A fascinating idea, course in addition to all of the technical problems you have I wonder how you are going to avoid getting it named (either officially or unofficially) 'skynet' which *would* be a very appropriate name for it except for the bad connotations caused by a certain movie franchise.
Keith Lofstrom wrote: > I got an idea about a month ago that can change the world. I > am starting to build a community around it. It is far enough > along to involve local volunteers. If things work out, this > could provide thousands of jobs in the Portland area, bring > internet service to the world, save gigawatts of power > generation, and eventually replace most of the electric > power generation on earth. A major game changer. > > The idea is an enormous array of orbiting satellites that are > little more than a naked solar cell with processor chips, > memory chips, and radio chips hung around the edge. These > "server-sats" will be about 40 cm across, thinner than a > sheet of paper, and weigh perhaps 30 grams (2 grams is > possible). They can be launched in stacks of 33,000 , > perhaps 4 stacks to a launch, and deployed in arrays. They > turn solar power into computation and communication to the > ground. Transmitting as a phased array, they can communicate > with multiple small regions on the ground, more like cell > phones than sat-phones. > > As outlandish as it sounds, it appears that the system can be > built and launched for less than $500 US per server-sat, and > pay for itself relative to ground based server farms through > electricity and backhaul savings alone - each one saves about > 100W of ground based power, and lots of infrastructure. Local > businesses such as SolarWorld, Intel, Triquint, Maxim, Sharp, > Merix, D.W. Fritz, and others could build just about everything > but the rocket and the satellite container it is deployed from > (Boeing?). > > See http://www.server-sky.com . It's a wiki, and I'm looking > for positive contributions. Mostly I am looking for folks to > help with the software, simulations, animations, game design, > etc. If you can handle algebra-level math, and have good > "spatial" imagination, you can probably help. Heck, if you > can understand server sky well enough to answer questions, > you could be a big help. I can even use linguists to help > name things - good names will make it easier to explain and > help sell the idea to investors. > > Longer term, server sky can beam power to the ground, not just > petabits/second of data. It and be launched by, and provide > power for, systems far more thrifty and environmentally benign > than rockets (see, for example, http://www.launchloop.com). > > The idea is still in its infancy, but it is showing signs of > surviving to adulthood. Since I don't expect to "own" it, I > want to crowd-source the conceptual design, and in a few months > build the core team that does the real design out of the best > volunteers. There are still a lot of problems to solve, but most > of the things that I thought would be difficult (space radiation > resistance, space junk avoidance, and phased array grating lobes, > for example) have easy solutions. With enough people helping, I > hope to have enough public domain solutions for all the obvious > problems that the idea won't be held hostage by patent trolls. > > I plan to give a presentation on this to Linuxfest in late > April, but I hope to have an alpha version of the presentation > ready in a week or two, perhaps for a PLUG meeting, perhaps > at a special event. But besides sharing this with a few > dozen friends, this is the first public announcement, because > the Portland open source community has the right talents and > values to bring this to fruition. > > I am very busy, mostly getting more stuff ready for the wiki. > If you have questions, please read what is on the wiki first. > If you see a question on the site or on this mailing list that > you can come up with an answer for, please answer it for me, > and add it to the wiki. Together we can change the world with > this. Perhaps even the universe. > > Keith > -- Do not be afraid to joust a giant just because some people insist on believing in windmills. _______________________________________________ PLUG mailing list [email protected] http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug
