Science Fiction
Dictionary
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
 |
NYC Heliostats And Star Wars Orbital Mirrors
Three heliostats installed on the roof of a 23 story building in New York City will provide much needed light in the planned Teardrop Park South. The park likes in the shadow of three skyscrapers, and never gets direct sunlight.
(From Heliostats are computer-guided devices that deliver sunlight where needed)
A heliostat is a device that uses a single mirror to track the sun and then deliver a beam of light to a selected location. Each of the three heliostats used in NYC are about eight feet in diameter, and cost $355,000.
In the novelization of Star Wars: The Revenge of the Sith, orbital mirrors play an important part in the battle over Coruscant, the capital city of the Republic.
The skies of Coruscant blaze with war.The artificial daylight spread by the capital's orbital mirrors is sliced by intersecting flames of ion drives and punctuated by starburst explosions...
The beams of the mirrors are redirected to shine on a huge reservoir, vaporizing it and shorting out the planet's defense shield. Ordinarily, the mirrors are used to provide more hours of daylight around the capital city. I'm sure there must be early mentions of orbital mirrors providing light to the surface; perhaps helpful readers can fill us all in with a comment (see below).
Update: 04-Mar-2015: See Theodore Sturgeon's orbital mirror from his 1941 story Completely Automatic. End update.
The Russians made a valiant attempt to use a mirror to reflect sunlight onto various regions in the former Soviet republics in 1999. The Znamya ('Banner') experiment was intended to put a circle of light 5-8 kilometers across, moving at 7 yards per second, on the earth's surface. The mirror was intended to be used as a prototype for larger models to provide light for Russia's northern cities. Unfortunately, the 1999 Znamya experiment failed when the mirror failed to deploy properly in space.
(From Znamya Solar Power Mirror Satellite)
In an opposite view of this story (that is, Earth needs less sunlight, not more) read Reduce Sunlight By Blocking Solar Rays. Read more about the New York City Heliostats, the Znamya program, and the history of heliostats.
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 6/3/2005)
Follow this kind of news @Technovelgy.| Email | RSS | Blog It | Stumble | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit |
Would
you like to contribute a story tip?
It's easy:
Get the URL of the story, and the related sf author, and add
it here.
Comment/Join discussion ( 7 )
Related News Stories - (" Space Tech ")
ISS Plagued By Leak - Again!
'There were perhaps a dozen bladder-like objects in the tunnel...' - Robert Heinlein, 1948.
Sunbird Pulsar Fusion Like Leinster's Space Tug
'It was a pushpot, which could not possibly be called a jet plane because it could not possibly fly. Only it did.' - Murray Leinster, 1953.
Crystalline Structures In Space, You Say?
A massive space borne lifeform from ST:TNG.
Amazing Photonic Crystal Light Sail
'That sail will be twenty thousand miles at the wide part.' - Cordwainer Smith, 1960.
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's 1950's
1960's 1970's
1980's 1990's
2000's 2010's
Current News
Grok And The City Fathers From 'Cities In Flight' By James Blish
'Chris, the City Fathers are not interested in your welfare; I suppose you know that. They're interested in only one thing: the survival of the city.'
Why Not Move A Warehouse District?
'Did you never see a moving house before?'
Will An AI Found A New Religion?
'You must decide how you will worship Me.'
Terraformer Industries Make Methane
'Drake was the young spatial engineer he employed to terraform the little rock...'
I Need An Outdoor Spherical Display
'Usually a spherical display hovered in the centre...'
Worm Disrupts Physics Simulations Undetected For A Decade
'It diverts integers of the data, the fundamental message-units, so that they no longer agree.'
Muxcard Redditor's DIY Credit Card-Sized Computer
It's a computer, but just barely.
'Soft Assembly' Fashions That Fashion Themselves On The Wearer
'Clothes are no longer made from dead fibers of fixed color and texture that can approximate only crudely to the vagrant human figure...'
Orwell's Nightmare Of AI-Written Novels Comes To Pass
'Books were just a commodity that had to be produced, like jam or bootlaces.'
ISS Plagued By Leak - Again!
'There were perhaps a dozen bladder-like objects in the tunnel...'
Ridiculous 'Ghost Murmur' Tech Still Science Fiction
'...it rears and spreads its fan. It can pick one man out of a crowd.'
Outdoor Video Screens Can Be Arbitrarily Large
The Shape of Things To Come
Infrared Contact Lenses To See In The Dark
'I can see in the dark, Case.'
What'll You Have? Extinct Animals Returned, Or Synthetic Eggshells?
'...a new plastic with the characteristics of an avian eggshell.'
Sunbird Pulsar Fusion Like Leinster's Space Tug
'It was a pushpot, which could not possibly be called a jet plane because it could not possibly fly. Only it did.'
RentAHuman App Lets AI Agents Hire Humans
'She wouldn't stop until Antar had told her everything he knew about whatever it was that she was playing with on her screen.'
