20 August 2008

Discovery Channel to Show Space Solar Power!



From: http://dsc.discovery.com/tv/project-earth/highlights/highlights.html

Orbital Power Plant
Premieres Friday, Sept. 12 at 10 p.m. ET/PT.We could have a source of never-ending power and, at the same time,reduce our carbon emissions to virtually zero. This is theastonishing vision of former NASA physicist John Mankins. He has aplan to send thousands of satellites into space, which will gatherenergy from the sun and then beam the solar energy down to Earth asmicrowave energy. The microwave energy will be collected by antennason the ground. These then convert the energy to electricity. CanMankins make it all work?

Space Sunshield
Premieres Friday, Sept. 12 at 9 p.m. ET/PT.Astronomer and professor Roger Angel thinks he can diffract the powerof the sun by placing trillions of lenses in space and creating a 100,000-square-mile sunshade. He intends to use electromagneticpropulsion to get the lenses into space. Professor Angel hasproduced a diffraction pattern that will be etched onto each lens.The pattern will cause the sun's rays to change direction. The taskforce tests this pattern by etching it onto a lens. A scale model isbuilt in a giant hanger with a model of Earth, a single lens representing the sunshade and a laser representing the sun. When the laser is turned on, it should hit the lens as a single beam and thensplit into a number of smaller beams that are diffracted away from the model.

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