On Mar 5, 4:26*am, "Martha Adams" wrote:
wrote in message

...

See:

http://www.rand.org/commentary/2009/02/13/HST.html

===========================================

Gaah! *Here's one of those links to nowhere by someone too lazy to focus
and write at least an abstract. *This links to ...what? *A seething mass
of malware that wants in to my machine? **No way* am I going to open
myself to *that*.



Titeotwawki -- mha * [sci.space.policy *2009 Mar 05]


A link to nowhere? It worked fine when i clocked on it. If it
doesn't work for
you, then here's the article:

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Scientists to stop global warming with 100,000 square mile sun shade
Scientists claim they can fight global warming by firing trillions of
mirrors into space to deflect the sun's rays forming a 100,000 square
mile "sun shade".

Last Updated: 8:12AM GMT 27 Feb 2009

; http://link.brightcove.com/services/...tid13335878001
http://www.brightcove.com/channel.js...nel=1139053637
According to astronomer Dr Roger Angel, at the University of Arizona,
the trillions of mirrors would have to be fired one million miles
above the earth using a huge cannon with a barrel of 0.6 miles
across.

The gun would pack 100 times the power of conventional weapons and
need an exclusion zone of several miles before being fired.

Despite the obvious obstacles - including an estimated $350 trillion
(£244trn) price tag for the project - Dr Angel is confident of getting
the project off the ground.

He said: "What we have developed is certainly effective and a method
guaranteed to work.

"Tests are ongoing but we expect to be ready to launch within 20 or 30
years time. Things that take a few decades are not that futuristic."

Dr Angel has already secured NASA funding for a pilot project and
British inventor Tod Todeschini, 38, was commissioned to build a
scaled-down version of the gun.

He constructed the four-metre long cannon in his workshop in Sandlake,
Oxfordshire, for a TV documentary investigating the sun shield
theory.

He said: "The gun was horrendously dangerous. This was the first gun
I'd ever built.

"I knew I could put it together safely but at the end of it all I
didn't know what I was going to get.

"It was immensely dangerous. I was attempting to build a gun to
produce 1,500G of force but it ended up creating about 10,000G and we
had to turn the power down.

"Most weapons used by the army produce 100Gs of force so our gun was
about 100 times more powerful.

"The main danger was electrocution because it used enough power to
boil 44,000 kettles.

"If you were working with normal levels of electricity you could get a
shock and be fine, but if you got a shock off this you would be dead -
no question.

"We've proved it's possible to build a scaled-down version of the gun
needed to get these lenses into the air so it's just a matter of
scaling up the designs for the real thing."

If Dr Angel's sun shield is successful he says the mirrors will last
50 years before needing to be replaced.

"What you are talking about is a project which will stop global
warming for centuries to come," he said.

"At the moment the sums involved sound huge but in the greater scheme
of things it's a price worth paying.

"Over 50 years the mirrors will become damaged and therefore fresh
lenses will need to be fired into space to ensure the shield is
constant."

Dr Angel, who pioneers solar energy, is developing cheaper methods of
making the lenses to bring the cost of the project down.

In the meantime researchers at the University of Victoria, Canada, are
testing the sun shield theory by using computer simulations of the
project.

Dr Angel's sun shield theory will feature on Ways to Save the Planet
on the Discovery Channel at 7pm on Sunday.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It sounds like quite the boondoggle to me, but what do you guys think?