Heat management, recycling, $, and space ores

--- In spacesettlers@egroups.com, "Tom Tucker (Olympia)"
wrote:
> All,
>
> One of the new members with a comment.
> A tether would produce energy at the expense of orbital energy, this
is true.
>
> A key factor is how much energy will be needed for recycling, ore
refinement, smelting, rocket fuel production, long range radio
communications, radar for earth crossing asteroids, etc.
>
> Regarding solar, much of the area will be consumed by mirrors
reflecting light into the colony to grow food and fiber. Mirrors to
concentrate energy for high temperature boilers or processing will be
needed too. Solar panels can and should be mounted externally so the
colony may look a little like a flower with the residence at the
center. :-)
>
> Raising or lowering a colony using a tether may be a very slow
process since the colony is likely to weight many tons, and if solar
is used, hundreds of years may be needed for a significant change.
>
> Regards,
>
> Tom

Welcome Tom,

Your comments makes me wonder. If you were using solar power you
wouldn't need a tether system but maybe you would need something else,
all those mirrors and panels would be collecting sunlight all the
time, would they act like a light sail and slowly (very slowly given
the mass) push you out of place and if so how fast? Off the top of my
head I think it may be so long and so slow that it could be just
ignored for a very, very long time or maybe you could use a tether to
offset the push from the sunlight.

Darren Brown