[Server-sky] [ExI] Power sats again

[Michael Turner]

> On July 17, 2013 at 7:14 PM Michael Turner <michael.eugene.turner at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>> .... Surely, if it's very efficient sky-to-Earth, it's no
>> less efficient Earth-to-sky?
>

On Thu, Jul 18, 2013 at 10:57 AM, tme at asteroidinitiatives.com
<tme at asteroidinitiatives.com> wrote:
> I don't think so, for two reasons. One, the problem is not really symmetric.
[....]

OK, so it's like you have a distorting lens between source and target
for a beam and you want to place it in the optimal position to reduce
distortion. That'll be closer to the target.

Beam dispersion and deflections that would be minor in going from the
top of the atmosphere to the surface would be dramatic when going from
the surface to the top of the atmosphere -- then out to GEO, tens of
thousands of miles to turn, say, a 0.5 degree deflection into a wide
miss of the orbital rectenna. Am I looking at the problem the right
way?

Maybe one workaround (kludgey, and only partial) is high-altitude
microwave relay airships that feed off ground transmitters and output
into GEO. But then you have a whole host of new engineering problems.

-michael