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102 Comments
- jdc760, on 12/25/2007, -1/+60Wasn't something like this in SimCity 2000?
- omgTHEPATRIOTS, on 12/25/2007, -1/+45once again, sim city writes the future
- OneLess, on 12/25/2007, -0/+36No danger of fire though, the island was set up with Disasters off.
- whyufail, on 12/25/2007, -0/+35Yes, the microwave power plant. Clearly if they had played, they would never consider this, as it had a habit of exploding and setting everything in a 500mile radius on fire.
- PFS1, on 12/25/2007, -1/+34No! They are asking for disaster...did they learn nothing from SimCity??
- Chairboy, on 12/25/2007, -0/+28Wernstrom!
- davehendrix, on 12/25/2007, -1/+22How long till we figure out this causes cancer?
- UNL1M1T3D, on 12/25/2007, -1/+19If they can get this to work, that would be amazing. Guess we will see in 2012.
- Takteek, on 12/25/2007, -1/+18YES! The microwave power plant. And if the beam missed it would set stuff on fire.
- Grjemo, on 12/25/2007, -0/+16They said it would be dangerous, but I want details. Does it microwave you?
- MrM1yagi, on 12/25/2007, -1/+15Now there is a need for a Deathstar.
- scabbers, on 12/25/2007, -2/+15“Cartman Gets an Anal Probe”
- jdc760, on 12/25/2007, -2/+15Um, we know microwaves can cause cancer. So, like -60 years.
- cjhowe, on 12/25/2007, -0/+11So this is why the Mayan Calendar ends in 2012.
- MOJIRA, on 05/17/2008, -0/+11At which point you'd say ***** it and call in some tornadoes and an alien attack for a party!
- musleypope, on 12/25/2007, -1/+11That's exactly what I thought when I saw "rectenna."
- xkorbin, on 12/25/2007, -0/+10Clearly, someone got high and thought of Sim City. They then called the right people, and got this thing setup.
- crakbot, on 12/25/2007, -1/+9mmmmm....rectifying laser.
- UnterDenLinden, on 12/25/2007, -0/+8It invariably created a massive firestorm like 10x10 tiles. Which always sucked because I put all my power in the same place to make it easy. Like $1 million down the drain.
- spyd3rweb, on 12/25/2007, -0/+8One tiny little asteroid knocks it off orbit... WOOOOSH up in flames goes everything near wherever its pointed.
- enri, on 12/25/2007, -0/+7The Pentagon is backing a project that will enable them to shoot a microwave beam from a satellite orbiting earth. I'm sure their interest is purely in alternative energy solutions. *cough* Star Wars *cough*
- Ashex, on 12/25/2007, -2/+9This sounds suspiciously like a certain James Bond movie.....
- Ender008, on 12/25/2007, -1/+8That sounds kinda scary, I'm keeping my distance from that laser...
- inactive, on 12/25/2007, -0/+5 Plans for this technology are 30 years old. Jerry Pournelle speaks of it often. I found this on his site from a few years back.
"If significant power exists in space, getting it to Earth is a solved problem, with enough methods that the main consideration is economic. Microwaves work, and the only question are the sizes of the sending and receiving antennae. A simple feedback loop takes care of beam walking: the power to collimate the beam is drawn from power received from the ground station, having been retransmitted back up. If the beam walks off target, there is no collimating power, and the beam disperses. Other such problems have long ago been solved and the details accounted for.
I would myself think passive solar a better collector in space than any active machinery precisely because of the maintenance problem. These are matters for operations research and systems analysis once there are sufficient data to be analyzed. At the moment the cost to orbit is the driving factor: if that's cheap enough, then getting riggers to orbit for maintenance is merely a matter of developing good space suits (we don't have any decent suits at the moment) and we know how to do that.
Beam densities aren't weapons capable: this isn't a sun gun. And the answer to "what happens if a hostile power beams energy toward one of our cities" isn't a lot different from the question "what happens if the Peruvian Navy bombards San Diego," or "what happens if France bombs Washington," is it?" http://www.jerrypournelle.com/archives2/archives2m ... - searob1, on 12/25/2007, -0/+5Can I get a friggin' laser?
- dstz, on 12/25/2007, -0/+5Nothing can go wrong.
- PhilMoskowitz, on 12/25/2007, -0/+5are we loooking at columnated microwave radiation? If so, it's maser not laser.
- zonk3r, on 12/25/2007, -0/+5Rectenna:
http://www.southparkclub.com/pix/season1/Cartman%2 ... - saucypony, on 12/25/2007, -2/+7This just sounds like a bad idea.
- Haecceity, on 12/25/2007, -0/+5lasers can use any wavelength of emr -- visible light, x-rays, microwaves, whatever.
- Zaneris, on 12/25/2007, -0/+4Ok, I went a little overboard on the sarcasm... I apologize.
- BossKey, on 12/25/2007, -3/+7i can has popcorn?
- orbingpunk, on 12/25/2007, -0/+4Sounds so dirty when you put it that way.
- BossKey, on 12/25/2007, -0/+4actually if it's a satellite, then
"That's no space station...it really IS a moon." - directive0, on 12/25/2007, -1/+5Gratz! Of all the lame "I played simcity too!" kinda comments, yours was the one that was actually funny!
- Ramble, on 12/25/2007, -0/+4if microwaves caused cancer then it'd be too late anyway, considering they're the basis for all our communications and confectionary.
- chesstwin, on 12/25/2007, -0/+4Thats no fun!
- inactive, on 12/25/2007, -0/+4 This is a test to proive the viability of the technology and get some real world experience with it. I don't see what the problem is.
- whyufail, on 12/25/2007, -0/+4In before "That is no moon"
- alricsca, on 12/25/2007, -0/+4I see at least two major issues. One, wouldn't relying on this leave the whole world vulnerable to one massive solar flare or a rogue nation with anti-satellite weapons? Two, if the design is includes an intrinsically wide beam that is one thing, but I can imagine the military using a focusable antenna on one of these things. Imagine a multi-gigawatt microwave weapon that can shoot at any point on earth. This sounds too desirable for them not to try without strong safe guards against military use. Even a slight increase in its focus and they could pass it over a city to cause wide scale electronic destruction.
- searob1, on 12/25/2007, -0/+4I'm all for this experiment, but I think floating generator buoys would be better in the long run for a nation made up of ISLANDS.
- hplasm, on 12/25/2007, -1/+4Ain't no laser in the article, you know...
- Kranklin, on 12/25/2007, -0/+3FTA: "....to take in 1 megawatt of power transmitted earthward by a satellite orbiting 300 miles above Earth. That's enough electricity to power 1,000 homes.... He estimates project costs at $800"
Ok, so thats only $800,000 thousand per house? Sign me up! - qwertydvorak, on 12/25/2007, -0/+3"If they can get this to work, that would be amazing."
if they can get this to work, it would be a waste of time. from the article the cost is $800 Million to produce enough electricity to power 1000 homes. that would be a cost of $800k per home. - Zaneris, on 12/25/2007, -0/+3Also, you do KNOW that this "microwave energy" you speak of, and microwaves are merely a sub-category of radio-waves right?
Which is all part of the electromagnetic spectrum, the thing visible light is part of and all that EVIL radiation. What!? Visible light is radiation!?
Yes, yes it is. - Typhoon2009, on 12/25/2007, -0/+3"...Are you suggesting the Ion Cannon?!" "No I'm not suggesting it... I'm ordering it."
- MadN, on 12/25/2007, -0/+2How long till it finds Sarah Conner?
- inactive, on 12/25/2007, -0/+2Everything causes cancer.
- turpialito, on 12/25/2007, -0/+2For a prototype system, anyway. It gets cheaper with time. What I'm afraid of is are we really sure we want guided energy beams in space?
- inactive, on 12/25/2007, -0/+2How long till Bowser starts destroying the island?
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