In reply to Jed Rothwell's message of Tue, 5 Feb 2013 09:48:08 -0500: Hi, Upon thinking further about this, painting it may not actually make much difference at all, because some of the photons are already reflected, and most of those absorbed are radiated again more or less straight away, roughly in the direction from which they came, due to the fact that the temperature of the rock remains fairly constant. Because the thing turns in space, some delayed emission will occur on the dark side. How much this is would depend on the rotation time, and the cooling time. In short, it could turn out to be a very expensive "white elephant". ;)
><[email protected]> wrote: > > >> True, however I don't see the sense in painting only one side white. Why >> not the >> whole thing? >> > >That's what I meant. I did not mean to give it a spin. I meant sunlight >will push it the way it pushes a Crooks radiometer, although there is some >question whether that works in a high vacuum. > >You might also attach a gigantic solar sail, which is the same thing I >guess, but I think that would call a lot more engineering and monitoring >after deployment. There are also scheme to land a rocket which then >excavates rocks and shoots them off, perhaps with a mass driver. That does >not sound like it would work for long. > >Search for "meteor deflection" to see various proposed methods. > >- Jed Regards, Robin van Spaandonk http://rvanspaa.freehostia.com/project.html
