Imagine a malicious person constantly aiming the light at at the house of someone they don’t like. Good thing it doesn’t seem to be feasible any time soon.
Because the sun is not a point source but a disk half a degree across, you can’t focus the sun tighter than about a 1km spot from a mirror in low earth orbit.
Imagine a malicious person constantly aiming the light at at the house of someone they don’t like. Good thing it doesn’t seem to be feasible any time soon.
“I want a spot, but I want all of my sunlight focused onto a spot about a centimeter across. I’ll give you the coordinates.”
Because the sun is not a point source but a disk half a degree across, you can’t focus the sun tighter than about a 1km spot from a mirror in low earth orbit.
Okay but can we make that 1 km hot enough to burn everything inside of it?
For science of course.
Welp I hate to break it to you, but the Ruskies actually already tried this one back in the 90s, and I’m fairly certain the business idea is based directly on that concept.
In a tent would be even worse.
Seems like a lot of planning to get the person you don’t like to live in a tent first.
There are ways.
None so far as I’m aware that are actually legal, mind. But why let that get in the way of one’s dastardly plans?
Possibly some type of incendiary device?
I was kind of thinking chemical. Unleash a pack of grumpy skunks and get them to spray everything.
Freakish, sure, but plausibly deniable.
I was thinking more they were on a trip somewhere.