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Originally Posted by Kal
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I know Japan is thinking of doing something along these lines as well.
How will it effect us astronomers if we have satellites that are more than a kilometer wide up above us? 
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They weren't thinking of astronomers (or anyone else, for that matter) when they proposed this. Not being able to see the stars will be the least of their worries if this thing goes up. What if the satellite strays out of alignment a bit...remember, they're going to beam the power down via microwave link. Tens of thousands of gigawatts of electrical energy coming down what will essentially be a microwave laser beam....hmmmm
Normally, the microwave (or in this case radio) link would attenuate over a large area after beaming into the atmosphere, but in order to be able to carry the current efficiently, they will have to focus the beam very tightly and precisely, so as to lose as little energy as possible...otherwise it'd be useless trying to beam the energy down as it would leak away. Quite frankly, I don't think they've thought through the engineering and science side of this project well enough to be proposing anything like this, yet.