I rememeber the first time I used magnifying glasses to burn things and thinking that this would be a great way to do away with my enemies.
However, for the cost of developing this and getting it up in space without any military intervention, it would be cheaper for one to purchase nuclear material from the ukraine and blow your enemies up with that.
Originally posted by TyrannosauruschexIsn't it cheaper to just make them watch an hour of American Idol?
I rememeber the first time I used magnifying glasses to burn things and thinking that this would be a great way to do away with my enemies.
However, for the cost of developing this and getting it up in space without any military intervention, it would be cheaper for one to purchase nuclear material from the ukraine and blow your enemies up with that.
Well a geostationary orbit occurs at around 36,000 kilometres above sea level. In order to bring heat and light rays to a focus on the surface of the earth therefore your lens (or mirror) would need a focal length equivalent to this distance. From an engineering perspective a concave mirrored surface would be far more practical in this application than a refracting lens. Focal length f = R/2 where R is the radius of curvature. Therefore R = 2f. So we are looking at a arc with a radius of curvature of around 72,000 kilometres. We then need to calculate the amount of energy reflected per square metre of mirror and match this against the energy required to fry a gi-ANT, in order to calculate the desired surface area of the mirror. Using advanced orbital construction techniques I see no reason why such a device could not be constructed rather easily, say within the next fifty years.