Space Ring Could Shade Earth and Stop Global Warming

[Moochy]

Since the beginning of time man has always secretly wanted to blot out the sun!

File this under 'Stupid'.

http://www.livescience.com/technology/050627_warming_solution.html


In related news, Mr. Burns gave an interview with Fox News' Greta Van Sustern, the new thought leader in Right Wing News.

(according to drudge)

On The Record With Greta: Mr. Burns
http://wuzzadem.typepad.com/wuz/2005/02/on_the_record_w.html

[spanone]

1. Yea, and chickens might fly out of my ass.

[The2ndWheel]

2. So we're out of

ideas then?

[htuttle]

8. We got nuttin'.

[Goldmund]

3. LOL

That's the most ridiculous thing I've seen in a long time.

[rodeodance]

4. i have not read it-but the problem is that CO-2 can NOT get OUT--

[Enraged_Ape]

5. Terrific. Let's just turn the Earth into Pluto.

It's just amazing, the innovation people will show when they refuse to give up their greed.

[tk2kewl]

6. Some dingbat wrote a LTTE that was printed in Newsday about a week ago

suggesting we could stop global warming by deploying large turbines in the gulf stream to slow the current and prevent polar ice melt :silly:

[havocmom]

7. Bet somebody wants to rent bilboard space for ads on the shade ring too

ADS IN SPACE....

[SoCalDem]

9. All we really need is a gigantic hovering Hoover

to suck up all the "bad stuff", and then a space ship could stop by and "replace the bag", fly up into space and fling the old one at the sun..


Problem solved :evilgrin:






:sarcasm:...just in case

[arendt]

10. As a scientist and a sci-fi fan, this is not totally ridiculous, except...

that we are too f-ing broke, and we have shit-canned
anyone in NASA who could do this right.

Basically, the thing is supposed to act like a
venetian blind. It doesn't have to cover the whole
planet. Any percentage of the sun's rays blocked
delivers some cooling to the planet.

Blocking the rays can be done with thin mylar.
One pound could cover X kilometers. The supports
would be equally light.

Its not a stupid idea technically, just totally unrealistic
politically. Imagine that such a thing was built.
Who would CONTROL it?

Anyway, thats my 2 cents. Flame away.

arendt

[arendt]

11. Forgot the sci-fi reference

see Sean McMullen's "Souls in the Great Machine".

arendt

[Moochy]

12. Dyson Spheres anyone?

Clearly its a dumb idea *because* of the costs.

I just think its indicative of a tendency to propose infeasibile mega-engineering solutions to big problems.

:sarcasm:



If we could just capture all that lost output the sun wastes by sending the radiation and heat out to pluto, then we'd be energy independent.


on edit, re-read your post about 1 lb of mylar.

Advances in materials sceince is amazing, does anyone have any good links for news about advances in this kind of thing? I read that the recently proposed space elevator plan was going to use some advanced material that was very thin, like a ribbon.

[dbt]

13. Google "Sunscreen for Planet Earth" by Edward Teller.

They've been doing this for the past six or seven years.