zlacker

>>g-mork+(OP)
> it is possible to put 500 to 1000 TW/year of AI satellites into deep space, meaningfully ascend the Kardashev scale and harness a non-trivial percentage of the Sun’s power

We currently make around 1 TW of photovoltaic cells per year, globally. The proposal here is to launch that much to space every 9 hours, complete with attached computers, continuously, from the moon.

edit: Also, this would capture a very trivial percentage of the Sun's power. A few trillionths per year.

>>gok+h4
See Dyson Sphere: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyson_sphere

>>jupp0r+To
Yeah, that's the point ... it's stupid to believe humanity is capable of deploying that much infrastructure. We cannot do even 0.01% of it.

>>morale+xq
What do you think the limiting factor is? I don't see why we can't scale manufacturing of satellites up as far as we want. If we mine out a substantial fraction of the mass of the earth, we can go harvest asteroids or something.

>>tlb+fu
>> Dyson Sphere

> What do you think the limiting factor is?

You need to be able to harness enough raw material and energy to build something that can surround the sun. That does not exist in the solar system and we do not yet have the means to travel further out to collect, move, and construct such an incredibly huge structure. It seems like a fantasy.

>>andsoi+dx
The inner planets contain enough mass to create a shell of 1 AU radius with mass of 42 kg/m^2. That sounds like a plausible thickness and density for a sandwich of photovoltaics - GPUs - heat sinks.

You don't build a rigid shell of course, you build a swarm of free-floating satellites in a range of orbits.

See https://www.aleph.se/Nada/dysonFAQ.html#ENOUGH for numbers.

>>tlb+xA
I am dying to know where you’ll get the energy and manufacturing scale in order to achieve this with current, or current+50-years technology.

Do tell.