Not the point of this article, but I've been so curious if we've spent enough time debating if we could/should just send a ton of some kind of material/balloons/mirrors to the Lagrange point between us and the sun. The "stuff" could more easily sit at that point cutting off some of the sunlight while we catch up to other forms of dealing with our climate overheating. https://www.rand.org/pubs/commentary/2022/10/why-not-space-m...
Besides the obvious tech challenges, I wonder which organization would decide for all of humanity to block some of the energy they use to live off. Besides the risks from destabilizing our world even further and then having no 'undo' button.
High tech solutions like this will only be used to postpone the inevitable need for real action, they are more likely to make matters worse than better. The developed part of the world needs to get its emissions under control and needs to curb its consumption. The rest is a sideshow.
It's a bit puzzling to hear such an opinion from an entrepreneur. The problems on this road clearly exist, but it's so unclear that those problems are unsolvable.
For example,
> which organization would decide for all of humanity
- we have UN, and while many would criticize it for slow or clumsy actions, it's still a venue. Prototyping - which is a reasonable intermediate step - could also be done under a scientific organization, like those studying atmosphere and oceans.
> the risks from destabilizing our world even further and then having no 'undo' button
Technically risks always exist, in practice humanity does new things often and for long time. The structures in space could be removable, so at least that part should be clear.
> High tech solutions like this will only be used to postpone the inevitable need for real action
This sounds like an old grumpy. We're actually doing real action, for many years already, it's just not as much as ourselves would like to have when looking into results. And yes, we need and we're going to do more - and this high tech solution is a good example of that. Why should we limit ourselves looking for solutions?
> they are more likely to make matters worse than better.
There could be very different opinions, and there's no explanation why "will only postpone" and "make matters worse" - so it looks like just an opinion, of somebody who either lacks imagination to see alternatives or numbers to support the opinion.
> The developed part of the world needs to get its emissions under control and needs to curb its consumption. The rest is a sideshow.
Again, no clear explanation or reference why such a dismissive approach.
Of course we need to solve problems. And the lack of action - while enough talking - demonstrates that the problem might be bigger than somebody thinks. We learn of our limitations, but limiting options to solve an important problem looks like adding to those limitations, not overcoming them.
This was a very minor plot point in the Revelation Space novel Chasm City. To make the world slightly more habitable, a lens was deployed at a Lagrange point to focus (filter?) light to be more amenable to humans on the new world.
while we catch up to other forms of dealing with our climate overheating.
Your approach is called "not having to deal with our climate overheating". Anything that fits in the "let's avoid it" bin is far more likely to happen.
Sorry for the sarcasm, but here's my take on global warming: We've spend decades terra-forming our planet in a very lucrative fashion. The only way to get out of this is if the solution is _more_ lucrative than the problem.
Intuitively, anything that blocks off a noticeable amount of sunlight will act as a light sail and need propellant to counter that effect if you want it to stay in place.
L1 orbit is unstable. A "thing" put there would need fuel just to stay in place even if no other forces act upon it.
Arguably, a "smart" adjustable sail could use the solar light&wind to stay in place just a little bit closer to the sun, in front of the actual L1 point, where it has a tendency to fall to the sun, but the solar wind pushes it back.
You are thinking of gravity as a force and nothing in L1 is at risk of 'falling into the sun'. Radial forces cause orbits to be eccentric.
If you were on a space walk on the IIS and wanted to deorbit your hammer and tossed it down, it would be in an orbit with the same period as you and hit the space station at some point in the future. To deorbit it you would have to throw it backwards faster enough that its closest approach entered the atmosphere.
L1 can be thought of as a saddle shape in gravitational potential with your horse oriented in the direction of travel. With the back of the saddle giving you just enough push or pull to have the same sidereal speed.
Having a periodic oscillation to stay centered on that saddle to make sure you don't roll off the side is the hard part.
That is still a flawed analogy, but the important part is, ignoring gravity assist. The most energy efficient way to 'fall into the sun' is actually to enter an orbit way out past Jupiter and then reduce sidereal speed to hit the sun.
From earth you need accelerate a rocket to 30 km/s to hit the sun or about 100% of the earths velocity, while you an escape the solar system by just going 40% faster.
I wasn't saying that the object/spacecraft can fall into the sun from a L1 point. My english is probably not good enough. I was talking about balancing the forces of the solar wind with a little imbalance between Earth and Sun gravity.
The problem isn't that the sun is sending too much, we are doing things to cause what is sent to be trapped. So your solution is like giving someone that's been shot an aspirin when they'd much prefer you to remove the bullet.
Mars can't be terraformed. Not significantly with our tech level or any forseeable future tech level.
1. Mars core is cold. There is no magnetic field to deflect solar wind.
2. Solar wind means no living on the surface and no surface agriculture.
3. Solar wind also means that any atmosphere we could potentially create will slowly be "blown away" (see details on Wikipedia).
4. A higher temperature will only vaporize the little water ice that remains, and those vapors will be blown away by the solar wind and be lost forever.
Probably Venus could be terraformed if we could lower the temperature allowing CO2 to be trapped as limestone by microorganisms.
i don't think it's a lack of sunlight that is the Martian problem. parking a magnetic shield at a Martian Lagrange point would be more beneficial to avoid blowing away whatever atmosphere the terraforming efforts produces
" In the future it is quite possible that an inflatable structure(s) can generate a magnetic dipole field at a level of perhaps 1 or 2 Tesla (or 10,000 to 20,000 Gauss) as an active shield against the solar wind."
Terraforming is a great idea , but maybe before we try to control the entire atmosphere on another planet , how bout we start small with .. idk reversing the stopping and reversing last 50 years of atmospheric changes on our planet
> "While some of these points, notably and, are already employed as strategic positions in space for satellite stability with minimal propellant consumption (as exemplified by the James Webb telescope and the recently deployed Aditya L1 satellite), our study focuses on the intriguing properties of and Lagrange points."
