alt Hacker News>> Dyson Sphere
> What do you think the limiting factor is?
You need to be able to harness enough raw material and energy to build something that can surround the sun. That does not exist in the solar system and we do not yet have the means to travel further out to collect, move, and construct such an incredibly huge structure. It seems like a fantasy.
Replies
rtkwe • today at 1:36 AM
Also it's gravitationally unstable, like Dyson Rings, where as soon as you have any perturbance from the center means that the closer side is more attracted to the sun so it enters a feedback loop.
The inner planets contain enough mass to create a shell of 1 AU radius with mass of 42 kg/m^2. That sounds like a plausible thickness and density for a sandwich of photovoltaics - GPUs - heat sinks.
You don't build a rigid shell of course, you build a swarm of free-floating satellites in a range of orbits.
See https://www.aleph.se/Nada/dysonFAQ.html#ENOUGH for numbers.