Well, you’re thinking about the right things for sure! Power, cooling, Internet connection, all super important.
But as it turns out, terrestrial solar panels are actually heavier than space solar panels, like a lot heavier. Shielding against radiation is actually less of a challenge than shielding against weather and acorns. The ISS updated it’s solar array a while back and its new ones were deployed by rolling them out, they were a thin enough film to actually roll up for launch and then roll out once attached to the ISS.
Also, these solar panels won’t have blackouts. With a sun synchronous orbit, these panels simply won’t be in shadow basically ever. The one exception would be during solar eclipses.
As for cooling, you do probably need radiators with active cooling systems. Generally you need radiator panels at a ratio of about 1/5 of the area of your solar panels, but this can vary with different designs. But that’s a linear relationship, cooling doesn’t become unfeasible at some point it just remains a design concern. The more power you generate, the more radiators you need. It’s just part of the cost of power and it scales linearly with the area of your solar array.
Sun synchronous orbits, for those who aren’t aware, essentially mean that you would see these giant fucking satellites glinting in the sky literally every single dawn and dusk. They’d ruin sunset and sunrise for all of humanity in order to make more money for the dragons sitting on their hoards of gold.
you would see these giant fucking satellites glinting in the sky literally every single dawn and dusk.
Well, I mean only if you’re looking straight up at dawn and dusk. It won’t be like a ring just over the horizon, it would be more like a ring that touches the horizon on one side, perpendicular to the horizon, stretches across the top of the sky, and then touches the horizon on the other side.
If you’re watching the sunrise, there would still be too much light to see satellites, you’d really only be able to see them after dark, assuming you don’t live in/near a city (in which case you just can’t ever see satellites).
Well, you’re thinking about the right things for sure! Power, cooling, Internet connection, all super important.
But as it turns out, terrestrial solar panels are actually heavier than space solar panels, like a lot heavier. Shielding against radiation is actually less of a challenge than shielding against weather and acorns. The ISS updated it’s solar array a while back and its new ones were deployed by rolling them out, they were a thin enough film to actually roll up for launch and then roll out once attached to the ISS.
Also, these solar panels won’t have blackouts. With a sun synchronous orbit, these panels simply won’t be in shadow basically ever. The one exception would be during solar eclipses.
As for cooling, you do probably need radiators with active cooling systems. Generally you need radiator panels at a ratio of about 1/5 of the area of your solar panels, but this can vary with different designs. But that’s a linear relationship, cooling doesn’t become unfeasible at some point it just remains a design concern. The more power you generate, the more radiators you need. It’s just part of the cost of power and it scales linearly with the area of your solar array.
Sun synchronous orbits, for those who aren’t aware, essentially mean that you would see these giant fucking satellites glinting in the sky literally every single dawn and dusk. They’d ruin sunset and sunrise for all of humanity in order to make more money for the dragons sitting on their hoards of gold.
Well, I mean only if you’re looking straight up at dawn and dusk. It won’t be like a ring just over the horizon, it would be more like a ring that touches the horizon on one side, perpendicular to the horizon, stretches across the top of the sky, and then touches the horizon on the other side.
If you’re watching the sunrise, there would still be too much light to see satellites, you’d really only be able to see them after dark, assuming you don’t live in/near a city (in which case you just can’t ever see satellites).