This is an engineering question regarding the construction of a Dyson Swarm without destroying planets like Mercury.
In case you didn't know what a Dyson Swarm is, it is a large array of solar-panels that encompasses, and orbits the Sun. These solar panels absorb sunlight and convert it to electrical energy which can be beamed in the form of microwaves, to potential planetary colonies/bases for electricity and energy usage.
Let's assume that humans decided to build a Dyson Swarm around the Sun. Let's assume that each orbiting solar panel was a square with a side of 1km each, and the solar panels have an average spacing of 5,000km each. Let's assume that the solar panels are made as thin as possible (>3 microns) without affecting their performance.
Let's also assume that the solar panels are orbiting the sun at a close distance, say 8,000,000km from the solar surface, in a narrow vertical strip on the solar equator, so that the average terrestrial insolation doesn't get affected and doesn't cause any weird climate effects.
If we managed to disregard physical problems like solar flares, CMEs, etc. or financial problems like the colossal costs involved, could modern humanity construct a Dyson Swarm with the mass of a relatively small asteroid like 16 Psyche, or would it require a much more significant amount of material?
In short, how much material would be needed by humanity to construct a Dyson Swarm that was at a close distance to the Sun in terms of metric kilograms?
EDIT: I think some people are conflating a Dyson Swarm with a Dyson Sphere, which are totally different things. A Dyson Sphere is a solid mass of material orbiting the Sun, whereas a Dyson Swarm is a cluster of satellites orbiting the Sun, which requires significantly lesser amounts of material for construction.
How much material would be needed to build a Dyson Swarm close to the Sun?
byu/HeliosArcturus inFuturology
12 Comments
It sounds like you already have the inputs for the equation that will spit out your answer, you just need to decide how thin you’re assuming ‘as thin as possible’ is for one of your solar satellites and you’re good to go, no?
if you think about it from a mass distribution perspective. 99% of the mass of the solar system is concentrated in the sun. So doesn’t it make more sense to star lift material from the sun’s surface and cool it rather than trying to scavenge material from the 1% and transport vast distance to the sun.
Probably easier to lower a solar probe with cooling circuit to star lift the sun material and construct it the dyson swarm right there.
Set aside the fact of getting the materials there. Scientifically we don’t have enough resources on earth to build a significant Dyson swarm. We would need to harvest our solar system in a grand way. We probably need to harvest all the asteroids in the asteroids belt aside from the most of the planets.
This is a NASA-sponsored podcast that’s a couple months old:
[https://www.shoshinworks.com/podcast-episodes/beyond-conventional-physics-extended-electrodynamics-lattice-confinement-fusion-zero-point-energy-advanced-propulsion](https://www.shoshinworks.com/podcast-episodes/beyond-conventional-physics-extended-electrodynamics-lattice-confinement-fusion-zero-point-energy-advanced-propulsion)
Maybe you have your own reasons to calculate this…. But as a tangent, I don’t think we need to be thinking about Dyson spheres if we are able to understand & harness ZPE…
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>Dr. Hal Puthoff – EarthTech International
>Larry Forsley – Global Energy Corporation
>Phillip Lentz – UnSpace
>Richard Banduric – Field Propulsion Technologies
>Ankur Bhatt – Hoverr Inc.
>Dr. Louis DeChiaro – **US Navy Surface Warfare Center, Indian Head**
>Dr. Chance Glenn – Morningbird Space
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>Rima Oueid – **US Department of Energy**
We need to know how thick you want the dyson sphere. To calculate the mass of the sphere, we need two r. The outer radius (r1) and inner radius (r2). The volume of a sphere is V = pi * 4/3 * r^3. The volume of the Dyson sphere is just the outer minus the inner sphere which is V = pi * 4/3 * (r1^3 – r2^3). Your r1 is 8 000 000 000 m = 8 * 10^9m. The r2 is r1 – thickness. For the mass you need to know the density of the material you’re using. Then just do mass = volume * density and you got your mass.
If you don’t put them into earth orbit or beyond they will sooner or later cover the sunlight from us. Not a good idea.
To start the surface area of a shell around the sun would be 9.51×10¹⁴ given the radius of the sun of 700,000km plus the distance from the surface of 8,000,000km. Now each panel with the spacing is like a panel of 2500km square (or total of 5k km spacing between each panel) so that gives us about 152,160,000 panels. The average thickness of a solar panel is 30 to 50mm. Let’s assume they will be thinner. So the volume of one is 0.00003 km³. That gives us a total volume of 4,500 km³
I feel like I did something wrong because that number seems way too small. I doubt the panels can be that thin. We still don’t know the average density or the volume and density of any propulsion.
Edit: messed up by a factor of 10 on the volume. 30mm not 3
For anyone interested in Dyson Swarms (or large scale futurology) should check out [Futurism with Isaac Arthur](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlmKejRSVd8&list=PLIIOUpOge0LtW77TNvgrWWu5OC3EOwqxQ). A fantastic channel for anyone curious.
Around the sun? We’d probably need a good chunk of the asteroid belt to build something of that magnitude.
Maybe more, likely more actually.
About 1/300th the massof mercury.
Asteroids will do. Assuming 1mm thick panels.
I’m sure there are plenty of videos or articles that explain we’d need more material than our planet could provide so we’d have to harvest from space then build the parts and send them off. Also Im just a YouTube scholar that has learned everything from ai generated videos, so it’s better for someone with more knowledge to chime in.
One note to make this way more feasible: drop the solar panel and microwave transmission.
Just make them mirrors and put a single bank of solar panels and transmitters somewhere else. A mirror is easy simpler to build and maintain, and could potentially just be a sheet of mylar pulled taut.
If you can point the focal point at the solar panels, you’ve built yourself a very concentrated beam of light aimed at a single solar farm. That converts it into electricity that can be beamed to rectennas around the system.
You can even go one step further if you can control them into a phased array laser and make a Nicoll-Dyson beam, which is the easy mode for slower than light interstellar travel.