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Reflect Orbital Sunlight On Demand
Although I admire ingenuity, this does not strike me as a good idea. However, German physicist Hermann Oberth thought about it in 1923.
Science fiction authors also loved this idea; like the orbital mirrors from "Completely Automatic" (1941) by Theodore Sturgeon:
— Bill Christensen (@Technovelgy) June 16, 2026
"I don't have to tell you about the seven two-mile-diameter orbital mirrors that circulate around the satellite, making it habitable."…
Imagine the endless possibilities when sunlight is not limited by geography or time of day.A search-and-rescue team locates a missing person in minutes. A city has safer, evenly-lit streets without the carbon emissions. Construction projects complete in half the time with teams able to work through the night safely.
Theodore Sturgeon made some early use of the idea of orbital mirrors in Completely Automatic, by Theodore Sturgeon, published by Astounding Science-Fiction in 1941.
That ship was quite something. There may be a few of them left - bulky old KH-type ore carriers. The series has been discontinued now, but it seems to me I saw one or two of them on the inter-asteroid runs a few years ago. Her capacity was something like two hundred thousand tons net and she was loaded to the ceil-plates with granular magnesium and sodium for the Sun mirrors of Titan. I don't have to tell you about the seven two-mile-diameter orbital mirrors that circulate around the satellite, making it habitable. You may not know, though, that the girders are all solid mag, because great rigidity isn't needed out there, and mag is cheap. The mirrors are silvered with sodium, which is bright and easy to handle. They have a patrol for each of the mirrors, which patches up meteorite punctures when they occur, squirting liquid sodium around the holes until they fill, then shaving them down with N rays. Well, we were bringing them their stock in trade, and it was interesting cargo to handle.
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