"Space And Katrina"
"Space And Katrina"was an essay Gray wrote that was published on The Ornery American web site on September 16, 2005.
The essay speculates on how hypothetical future space systems might help areas recover after disasters like hurricane Katrina. We already have weather satellites, navigation satellites, and communication satellites, all of which have been useful in this and other emergencies, so it seemed interesting to consider other possibilities.
One major reason the storm was recognized so early and could be monitored so closely as it tracked across Florida, into the Gulf, and into its final landfall is the availability of detailed weather satellite data. Combined with data collected by sensor-equipped buoys and incredibly brave "Hurricane Hunter" C-130 aircrews, satellites provided the warning Gulf Coast residents received about the size and strength of the storm.
With the caveat that these applications would require great technological leaps, and might even prove unworkable, we speculated on ...
Space Power. Years ago we saw proposals for football-field-sized orbital solar arrays that would produce electrical power and beam it down to Earth-based receivers in the form of microwaves. What if we had one or two such arrays in place today? If sufficient relays were in place, their output could be diverted onto emergency receivers along the Gulf Coast, providing direct power for hospitals and shelters, the all-important flood-control pumps, and even for key industries.
Nighttime Evaporation? Given that orbiting power satellites would beam their power down in microwave form, if enough excess was available it could be directed not at receivers but at the water itself. Officials have estimated that it will take weeks for the water in New Orleans to recede. Pumps will do most of the work, once they all come back on (see above), and daylight evaporation will remove some water. But consider if enough high-power microwaves were available to vaporize some of the water every night. The overall impact might be minimal, but the idea brings up another interesting possibility ...
Hurricane Steering? If high-power microwaves, able to evaporate significant amounts of water, could be beamed down from space, what if they were beamed into the path of a hurricane? Would they be sufficient to change its track? Or, if they were beamed into the eye wall of the storm, would they vaporize enough water to reduce the strength of the storm? It seems the process might affect the winds and perhaps raise the barometric pressure near the center of the storm, and could potentially reduce, say, a Category 4 storm into a Category 3.
Like so many things, all of this may end up nothing more than idle speculation ... or, if we're lucky, as fodder for a speculative fiction story. But if it provoked a thought, it was worthwhile. (Plus, it may be the only time you ever see Greg Volz [of Petra] and Robert Plant [of Led Zeppelin] mentioned in the same sentence.)
Read the complete essay here.