Page 105 - An Evening with Maxwell's Daemons

Sunscreen

that area, effectively the size of a planetary shade, increases toward
the sun in that cone. Thus, going out a safe distance from the earth
to set that up would require considerably more coverage: I calculate
needing 500 million units, each about one square kilometer. They
would each be hexagonal solar shades, laid out almost seamlessly to
form the surface of a spherical cap large enough to cast a
temperature-lowering energy reduction of the radiation reaching
Earth. Each unit would be powered by its own solar panel, and be
able to fold or tilt parts of their shades to regulate what they block.
They would operate like a fleet of a stationary fleet of drones,
opening and closing louvers to control their shading. The software
exists to make this an almost self-regulating entity relying on simple
commands from a terrestrial station. They would be built on and
launched from robotic orbiting platforms: 500,000 launches of
reusable rockets, each carrying a thousand units. Each of those half-
billion units would have a propulsion system capable of
maneuvering it into its unique position in the grid and, ultimately,
send it along with the others into the sun for destruction once the
need is gone. The location of this screen would be Lagrange point
2, enabling the structure to maintain an orbit directly in an ecliptic
path. All nations would benefit; all nations would have to bear the
cost.”
“There it is: a complicated solution for an otherwise refractory
problem. Strong medicine. Gigantic project. But, as I said, not very
far advanced from existing capabilities. Now, as a story, all this
technical stuff would be revealed in the course of some dramatic
narrative, perhaps with heroes and villains, sabotage and intrigue,
last-minute seat-of-the-pants low-tech fixes to prevent disaster.
What might I do with this? I know it resembles other hardware-
driven tales—but the number of plots is finite, that’s a given.”
Leith Mauker shook his head.
“First you have to answer some technical questions: L2 is not a
stable orbit. Would you have your cybernetics orchestrate making
small adjustments to keep half a billion closely-aligned and fragile
satellites moving in lockstep, as it were, to stay focused and prevent
their umbra from slipping?”

104