[Lex Computer & Tech Group/LCTG] Climate control by bubble shade at L1

Mon Jul 11 16:35:37 PDT 2022

 I think Ted has put his finger on the fallacy of the Big Space Reflector approach to mitigating climate change. 
Shelly has a point as well. What if there comes a cooling period everyone agrees is real? How do we "open the blinds" of this project and let insolation resume at its previous pace? 
Conversely, what if the pace of warming becomes very fast for awhile? Can we really scale up sufficiently to make a difference, without some unforeseen consequences for life on Earth?  
And who decides how much change is "too much change" either way? Just what is the normal range and flux of climate over the Earth's recent history? And is this the range which is most sustainable and most desirable for life on Earth? Very meaty and perplexing questions, some not by any means fully settled in scientific research and reporting. 
And eventually it will all become space debris -- we need to generate as little of that as we can in any event. 
I would hate to see national or some hypothetical World Government(s) try to mediate these issues. Look what we've already got going on just with the various climate action treaties. As actor and former Marine Gerald McRaney said about the World Court: "I would hate for the U.S. to have to drop paratroopers over The Hague."
-- Bob Primak
    On Monday, July 11, 2022 at 04:05:40 PM EDT, Ted Kochanski <tedpkphd at gmail.com> wrote:  

Weather [or whether] or not you have a concern about human-induced or exacerbated "global warming" -- putting artificial reflectors in non-near earth orbit -- sounds like the most dangerous "junque Science"  / "Junk Engineering" of all timeIf you put something out at L-1  which is dispersed IN 3d -- try to retrieve it if you made a mistake in your modeling!
Google project West Ford -- a DARPA plan to build an artificial Ionosphere out of copper needles^1 to insure long-range communications in a WWIII scenarioThe only good thing to come out of the proof of principle phase of the program was the construction of the the small Westford antenna^2 on the Haystack grounds in Westford  -- hence the eponymous [love that word] project West Ford -- later used for a number of experiments as a 2nd antenna to the Haystack dish to disambiguate data
Ted
1  Highlight from the Wikipedia:
A ring of 480,000,000[3] copper dipole antennas (needles which were 1.78 centimetres (0.70 in) long and 25.4 micrometres (1.00 thou) [1961] or 17.8 micrometres (0.70 thou) [1963] in diameter)[4][5] were placed in orbit to facilitate global radio communication. The length was chosen because it was half the wavelength of the 8 GHz signal used in the study.[1] The dipoles collectively provided passive support to Project Westford's parabolic dish (located in the town of Westford) to communicate with distant sites...
A first attempt was launched on 21 October 1961,[5] during which the needles failed to disperse. The project was eventually successful with the 9 May 1963[5] launch, with radio transmissions carried by the man-made ring. However, the technology was ultimately shelved, partially due to the development of the modern communications satellite and partially due to protests from other scientists.[1][2]...

The needles were placed in medium Earth orbit at an altitude of between 3,500 and 3,800 kilometres (2,200–2,400 mi) at inclinations of 96 and 87 degrees. They have contributed to Earth's space debris.[6]..

sunlight pressure would cause the dipoles to only remain in orbit for a short period of approximately three years. The international protest ultimately resulted in a consultation provision included in the 1967 Outer Space Treaty.[1][7]...

Fifty years later, in 2013, some of the dipoles that had not deployed correctly still remained in clumps, contributing a small amount of the orbital debris tracked by NASA’s Orbital Debris Program Office.[12][13] Their numbers have been diminishing over time as they occasionally re-enter. As of March 2020, 36 clumps of needles were still known to be in orbit.[ 

2 from the Haystack Observatory website
Westford is an 18.3-m broadband VLBI radio telescope currently operating in the 2–14 GHz frequency range. It is protected from the elements by a 28-meter-diameter, air-inflated radome constructed of 1.2-mm-thick Teflon(TM) fabric.
https://www.haystack.mit.edu/about/haystack-telescopes-and-facilities/westford-radio-telescope/

On Mon, Jul 11, 2022 at 12:09 PM L Wittig <9423lew at gmail.com> wrote:

This is considered a somewhat of a backup solution if other measures don't slow global warming in time.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/7/10/2109508/-Move-over-GeoEngineering-Climate-solutions-MIT-has-found-a-Mitigation-method-that-works-from-Space

https://www.sciencealert.com/mit-engineers-propose-cooling-our-planet-with-a-raft-of-space-bubbles

https://senseable.mit.edu/space-bubbles/

-- Larry===============================================
::The Lexington Computer and Technology Group Mailing List::
Reply goes to sender only; Reply All to send to list.
Send to the list: LCTG at lists.toku.us      Message archives: http://lists.toku.us/private.cgi/lctg-toku.us
To subscribe: email lctg-subscribe at toku.us  To unsubscribe: email lctg-unsubscribe at toku.us
Future and Past meeting information: http://LCTG.toku.us
List information: http://lists.toku.us/listinfo.cgi/lctg-toku.us
This message was sent to tedpkphd at gmail.com.
Set your list options: http://lists.toku.us/options.cgi/lctg-toku.us/tedpkphd@gmail.com
===============================================
::The Lexington Computer and Technology Group Mailing List::
Reply goes to sender only; Reply All to send to list.
Send to the list: LCTG at lists.toku.us      Message archives: http://lists.toku.us/private.cgi/lctg-toku.us
To subscribe: email lctg-subscribe at toku.us  To unsubscribe: email lctg-unsubscribe at toku.us
Future and Past meeting information: http://LCTG.toku.us
List information: http://lists.toku.us/listinfo.cgi/lctg-toku.us
This message was sent to bobprimak at yahoo.com.
Set your list options: http://lists.toku.us/options.cgi/lctg-toku.us/bobprimak@yahoo.com  
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.toku.us/pipermail/lctg-toku.us/attachments/20220711/9ec43502/attachment.html>