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On Wednesday, June 21, 2017 at 9:10:29 AM UTC-4, Robert Clark wrote:
Look at it in terms of how much needs to be radiated per unit area. This
research project expects to reflect 99.9% of the light energy away:
April 6, 2017
Solar Surfing
Robert Youngquist
NASA Kennedy Space Center
Quote:
Description
We propose to develop a novel high temperature coating that will reflect
up
to 99.9 % of the Sun’s total irradiance, roughly a factor of 80 times
better
than the current state-of-the-art. This will be accomplished by leveraging
off of our low temperature coating, currently being developed under NIAC
funding. We will modify our existing models to determine an optimal high
temperature solar reflector, predict its performance, and construct a
prototype version of this coating. This prototype will be sent to our
partner at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory where it will be
tested in an 11 times solar simulator. The results of this
modeling/testing
will be used to design a mission to the Sun, where we hope to come to
within
one solar radius of the Sun’s surface, 8 times closer than the closest
distance planned for the upcoming Solar Probe Plus. This project will
substantially advance the current capabilities of solar thermal protection
systems, not only potentially allowing “Solar Surfing”, but allowing
better
thermal control of a future mission to Mercury.
|
https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/sp.../Solar_Surfing
Seems like a pipe dream to me. We pay decent money for mirrors with
~99.7% reflectance over some limited wavelength range.
George H.
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A reflectivity of 99.7% is probably good enough for the purpose. But this
new research is to make it over the entire optical and infrared range.
For the existing materials with high reflectivity over limited wavelengths I
wonder if it would be possible to stack
them to get the high reflectivity over a larger wavelength range.
Also, instead of a high reflectivity mirror could we use a ultra low
absorption lens?
Bob Clark
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