Betteridge’s Law of Headlines: Any headline that ends in a yes/no question can be answered “no.”
It could work (ignoring cost), except that tiny meteors flying around space would rip holes in such an expansive object. Just look at what happened to the JWST, and it’s much smaller than this would need to be.
I’m sure the next big brain idea will be to cover the world in sunscreen or change the Earth’s orbit with a giant rocket.
The point was that it got hit, despite being smaller than this would need to be. That’s where the analogy ends, because its purpose is very different from a giant umbrella.
To add on to that, in more serious proposals, the idea is to mass manufacture a lot of small satellites you could hold in your hand, attached to about a km or so of hyper thin foil. At obital velocity, any micrometeorites or other object will flash vaporize an equal sized hole on contact, and indeed this is how we do modern micrometeorite shielding for spacecraft today.
We just care about blocking a tiny fraction of relevant sunlight, holes don’t really effect the outcome compared to the negative space around the satellite.
Betteridge’s Law of Headlines: Any headline that ends in a yes/no question can be answered “no.”
It could work (ignoring cost), except that tiny meteors flying around space would rip holes in such an expansive object. Just look at what happened to the JWST, and it’s much smaller than this would need to be.
I’m sure the next big brain idea will be to cover the world in sunscreen or change the Earth’s orbit with a giant rocket.
The JWST is still functioning at a very high level. It’s a poor comparison if you’re trying to argue against putting expensive stuff in space.
The point was that it got hit, despite being smaller than this would need to be. That’s where the analogy ends, because its purpose is very different from a giant umbrella.
The idea is less umbrella and more parasol. Tiny holes would be just fine.
To add on to that, in more serious proposals, the idea is to mass manufacture a lot of small satellites you could hold in your hand, attached to about a km or so of hyper thin foil. At obital velocity, any micrometeorites or other object will flash vaporize an equal sized hole on contact, and indeed this is how we do modern micrometeorite shielding for spacecraft today.
We just care about blocking a tiny fraction of relevant sunlight, holes don’t really effect the outcome compared to the negative space around the satellite.