MIT Scientists Propose 'Space Bubbles' to Deflect Solar Radiation, Ease Climate Change (popularmechanics.com) 86
Popular Science reports:
A raft of thin-film silicon bubbles deployed from Earth into outer space and stretching to the size of Brazil could potentially block the Sun's solar radiation from further warming Earth, possibly helping to not only stave off climate change, but potentially reverse it.
This new "space bubbles" plan offered by scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology rifts off a concept first offered by astronomer Roger Angel. The multidisciplinary team of architects, civil and mechanical engineers, physicists and material scientists have worked on the technical and social aspects of what the group calls a "planetary-scale project" in an effort to find a non-Earth-bound solution to climate change.
The MIT group believes that if the raft of bubbles can deflect 1.8 percent of incident solar radiation before it hits Earth, they can fully reverse today's global warming. Even if they can't establish a 1.8 percent shading, they trust a smaller percentage provides enough benefit to help mitigate global warming.
To make it happen, the group proposes deploying small, inflatable bubbles into outer space that they could then manufacture into a space raft the size of Brazil and suspend near the L1 Lagrangian Point, the location between the Earth and Sun where the gravitational influence of both bodies cancel out. The team does suggest having some sort of system to ensure the raft stays in place and that may provide the ability to move the bubbles closer to the Sun for optimal impact....
MIT cautions they don't view the project as a replacement to current adaption and mitigation efforts, but as a backup solution should climate change spin out of control...
They plan to investigate low vapor-pressure materials to rapidly inflate and assemble the rafts, whether with a silicon-based melt or a graphene-reinforced ionic liquid... The team also believes a bit of science fiction may help in finding "novel ways" of shipping the material to space, such as a magnetic accelerator, known as a railgun.
This new "space bubbles" plan offered by scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology rifts off a concept first offered by astronomer Roger Angel. The multidisciplinary team of architects, civil and mechanical engineers, physicists and material scientists have worked on the technical and social aspects of what the group calls a "planetary-scale project" in an effort to find a non-Earth-bound solution to climate change.
The MIT group believes that if the raft of bubbles can deflect 1.8 percent of incident solar radiation before it hits Earth, they can fully reverse today's global warming. Even if they can't establish a 1.8 percent shading, they trust a smaller percentage provides enough benefit to help mitigate global warming.
To make it happen, the group proposes deploying small, inflatable bubbles into outer space that they could then manufacture into a space raft the size of Brazil and suspend near the L1 Lagrangian Point, the location between the Earth and Sun where the gravitational influence of both bodies cancel out. The team does suggest having some sort of system to ensure the raft stays in place and that may provide the ability to move the bubbles closer to the Sun for optimal impact....
MIT cautions they don't view the project as a replacement to current adaption and mitigation efforts, but as a backup solution should climate change spin out of control...
They plan to investigate low vapor-pressure materials to rapidly inflate and assemble the rafts, whether with a silicon-based melt or a graphene-reinforced ionic liquid... The team also believes a bit of science fiction may help in finding "novel ways" of shipping the material to space, such as a magnetic accelerator, known as a railgun.
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The climate-change deniers are pretty much the dumbest and most arrogant idiots around, with zero understanding of what is actually going on. That Earth would be a frozen, lifeless rock without the sun is already outside of what they are able to understand, as this one just proved nicely.
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True, but I'd give the Flat-Earthers top spot on the podium
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True, but I'd give the Flat-Earthers top spot on the podium
You have a point.
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Most people are pretty stupid. Since the GP was smart enough to post anonymously though, they're probably not actually that stupid, but rather spouting propaganda designed to take advantage of people who are.
He suckered you, didn't he? (Score:2)
What for did you propagate the non-entity's null Subject? (And no, I didn't read the comment, though I did confirm it was an AC brain fart.)
On the actual story, the jokes I'm looking for are in the "what could possibly go wrong" genre.
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Giant umbrella (Score:1)
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I'd buy that for a dollar! [youtube.com]
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You seem to think liberals are your problem. Hasn't it ever occurred to you that rich people control things, and that maybe rich people are the problem, not some liberals sitting at home watching TV? What the hell is the beef that conservatives have against liberals? Are you just doing the Red Team/Blue Team its all just a big sports game thing? Why not have a show where you throw a rich person in the ring with a bunch of regular people who have been suffering from low wages, bad working conditions, no bene
Another sucker, eh? (Score:2)
Propagating troll Subjects profits you (or anyone) how?
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By putting out counter narratives that ring more true with readers.
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Okay, but I still think you should remember to change the troll's Subject. Don't you think some of them are motivated by seeing their spewage propagate deep into a discussion, even if the trollish "ideas" have been otherwise forgotten?
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I really think they are just spamming, for whatever reason each one of them has. Trying to yank chains and agitate people. So I just try and yank back in a way that is not obnoxious. It is likely that nothing will ever get through to the trolls, but ignoring them will not make them go away. No matter how much they are ignored here, they persist. So there may be no answer to the troll problem, but sometimes it feels better to say something.
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Have to strongly disagree with you on most of that. There is no monolithic or ideal image of a troll, but rather a bunch of loons, and some of them are clearly motivated by the attention they receive for their bad behaviors. Many of them need psychological help, but in the sense of "need" where they are not going to seek any help until it is rammed down their throats, perhaps because they have wound up in prison. I was hoping to get some insight into their motivations from the book We Are Anonymous by Par
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Been to a lot of websites in my life, and /. has more than its fair share of trolls and disruptive people. I do not think that it matters why each one has particular antisocial personality problems, because I don't think that helps with any solutions. But I never suggested that Trolls were monolithic, I realize that there are many hate cults out there, and they each have their particular favorite flavor of hate. I do think /. attracts more of them than I see at other sites that are not strictly political, s
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I didn't mean to indicate that "monolithic" trolls was your position, though this discussion had been using the tag in a monolithic way. Rather I was trying to indicate the complexity of the problem. A simple example within the scope of MEPR would be the dimension of politeness (with negative scores for rudeness). While I think a big negative score for politeness would be significant, and while I think many trolls would earn such scores, it isn't a reliable indicator, and I would even lower the weight for t
It's not a dupe, folks. It's Slashdot Reruns! (Score:5, Funny)
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Stuck in a time loop, it is.
I propose a better solution (Score:2)
Just fire them.
Seriously, what do they teach in Universities nowadays?!
I thought it couldn't be worst than the "Umbrella in space" suggestion, but they have improve a worst-idea-ever...
Is there not enough trash already flying around us that they want to throw even more and in large scale just to mess with telescopes and other telemetry tools?
I propose a better solution: just ban directly all coal + petroleum burning; force the replacement of all motors to electric and invest in nuclear energy centrals which
Go home grampa.... (Score:1)
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It is a dupe mate.
You are only making an idiot out of yourself by proving to us, you neither read the summary of this one, nor god forbid: the linked article.
However I'm not sure if it is forgivable that you did not read the summary of the previous post - aka the dupe, and neither the same linked article.
In other words: the suggestion of that article has nothing to do with your complaints ... sigh.
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I don't care if it's a dupe, that's the problem of the website.
You're the only one making an idiot and impolite entity by your reply.
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You're the only one making an idiot and impolite entity by your reply.
And you are so stupid that you still have not read the summary, or comprehended it, and think your previous post was somewhat "smart"?
Lol ....
WTF Scientists Propose 'Dupe Killer' to Eliminate (Score:5, Funny)
Slashdot Dupes and Reduce World Energy Usage, Ease Climate Change.
Think it will work?
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Dupes are Now Routine? (Score:3)
It has become common on Slashdot for a story to be posted twice, close together [slashdot.org]. Once, when the university press office puts out a media notice, and again when it gets published somewhere.
I guess the editors don't read Slashdot.
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It has become common on Slashdot for a story to be posted twice, close together [slashdot.org]. Once, when the university press office puts out a media notice, and again when it gets published somewhere.
I guess the editors don't read Slashdot.
I hearby propose we send up a raft of giant bubbles to deflect dupes from the firehouse.
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Let's all fight Global Duping!
They always were (Score:2)
Dupes have been routine on /. for longer than I've been posting.
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It's not such a bad idea to have a breaking story and another with followup. The second should link to the first though.
Global warming is quite bad (Score:1)
but if those swines at MIT try to ruin my summer holiday...
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... twice...
Sensible cities lab? (Score:2)
I've always wondered if this would create strange shadow patterns on the earth. I wonder if the bubbles let light through in a specific pattern. Or are these things far enough away for light to bend around it?
Isn't a fundamental downside of bubbles that they are material ineffecient? It's basically two layers, with the side parts it perpendicular to the sun, so not very effective. The sides of the bubbles might also bounce light towards their neighbours, not helping with heat management?
I always imagined a
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Wouldn't the most practical/cheapest solution be to seed clouds in order to reduce the amount of light that gets through? It also would have the knock on benefit of not causing mounds of space junk that would have to be cleaned up later.
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I've always wondered if this would create strange shadow patterns on the earth.
I don't know if we can, but "strange light patterns" are definitely what happen during an annular eclipse. If you get a chance, you should definitely go witness it.
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Bubbles are very easy structures to generate. You can make as many as you want out of a small loop of material and a bit of air pressure, and you get nice thin film walls. Beams and slats require a lot more material. You could potentially make a thin film sheet with holes, but then you have to make the sheet and cut the holes.
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NOPE - No shadows on earth. The L1 point is too far away. What it would do, in effect, is block a teeny tiny part of the Sun's disk. The light still flows around it, leaving no shadowing by the bubbles.
Basically it's just filtering 1-2% of the light, and heat, from the Sun. It is not directional, or manageable - just 1-2% less light everywhere, evenly across the globe.
IF this were proposing blocking sunlight from orbit around the Earth, you could tailor it somehow. But from the L1 point? No - just
Speaking of Brazil (Score:3, Interesting)
The plant life on Earth is dependent on the amount of sunlight that it gets now. Deflecting the sunlight would have far-reaching effects just as big as the greenhouse effect.
Speaking of Brazil: I have a better idea: Stop the deforestation in Brazil.
Put economic pressure on the country. Invade it, if necessary.
Replant that which has been lost. Have forest wardens that keep track of it, and to quench fires.
That would be less invasive on the global climate and cost less.
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Or do not force other countries to do things your own country failed or is not willing to achieve. Asks the US to stop drying the sough by subverting the Colorado river so the Las Vegas non-sens can continue to run fountains and water green lawns. Asks European countries to stop agriculture and shrink cities, so the wild forest can grow again like it was thousands years ago.
Why should Brazil be alone (pay all the economical cost) to support the preservation cost of Amazon (by not developing agriculture to f
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Invade it, if necessary.
Come and try.
Or better, why the fuck don't you reforest your own country? Where are the native forests of Europe and North America?
But come and try to invade. We will be waiting.
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Stop the deforestation in Brazil.
Deforestation happens down here because huge, greedy plantation or cattle owners want more money and in a commodities market more money means more produce, or because extremely poor people want food on their plate and some modern niceties on the side, and deforesting it the easiest, most direct way for them to do both things.
So the solution isn't that complex. All you need to do is pay them all, particularly the poorest folk, much more than they earn via deforestation, for the job of preserving the forest.
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"Invade a sovereign country to stop climate change" is one hell of a take.
Simpsons Did It (Score:3)
Granted it was only over the one town, but still.
MIT makes most of their money making weapons (Score:1)
They are a huge Defense Department crony. They are not some amazing college of engineers but a terrifying group of murderers.
Do not believe their space nonsense.
tech.mit.edu/V109/N7/glenn.07o.html
scienceandrevolution.org/blog/2018/11/13/if-youre-going-to-do-defense-research-you-should-do-it-as-well-as-you-can-at-mit-we-can-do-it-very-very-well-jerome-wiesner
The problem is radiation pressure... (Score:3)
Solar radiation pressure is not big but for so large structure it adds up...
Re:The problem is radiation pressure... (Score:5, Interesting)
That's not the only problem. It would cool the equatorial are more than the poles, but the poles have been warming faster. This means a decrease in the temperature variation. That means the jet stream would slow even more than it has been doing. It would SERIOUSLY disrupt weather patterns, even compared to the way they've already been disrupted. One might expect heat waves to last for months. Both droughts and flooding would get even worse than under the current projections. There's probably lots of other effects, but the analysis I read a few years ago was very general. (E.g., that analysis didn't consider ocean currents.)
OTOH, it would decrease the maximum warming. And it would slow the AVERAGE OVER THE SURFACE OF THE EARTH temperature rise. But people, plants, and animals don't depend on a global average, they depend on local variation. The two aren't in a simple relationship.
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You have to weight the disruption this plan would cause against the disruption that climate change will cause.
Well, I suppose you have to consider the political consequences. Getting everyone to agree to this, especially the big losers who will bare the most cost, is going to be hard.
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IIUC, the big losers will be those in the temperate zones, between the tropics and the arctics. Those in the tropics will benefit most from the lower temperatures. Those in the the artic/antarctic areas won't be affected as much.
So I could see Nepal or Ecuador pushing for it, but that doesn't strike me as a really powerful group. Saudi Arabia might be for it. Even India and China would probably lose more than they would gain. (One to the North and the other to the South.)
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I'd guess since they're putting it at L1, and the article mentions "putting it closer to the sun for optimal impact," that they'd place it back slightly from L1 where the sun's gravity could balance the radiation pressure. Done right, the station-keeping wouldn't cost much more fuel than at standard L1, with the caveat that fluctuations in the sun's output would need to be compensated for.
Highlander 2 Sky Shield (Score:2)
mr burns nuclear power plant will pay for it! (Score:2)
mr burns nuclear power plant will pay for it!
Your problem (Score:3)
And now, your cynical thought for the day:
Politicians: That's cool and all, but how does this aid us in getting in the way of business, to get paid to get back out of the way. It was such a ready-made excuse!
The Law of Unintended Consequences (Score:3, Insightful)
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Free snow cones for everybody!
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Spnning Out of Control (Score:1)
So right now?
Europe is currently recording record temperatures, droughts in the US are getting worse every year, we now have tens of millions of people displaced by disasters related to climate change every year. At the same time, we're unable to make meaningful policy changes to even slow down climate change. It has already spun out of control.
What exactly are we waiting for?
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Offset (Score:2)
So bubble wrap in space? (Score:2)
Should be great for finally finding aliens. Everyone knows popping bubble wrap is irresistible.
Unobtanium (Score:2)
A quick, back-of-the-envelope calculation shows that this plan is currently unworkable.
Brazil covers 8.5 million square kilometers; that's 8.5 x 10^12 square metres. Assuming that a "small bubble" is a 10 metre diameter sphere, it would occlude 31.4 square metres. So, to occlude 8.5 million square kilometers, they would need 2.7 x 10^11 10-metre-diameter bubbles to create a "Brazil-sized raft".
Since these bubbles don't already exist (there's no stockpile or warehouse full of them), we need to manufacture th
Snowpiercer (Score:1)
I think this is how they did it in snowpiercer
What do the other 204 countries say? (Score:2)
Asking for a friend.
Plan B (Score:2)
As a plan B, this is creative and do-able. The real issues will arise when nations differ on who gets what kind of climate adjustments. Those at higher latitudes might think warming is a benefit while lower latitudes are baking, etc.
What could possibly go wrong? (Score:2)
Obligatory joke, but not in the so-called discussion.
On the story, the problem is the butterfly effect. Can't model weather accurately enough to risk poking at it. Especially on a large scale.
space bubbles (Score:2)
I'm pretty sure someone had an epiphany for this one. Someone saw 'space bubbles' going through their bong and had an a-ha moment.