/sci/ - Science & Math

so why aren't we trying to design a real space mirror yet? this is getting fucking ridiculous. the basic idea is to build a mirror in space, and use it to reflect away sunlight to reduce global warming

here's my proposal: the mirror will be built of a bunch of modular folding-umbrella type structures. their "skeleton" will be a lightweight material, like carbon fiber, and it will unfold to stretch out a lightweight, reflective teflon-like material that's mounted on the skeleton. you could make them in the shape of a hexagon, so that you can send up more and more to hook onto the ones already up there. so it's like a big patchwork of hexagonal "parasols". you could therefore build it in a series of unmanned, small-scale launches

you could "seed" the array of parasols in a geosynchronous orbit over, e.g. the sahara, so that it doesn't cause "eclipses" over farmland and so forth.

if it starts cooling the earth too much, simply send up a signal to tell it to fold back up, or send some astronauts up there to fold up the parasols. that makes this MUCH safer than the ideas of spraying compounds into the atmosphere to reflect sunlight

okay, tell me how retarded i am