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tlbtoday at 12:22 AM2 repliesview on HN

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.


Replies

FridgeSealtoday at 1:20 AM

I am dying to know where you’ll get the energy and manufacturing scale in order to achieve this with current, or current+50-years technology.

Do tell.

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fluoridationtoday at 1:05 AM

Great. Now run the numbers to find the energy required to disassemble the planets and accelerating the pieces to their desired locations. For reference, it takes over 10 times of propellant and oxidant mass to put something in LEO.

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