Lunar Power Satellite

Forum: Spacesettlers
Thread: Lunar Power Satellite

# 2469 bytango_dancer@... on Feb. 9, 2002, 6:37 p.m.
Member since 2021-10-03

>From what I've been able to gather, on Earth the rectenna farm for a
SPS would be about 10 kilometers in diameter, more if it is situated
at a higher latitude.

My assumption is that it must be this size because we want to limit
the microwave power density, and thus are optimizing rectenna size
to power density. If we had a "Death Ray" beam dense with microwave
we could do with a smaller rectenna. Is this correct? Of course, I
understand why we don't want a powerful beam.

If my assumption is correct in that beam strength can be multiplied,
then would it be possible to have multiple Lunar Solar Satellites
supporting the mining and launching operations on the moon, and have
ALL of the LSS beaming down to one rectenna farm on the moon.

Anybody have any indormation on the limits of power density that a
rectenna farm can absorb, or do you really need a 10 km diamter farm
PER 5 GW satellite?

Thanks for the information.