Very significant total shear force can be suffered by the bottom-most and top-most sections, especially at the lower connection of the bottom-most section and at the upper connection of the top-most section. Reinforcements should therefore be incorporated. It should be noted that the umbilical must transfix each balloon wing section, just ahead of the 25%-chord point (aerodynamic center, which is measured back from the leading edge) for the weathervane stability of the respective sections. At 80000 ft., from example of [31, 32] the same ratios would indicate that unit #160's 17400 lb. gross vertical balloon-lift should be capable of being handled by a (non- aerodynamic) circular-cylindrical balloon (enveloping the umbilical) which is 500 ft. long with a diameter of 320 ft. Thus under given circumstances, the umbilical or "Beanstalk" would be easily self- supporting over its entire length, and the full 3.34 x 10$ lb. net "solar cell sea"-supporting buoyancy at 80,000 ft. can be used for power conditioning equipment, i.e., rotary converters, transformers and electronic rectifiers [33, 34], Plane mirror sunlight reflector in GEO efficiency is too low The sun subtends an angle of about 1 min. at Earth.. Thus, setting a mere plane minor (surface) reflector at 22,250 miles altitude, would result in a reflected 6.47-mile- diameter sun-image centered on the 1-mile-diameter "solar cell sea" below. Such an arrangement would waste some 97.6% of the solar power beamed (incoherently) down. Bootstrapping by "seed" satellite: potential payoff A large return on investment is predicted based on launching the "seed" satellite of an exponentially self-grown, 22-mile-diameter-collector/1936-ft.-diameter-diffiraction- limited-primary, synchronous-orbiting MACROLASER [21 op.cit. p 1465], Logically this system should extend its applications to include a rapid-transit cislunar-propulsion powersupply, rapid-transit trans-Martian propulsion power supply, and as well application to one-gravity propulsion to all other near planets, including Jupiter and her moons and the asteroids. Beanstalks supply cheap power The power delivered by the given 1-mile-diameter, 43%-efficient, "solar cell sea" when the latter is irradiated with 5 times the ambient insolation at earth distance (from sun) will be some 1.36 x 10^ Watts [20], Such systems could be easily replicated and selffinanced, to supply a vast excess of cheap electrical power to the entire planet. Choosing an umbilical (dual) copper rod of 1.5 inch diameter, results in 0.3918 ohm total resistance over its 16-mile length [34, op. cit., pg. 20], Using high-capacity electronic rectifiers, oscillators and rotary converters [33, 34, op.cit.], the proposed technique would first step-up the solar-cell-sea output voltage to 500,000 V with balloon-borne transformers, and then with more balloon-borne equipment, rectify it to direct current. Appreciable operating economies are expected from de transmission systems for large loads over short distances.
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