2023-08-03 04:54:00
Faced with the disastrous consequences of global warming, scientists are trying to find technical solutions. One of the latest theorized by the astronomer of the Institute of Astronomy at the University of Hawaii, in the United States, Istvan Szapudi, is not lacking in audacity.
Like his predecessors, he was interested in the virtues of placing a solar shield in orbit, capable of reducing the radiation emitted by the Sun, reported Sciencealert Tuesday, August 1. So far, the idea is nothing revolutionary. Except that the astronomer has added interesting elements in order to produce sufficient mass to ward off gravity and the force of solar radiation.
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The asteroid, a natural weight in space
Istvan Szapudi studied the possibility of attaching a counterweight to the shield. The concept consists in capturing an asteroid circulating at several thousand kilometers per hour above our heads, at a distance of a few million km. According to his calculations, the total mass of the shield and the asteroid would weigh 3.5 million tons. Very far from previous estimates, nearly a hundred times higher.
The weight distribution of the solar umbrella would relieve the shield, rated at 35,000 tons, or 1% of the total weight. The remaining 99% of mass would correspond to the combined weight of the asteroid and dust scattered by the Moon, placed between the Earth and the Sun. The theory is therefore particularly appealing to the scientific community and countries seeking palliatives to protect themselves from the effects of global warming. However, many obstacles stand in the way of the eventual outcome of this innovation.
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Many pitfalls
To build the mass of the shield, researchers must strike a balance between having enough mass to hold in space, and at the same time resisting the gravitational field that sends each object back to Earth. In addition to this pitfall, the nations do not have launchers sufficiently advanced to lift weights greater than hundreds of tons in low orbit. It would therefore take more than 600 launchers to transport the shield designed by the astronomer.
In the 1960s, the Saturn V rocket, developed by NASA as part of the Apollo lunar program, carried 140 tons into space. A record that Space X’s Starship rocket, a company launched by the whimsical Elon Musk, could soon beat. Its maximum capacity is estimated at 250 tons.
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