If the payload is not sensitive to G-forces why not just rail gun pellets up to the necessary altitude and disperse with a shaped charge? Low cost, known technology. Space fireworks...
Such a system could allow non-permanent low orbit clouds of which the density could be cost effectively replenished or adjusted up or down as conditions required. -john -----Original Message----- From: Jones Beene [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, February 05, 2005 10:28 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: A last resort attack on global warming --- Horace Heffner wrote: > Given that all else fails to stop global warming, and action is taken soon enough that a 10 percent reduction in the solar insolation factor [snip] The total deployed mass is thus 166,000 metric tons. The price is about 1.7 trillion dollars. INTERESTING... and a bargain for Western Society, but there could be a less costly alternative. Another possiblility, assuming that space robotics is perfected for use with Hubble etc. and the international space statioin can be adapted for such is the capture - and then the conversion over time of a meteorite into the appropriate sized nano-powder which can then be dispersed robotically at the appropriate altitudes. "Orbital Capture of Meteoroids in Grazing Earth Encounters" http://www.aas.org/publications/baas/v26n2/aas184/abs/S1404.html This does happen naturally periodically but we would have to be prepared to act quickly to stabilize the orbit and attach robotic mini-factories to the meteroid. Not Sci-Fi any more... more like a survival imperative if something else does not come along soon to save us from oil addiction. Jones -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.300 / Virus Database: 265.8.5 - Release Date: 03-Feb-05
