Over recent years, many scientists have been designing new and expensive technologies with the aim to save the earth, or reduce the effects from global warming. One of these ideas lies in a concept of giant solar shades.
Much like ordinary sunglasses you place over your eyes in bright sunshine, the solar shades in question block out some of the suns harmful rays, only with one major difference. These shades will rest a million miles above our heads.
The logic behind this invention is to provide the global population with one giant sunshade consisting of 16 trillion outer space solar shades. These solar shades are super thin and lightweight glass discs which act like a lens on your average sunglasses to divert the suns rays.
Man with all his noble qualities, with sympathy which feels for the most debased, with benevolence which extends not only to other men but to the humblest living creature, with his god-like intellect which has penetrated into the movements and constitution of the solar system—with all these exalted powers—man still bears in his bodily frame the indelible stamp of his lowly origin.
—Charles Darwin (1809–1882)
Dr. Roger Angel (the brains behind the glass optics) is one of the worlds most renowned experts in the field of glass optics. He is responsible for designing the mirrors on telescopes, and believes glass could the answer to solving global warming.
It is predicted that only 2% of the suns rays need to be diverted in order to save the planet from increased global warming. The solar shades will have to cover a distance of 100,000km in width. The proposed area for the solar shades to orbit at is known as the "L1 point". This is the point of zero gravity between the sun and the earth.
The solar optics will have tiny solar panels attached which can act as rudders to provide a gliding ability for the optics to change direction if needed.
Why is it that writers, who by definition operate by the use of their imaginations, are given so little credit for it: we “make things up.” This is our trade. I remember, before I myself attempted this genre of space fiction, reading an agreeable tale about a species of highly intelligent giraffes who travelled by spaceship from their solar system to ours, to ask if our sun was behaving cruelly to us as theirs had recently taken to doing to them. I remember saying to myself: Well, at least the writer of this tale is not likely to get industrious letters asking what it is like to be a giraffe in a spaceship.
—Doris Lessing (b. 1919)
A huge problem associated with this invention will be the process of transporting these solar optics into space. Dr. Angel has calculated the total weight of the tiny sunshades to be around 20 million tonnes. Presuming if this method is chosen to save the world, and the space shuttle is still the best space exploration vehicle, it will take 870,000 trips into space to deliver the entire solar shade as the space shuttles cargo weight can be only 23 tonnes a go.
There are currently four other extraordinary ideas in play, competing against this one to be the saviour of our home on earth, it will be interesting to see whether any of these will ever make it to the production stage.
We need to look after our environment, and the use of natural energy (such as solar electricity) should be our first focus, along with any reduction of our fossil fuel intake and carbon emissions. http://www.clean-energy-ideas.com.