Swarm parasol

From: "Ed Minchau"
To:
Sent: Friday, February 02, 2001 10:55 AM
Subject: [spacesettlers] Re: Swarm parasol

[snikt]
Suppose the swarm parasol actually works, and you manage to bring the
average temperature on Venus down substantially. What would you do
about the day? Venus' "day" is 243 days, retrograde; and the orbital
period is about 225 days- one side will face the sun for over 100
days straight.

To be plainly sincere, I see no way to deal with that using the swarm
parasol. It would be an "interesting" situation for Venusian colonists to
deal with. You would have a "summer-day" of three months and then a
"winter-night" of three months - something like the winter and summer in
polar regions of Earth. I think that all the agriculture would have to be
adapted to be seeded and grown and sawed in three months, and then people
would return to their warm houses and stay locked for three months. (Of
course people would have to live in high latitudes to avoid being roasted at
"noon", I think.) As for wild life, perhaps some plants and invertebrates
could adapt to it. Also, supposing that some thousands of comets are dropped
into the planet and there is a Venusian ocean, perhaps it would not freeze
to the bottom (or boil to the bottom) in just three months, and there could
be a fishy fauna; but I would need some napkin calculation to be sure.
(Hmmm... Why not do that now? Assuming that the average dept of the Venusian
oceans would be the same of the Earth ones, something like four kilometers,
and assuming that you are receiving 1000 W per square meters during three
months, then the ocean temperature would rise, hmmmm... perhaps half
centigrade degree in three months. Probably, the surface would be hot as
hell, but fishes in the abyssal regions would feel nothing, I think.)

That's a point where the "conventional" parasol definitely beats its swarm
rival. With a parasol in the Lagrange point in front of Venus and another
circular huge mirror behind planet, and assuming that you can partially
control the reflexive surfaces in order to increase or decrease the amount
of sunlight hitting each face of the planet, than you could simulate a 24
hour cycle of day and night. With the advantage of a "global time", with a
single timezone for the whole planet! ;-)

We should leave the moon airless: more efficient solar power, better
telescope views. We buld skyscrapers on the earth, why
not "corescrapers" on the moon?

And also the possibility of launching something into orbit using a mass
drivers without having to bother about heat shields. Or hauling cargo
directly from the surface using a space tether... Yes, and airless world is
much better for a space-faring civilization. But I think that I was with the
"real state" thing in mind when I thought about the swarm for atmospheric
retention... ;-)

[snikt]
:) ed

Lucio