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
In fairness, solar cells can be about 5x more efficient in space (irradiance, uptime).

>>moeadh+Lf
Solar cells have exactly the same power rating on earth as in space surely? What would change is their capacity factor and so energy generation.

>>__alex+Oh
The atmosphere is in the way, and they get pretty dirty on earth. Also it doesn't rain or get cloudy in space

>>bastaw+Mi
And in geostationary, the planet hardly ever gets in the way. They get full sun 99.5% of the year.

>>Dennis+Xn
Boosting to geostationary orbit knocks a big chunk out of your payload capacity. Falcon 9 expendable will do 22 tons to LEO and about 8 tons to GTO.

>>XorNot+dv1
That's still a smaller ratio than the ~4X gain in irradiance over LEO. But if you're doing it at scale you could use orbital tugs with ion drives or something, and use much less fuel per transfer.

It's probably not competitive at all without having fully reusable launch rockets, so the cost to LEO is a lot lower.