Dyson Sphere
Capturing a Star’s Energy
“moon space station building – dyson-sphere” by DJANDYW.COM is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0
If I was to ask you how people would get energy in 500 years, you might say something like a modified form of fusion, or nuclear energy, or maybe you would say that humans would have invented something brand new. If you said they would invent something new I think you would be partially correct. Because, humans have already started to develop theories on how to harness the sun in the most efficient way that we can think of. This is called the Dyson Sphere.
There are many types of Dyson Sphere, but the basic concept is surrounding a star in some sort of Mega structure to collect the sun’s energy. The idea to use the Sun as the primary source of energy for a multiplanetary species, can be traced as far back as the 1930s. But in 1960 a paper written by Freeman Dyson would materialize the idea of making a single Mega structure that would encapsulate the entire Sun.
There are three main designs for the Dyson Sphere which all have their pros and cons. The first one of these is one solid sphere that would entirely encapsulate the Sun, or any Star it was built around. This would be the most efficient way we could build a Dyson Sphere. This type of Dyson Sphere could potentially be the last resting place of a species as the universe comes to an end all around them. This type of Dyson Sphere would be the most brittle because if a single asteroid hit the Dyson Sphere it could rupture a hole in the Dyson Sphere which could trigger a chain reaction that would destroy the entire Dyson Sphere, collapsing it into the sun. The easiest way to fix this problem would be to try to redirect the asteroid before it hits. Or to make a full-on invisible shield with the immense power needed to keep the shield up could come from the Dyson Sphere itself.
The second type of Dyson Sphere is a little bit more realistic as it takes less resources and would be faster to build. This type of Dyson Sphere would be made up of several different rings. Every single one of these Rings would be easily movable in case of an oncoming asteroid or other threat. This type of Dyson Sphere would still take a ton of resources but would be a lot more manageable and easier to defend. On the inner edge of these Rings there would be reflectors, which word reflects the energy from the Sun to a collection Point somewhere on the ring.(each ring would have between 5 or more collection stations)
The third and final way to build a Dyson Sphere is the most realistic as it cost the least resources and the least amount of energy to build. this kind of Dyson Sphere would be made up of millions of mirrors stretching about one square kilometer minimum. Each one of these mirrors would be angled so it would reflect the energy from the Sun to a collection station. These collection stations could fill up special ships that would be carrying batteries battery ships would be like oil tankers in space. or maybe we could figure out some sort of faster way to transport energy from the Sun to colonies around the solar system.
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