What are the main problems with beaming light from the Sun to Saturn?
I recently finished reading the Kim Stanley Robinson novel 2312 - set, of course, in the year 2312. Part of the background to the political negotiations and ongoing terraforming in the outer Solar System involves the transfer of energy to Titan, one of Saturn's moons, from the Vulcanoids, a population of asteroids orbiting the Sun. As far as I can tell, this involves focusing light from the Sun on the asteroids into fine beams, which are then transmitted to Titan with high precision. The energy then warms the moon, and plays a role in the ongoing terraformation.
Speculating on the fine details of realistic technology three centuries in the future is maybe too much even for Worldbuilding Stack Exchange, but I'd like the know some of the main hurdles engineers would have to overcome to do this, even starting in the present day.
What are the physical challenges involved in sending beams of light to Titan, and how could they be overcome, using technology from today or perhaps in the near future (the coming decades)? I know that laser attenuation is going to be troublesome, but are there any other issues, and can they be combated?
As an addendum, I'd certainly enjoy seeing hard-science answers, but they are absolutely not mandatory (hence, the absence of the tag). MichaelK has written an excellent non-hard-science answer that answers the question well, and I'd love to see others like it. However, there may be bonus points for anyone who takes the hard-science plunge.
0 answers
0 comment threads