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NASA PDF - Project Able - Lunar Module deploys up to 3000-ft solar reflector in earth orbit



 
 
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  #1  
Old November 21st 05, 03:38 AM posted to sci.space.history
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Default NASA PDF - Project Able - Lunar Module deploys up to 3000-ft solar reflector in earth orbit

Here is a NASA report just added to the NTRS server in PDF format.

It's a 1966 NASA/Grumman study that uses a manned Lunar Module to
deploy a 400-ft to 3000-ft solar reflector in a 6000 nm or 24 hr earth
orbit. The reflector would be used to illuminate selected areas of the
earth during the hours of darkness. This proposed program was called
Project Able.

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

Feasibility study of utilization of LM for Project Able. Volume 1 -
Technical summary

NASA Center for AeroSpace Information (CASI)
NASA-CR-117546 , 19661212; Dec 12, 1966

Accession ID: 79N76171
View PDF File
Document ID: 19790076663
Updated/Added to NTRS: 2005-11-17

34 pages

http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/ca...1979076663.pdf

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

- Rusty

  #2  
Old November 21st 05, 05:42 PM posted to sci.space.history
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Default NASA PDF - Project Able - Lunar Module deploys up to 3000-ft solar reflector in earth orbit


Rusty wrote:
Here is a NASA report just added to the NTRS server in PDF format.

It's a 1966 NASA/Grumman study that uses a manned Lunar Module to
deploy a 400-ft to 3000-ft solar reflector in a 6000 nm or 24 hr earth
orbit. The reflector would be used to illuminate selected areas of the
earth during the hours of darkness. This proposed program was called
Project Able.


Any indication what the ultimate purpose was? I assume the national
security classification indicates that it was for military or
intelligence use.

  #3  
Old November 21st 05, 05:54 PM posted to sci.space.history
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Default NASA PDF - Project Able - Lunar Module deploys up to 3000-ft solar reflector in earth orbit


wrote:

Any indication what the ultimate purpose was?


To light up the ground at night. Numerous commercial and military
apps... light up a disaster area, light up a battlefield.

  #6  
Old November 21st 05, 10:10 PM posted to sci.space.history
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Default NASA PDF - Project Able - Lunar Module deploys up to 3000-ftsolar reflector in earth orbit



Rusty wrote:

I assume Project Able was for the benefit of the Defense Department.

Through the years, the media and NASA have repeatedly stated, that U.S.
civilian space program was totally in the open, unlike the Soviets.
It's interesting to see NASA documents that were once classified or
confidential, now being posted on the NTRS server, that disprove those
statements.



Hmmm.... I wonder what the report on DART will have stamped on it in a
few years? ;-)
I still like the LM-based military system that goes up to Soviet
spacecraft and spray paints them black, via the "graffiti in space"
attack technique: http://www.astronautix.com/craft/apolmcsd.htm

Pat
  #7  
Old November 22nd 05, 03:07 AM posted to sci.space.history
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Default NASA PDF - Project Able - Lunar Module deploys up to 3000-ft solar reflector in earth orbit

On Mon, 21 Nov 2005 15:10:34 -0600, Pat Flannery
wrote:

I still like the LM-based military system that goes up to Soviet
spacecraft and spray paints them black, via the "graffiti in space"
attack technique: http://www.astronautix.com/craft/apolmcsd.htm


....And when you think about it, the CLM (Combat LM) wouldn't have had
to get -that- close to the target to do sufficient damage. It would
have just had to let loose the paint against the flow of rotation
enough to cause a gradual buildup on the target to the point where the
thermal absorptiion would have done it in. Would have taken longer,
but it would have improved our "plausable deniability" in the long run
:-)

OM
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  #8  
Old November 22nd 05, 03:17 AM posted to sci.space.history
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Default NASA PDF - Project Able - Lunar Module deploys up to 3000-ft solar reflector in earth orbit

On 21 Nov 2005 08:54:34 -0800, wrote:


wrote:

Any indication what the ultimate purpose was?


To light up the ground at night. Numerous commercial and military
apps... light up a disaster area, light up a battlefield.


....From what I recall of this one, the disaster area use was felt to
be the best implementation, considering the total area of ilumination
that such an array theoretically could have provided.

OM
--
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OMBlog -
http://www.io.com/~o_m/omworld
Let's face it: Sometimes you *need*
an obnoxious opinion in your day!
]=======================================[
  #10  
Old November 22nd 05, 05:59 AM posted to sci.space.history
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Default NASA PDF - Project Able - Lunar Module deploys up to 3000-ft solar reflector in earth orbit

In article ,
Pat Flannery wrote:
To light up the ground at night. Numerous commercial and military
apps... light up a disaster area, light up a battlefield.


Or make the thing just a little bit flexible so that you can bow it into
a parabolic dish shape and....


And what? The bad news is, the physics doesn't allow you to get a tight
focus at a distance, because the Sun is not a point source. Inherently
the best you can do is to make the light per square degree of sky, as seen
at the target, equal to that of the Sun. A 3000ft reflector at a distance
of hundreds of kilometers isn't going to fry anything, because it'll be a
small fraction of a degree wide (vs. half a degree for the Sun). The
light at the target will be a small fraction of normal sunlight. To fry
something, you need to fill a sizable part of its sky with reflector.
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