From: Adrian Tymes (wingcat@pacbell.net)
Date: Sun Oct 21 2001 - 20:42:10 MDT
Spike Jones wrote:
> Adrian Tymes wrote:
> > Spike Jones wrote:
> > > Adrian Tymes wrote:
> > > > Micrometeorite and other space junk impacts. Unless you can come up
> > > > with a way for the dish to be cheaply patched.
> > >
> > > Why would we need to patch holes? Assume an inflatable dish
> > > could be coated on orbit, then no bother if it gets a few holes.
> >
> > A balloon deflates from only one hole. You can add internal structure
> > to limit the deflation, but that adds mass.
>
> What I had in mind is an inflatable structure that only needs
> to hold up long enough to spray aluminum onto the surface.
> then cut out a section, use lightweight spindly structures to
> pull the spherical surface into a suitable nearly parabolic
> concentrator. Then it doesnt matter if it gets holes from
> micrometeoriods. The actual time to hold pressure would
> only need to be a few days.
Hmm...perhaps if it was thick enough to hold up to the micro-ms that
come by every day. (There's a *lot* of junk up there, for what's
commonly described as a "vacuum".)
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