"Michael McCollum - Gibraltar earth" - читать интересную книгу автора (McCollum Michael)

PoleStar had begun life toward the end of the last century as a power satellite. A giant orbiting mirror, it
had focused sunlight on a generator to produce electricity. The electricity, in turn, had been transformed
into microwaves and beamed down to a rectenna on the ground, where it was reconverted and
distributed on the power grid. The project had produced a considerable number of kilowatt-hours, but
never any profits. After a decade of losing money, the SolSat One Corporation had filed for bankruptcy.

The power generators, habitat, and orbiting mirror had been moved out of geosynchronous orbit to free
up the valuable parking slot they occupied. Years later, the big mirror and its accompanying habitat had
been purchased by speculators who planned to change the orbit of the satellite. They reasoned that if
they could place the mirror into a highly elliptical polar orbit, with its apogee above the North Pole, they
would be able to provide several hours of illumination each day through the long northern winter.

On paper, at least, the scheme had appeared a sure moneymaker. Unfortunately, the new owners had
grossly underestimated the cost of changing the big powersatтАЩs orbital plane from equatorial orientation to
polar. They had also failed to foresee the problems associated with municipalities and other regional
administrations signing up for their service. Since the mirror, renamed PoleStar, cast its light on subscriber
and non-subscriber alike, people had little incentive to pay for the six hours of half-light they received
each day. Eventually, PoleStar had gone bankrupt and was taken over by the weather directorate to be
run as a public service.

тАЬI see it,тАЭ Lisa said as she gazed at the faintly luminous patch in the sky.

тАЬThatтАЩs the big mirror,тАЭ Pavel replied. тАЬNaturally, the habitat module is still too small to see at this range.тАЭ

тАЬBut why isnтАЩt it glowing like at home?тАЭ

тАЬBecause we arenтАЩt in the sunbeam. All we see reflecting back to us from the mirror is the blackness of
space. A mirror in space is practically invisible.тАЭ

тАЬI believe it.тАЭ

Fifteen minutes later, they passed into the beam of light that was currently illuminating the Alaskan night.
The transition was dramatic. One moment there was nothing to see. The next, a second sun appeared in
the sky in front of them. This one, too, was a glowing yellow billiard ball, but with a difference. The
second sun was too bright to look at directly, but as Lisa observed it with peripheral vision, she had the
impression that it changed shape as it slowly drifted across the surface of the orbiting mirror.

She asked Pavel about it. He explained that the mirror was a sheet of thin reflective film stretched out
across a framework of gossamer braces nearly a hundred kilometers in diameter. It was the largest (and
most fragile) artifact humanity had ever constructed. When it had been an orbiting power station, the
mirror had been much more concave than at present, in order to concentrate the heat of the sun on a
collector satellite. The current shape was nearly flat; curved just enough to ensure that the light beam was
focused on whatever area of the Earth they were illuminating.

Beyond the reflective sheet of the mirror was the tiny spherical habitat module. They watched it grow
slowly larger as the second sun continued to keep pace with them. By the time they crossed out of the
beam, the habitat had grown a bulge on one side. It took several minutes before the bulge resolved itself
into a second globe half the size of the habitat.