implicitly fails to realize is that building an enormous solar sail is many orders of magnitude easier than changing the behavior of every human.
We need to stop thinking of things as “practically solved” just because “all” that would have to happen is some huge shift in the behavior and organization of human society.
I also created lots of solutions to the worlds problems sitting around getting high
I know man. We’ll just accelerate the planet and move it into a higher orbit!
Giant space umbrella tethered to asteroids could also be a super weapon capable of melting enormous swathes of enemy territory.
In fact, any technology capable of stopping global warming can be turned into a super weapon. Including whatever techniques might be used to alter human behavior to reduce footprint.
Hey bro it’s a free country if I wanna build a giant solar shade in space you can’t stop me.
Dyson Vacuum Ops LLC owns that real estate now and we’re not obligated to let any useable light pass through my property.
“What’s that sir? You say you’re selling … vacuum mops?”
“No it’s … Mr President. I’m with Dyson.”
“The vacuum company?”
“Yes, we operate strictly in vacuum. So you’ve heard of us”
“Who hasn’t? My mother — god rest her soul — would be just tickled pink to know I was chatting with the head of Dyson”
“Oh I’m so sorry … did she pass recently?”
“Dear Mother …”
“…”
“The old bat”
“…”
The rest of the War Room is silent.
“They said you could fill me in on the plan better than any of them”
“Of course Mr President. The idea is actually rather simple. We start by collecting dust and debris that has been accumulating in space for … well let’s just say for way longer than any of us have been here”
Laughter around the table.
“… We think!” Mr Dyson’s image says from the corner video wall, holding up his hands in mock surprise. More laughter around the table.
“We collect this dust and debris, and then it is fed into what we call “the hopper”. It’s basically a magnetic containment bottle where the material collects. Each time the bottle reaches capacity …”
The next slide appears.
“… it is fed into this compactor. After heat treatment, from here we can extract metals, silicon, even some carbon …”
“Mr Dyson, the President is on a schedule. Would you mind summarizing a bit?”
“Uh … well Mr President. We believe the sail will be finished by mid-September of this year at the latest. If we want to do this we need to act quickly.”
“Opinions?”
“Sir, SecDef is of the opinion Space Force needs a stretch goal. Something for the personnel to focus on, to tighten up operations, clean up our technique”
“Stretching is good. Cleanliness is next to godliness”
“Yes Mr President”
One of the aides along the wall suddenly looks anxious.
“If the sale finishes in September, how soon does your company need the funds?”
“As soon as possible, Sir”
“You’ll have them”
“Oh and Mr Dyson, please bring me one for the White House. I’m old fashioned, I like to know what I’m buying, even if it’s not my money”
Another laugh.
“uh … I’ll see what I can do”
“Thank you Dyson”
Mr Dyson, adopts a puzzled expression right before his face disappears from the screen.
“Who’d have thought? Someone’s finally doing vacuum mops”
“Indeed Sir”
“Now tell me about this Comet project”
“Well, as you know we’ve been scouring the basins on Luna for evidence of meteor impacts matching a certain composition”
“Meteors! My god!”
“It’s normal sir. They happened a long time ago. We’re just scouring the impact sites to look for …”
“Cleanliness is next to godliness”
“Uh yep. Uh, and uh, yes, and we did actually find what we were looking for”
“Is that a good thing?”
“It’s a very good thing sir. We’ve been able to extend the periodic table with elements we never thought we could stabilize”
“Like … rocks, or what?”
“Theoretically they could be solid, but not at the energies we’re using. Think of a beach ball …”
Or, we could go to the other side of the sun and turn off the enormous fan, thereby stopping the hot solar wind.
SIR, the fancy word is parasol. A World Parasol. Maybe with some nice lace.
Everything to avoid doing the most obvious.
Nuclear?