Chapter 641 - 625: The Mirror

The security house of test site No. 2 is a full 3.5 kilometers away. The construction crew built a service road for access, and Yang Zhongkai could see the snow piled up on both sides from his seat in the car.

"To ensure commuting is possible, we have a snowplow come every day to clear the snow, but soon we won’t need to do this anymore.

Did you know, our first experimental satellite, Red Crow No. 1, had an integrated conversion efficiency of only 84%, meaning one-sixth of the energy was lost, and even with several tests afterward, we couldn’t break through 86%."

Perhaps because he had spent too long in such a desolate place, Ding Biyun was quite talkative at the moment:

"Later, we confirmed that the problem was due to the receiving antenna being too small and the microwave beams transmitted by the satellite not being focused enough. The first problem was easily solved; we constructed the larger and more efficient test site No. 2, which increased the maximum power reception capacity by several tens of times!

As for the second issue, we originally thought about resolving it later, but Xinyuan Company took the trouble off our hands; they took over the construction of the transmitter, and the performance increased by more than tenfold."

At this point, Ding Biyun lowered his voice and spoke with a hint of mystery:

"I feel like they already had such products, and based on the precision, they should have been for more focused lasers, most likely the technology for ultra-long-distance laser communication—we directly benefited from their existing technology.

If this experiment is also completely successful, the future applications are unimaginable!"

Yang Zhongkai, "Like what?"

Ding Biyun, "Do you know how the microwave oven was invented? There was once a radar operator who discovered the chocolate in his pocket had melted, and this made people realize microwaves could be used to heat objects evenly.

But electromagnetic waves scatter too much; that’s why we have to confine them in a metal box to focus the energy. However, Chiwu No. 3 now transmits power up to 2.3 megawatts. Although the range of focus is much larger than that of a microwave oven, this power... it’s enough to have a significant effect on the human body.

Of course, it’s not just about heating. Microwaves are electromagnetic waves, and such a strong electromagnetic environment can cause unpredictable disturbances in the body’s organs and nerves. That is the true invisible, destructive weapon that kills without a trace.

Didn’t you say you wanted to study that... Star Wars thing? Microwaves attenuate even less in space; you could use them to fry an enemy’s spacecraft just as effectively."

"..."

Yang Zhongkai couldn’t imagine what kind of disorder the body would experience due to electromagnetic waves, but thinking about it with his own knowledge, the prospect of being locked in a microwave oven was terrifying enough.

"So you’re saying you’re actually researching weapons too? To be precise, a solar satellite could also kill?"

"No, no, no, of course, we still aim for its peaceful uses, and we’ve also recently discovered some other potential applications."

Ding Biyun certainly had no interest in cooking humans alive; that sounded even more terrifying than a nuclear explosion, which at least usually brought a quick end.

"The solar cell component of the current Chiwu No. 3 accounts for only 13 tons of its mass, while the remaining 6 tons are allotted to cooling systems, microwave transmitters, and the control unit. Although the non-power-providing parts occupy a smaller proportion of weight as the design gets larger, it’s still not negligible, so we have begun researching another type of more advanced, flexible solar panel."

"Flexible?"

"Yes, right now our solar panels are made of rigid panels pieced together. The primary section of the first operational 160-megawatt power station is an enormous rectangle made of solar cells, and the rest is primarily the transmission antenna.

But let’s switch our thinking, forget about the microwave transmitter, and make the solar cell array round, and to a certain extent bendable and deformable. This way, its back could be covered with another type of material. When coiled, the front is the power-generating part, and the back is the transmitter, which is not only simple and lightweight but also easily controls the focus range because larger areas make heat dissipation easier to solve.

"And think about it, at this time, what does it resemble?"

"It’s like... a mirror."

"Exactly, a mirror that is opaque on one side and can reflect light on the other side. It can not only focus microwaves but also light. Although it is not as effective as a real mirror, the light reflected from such a large area is still substantial.

Do you remember the artificial moon that Rong City envisioned before? This ’mirror’ could serve a similar purpose."

Yang Zhongkai imagined a mirror in geostationary orbit that was blue-black on one side and silver on the other and could curl up; it could bring both electricity and light.

He also remembered what Ding Biyun had just mentioned about the focusing effect; such a large mirror could focus light so intensely that it would probably be capable of igniting the ground on its own, and only a name like ’Rod of God’ would be fitting for it.

His thoughts already wandering, he even began to fantasize about more uses:

"Right now, we are converting focused microwaves into electricity here, but could we not focus them, or expand the focusing radius to cover an entire city? That way, people might not even need to use batteries anymore; mobile phones could be charged at any time, and electric cars wouldn’t have to worry about their range..."

"Teacher Yang, based on what you’ve said, we’d first have to consider interference issues. The chaos caused by a high-intensity electromagnetic environment covering such a wide area will probably be even greater," Ding Biyun didn’t tease him.

"Uh..." Yang Zhongkai felt somewhat embarrassed, but Ding Biyun didn’t mean to ridicule him.

"However, this is beyond current technology. Maybe one day in the future, it will become a reality. In fact, even the ’mirror’ I talked about would require at least the fourth, fifth, or even more generations of solar cells to achieve, and the current cost of manufacturing them is astronomically high and unaffordable.

But we should all believe that we will definitely see that ideal day within our lifetime."

During the conversation, the car had already reached the safe house, which looked pretty much like a normal temporary building, except that the walls and roof were covered with a shiny material that also looked very much like aluminum foil.

Blocking microwaves wasn’t difficult; simply covering a layer of reflective material could solve the issue. In addition to the outer layer of paneling, the safe house was also filled with similar materials inside, basically ensuring that the people inside were not affected. The only problem was that it almost entirely blocked signal transmission.

After Yang Zhongkai arrived, he had no chance to interject again, only watching others bustling about until he heard someone say "It’s here" in the evening.

He knew that focusing and positioning the microwaves required a process. The 10 kilometers around Test Base No. 2 were designated as a caution area where large amounts of microwaves could converge.

When the transmission began, he didn’t notice anything unusual. About a minute later, he saw the snow on the road outside the window start to melt and quickly spread, turning the white snow into rippling water and then rapidly evaporating to reveal the soil beneath.

At the same time, the same thing was happening in the forest outside. The snow clinging to branches and needles melted even faster. The vast snow forest was transforming in color from white to a mix of deep green and brown as swiftly as if it were fading, and if one ignored the still-thick snow on the ground, it looked more like a scene from spring or autumn.

The vast forest underwent a temporal split, with the trees’ season starkly mismatched with the ground, creating a strong sense of dissonance.

But what Ding Biyun was more concerned about was the fluctuation of the power received by the antenna array. It was soaring with the focusing of Chiwu No. 3, breaking through 1 megawatt.