Aphs.226 net.space utcsrgv!utzoo!decvax!duke!phs!dennis Wed Feb 10 09:28:38 1982 Re: watmath.1678: Mooning Around A synchronous powersat would NOT be in earth's shadow half the time; it's much less than that. The shadow goes directly away from the sun, not outwards at the terminator. Planar platforms wouldn't tend to tumble; they would tend to align the long axis toward the planet; some sort of stabilizing thruster would be needed. A better thing than putting two power stations on the Moon is putting three at 120 degree intervals. That way somebody always has a good angle on the sunlight. If the moon were exactly in the ecliptic, there would be a lunar eclipse every full moon. It's pretty far off, but my books are far, far away and I can't give the right number. ----------------------------------------------------------------- gopher://quux.org/ conversion by John Goerzen of http://communication.ucsd.edu/A-News/ This Usenet Oldnews Archive article may be copied and distributed freely, provided: 1. There is no money collected for the text(s) of the articles. 2. The following notice remains appended to each copy: The Usenet Oldnews Archive: Compilation Copyright (C) 1981, 1996 Bruce Jones, Henry Spencer, David Wiseman.