Is the artificial moon really useful?

Once, I saw the bright moon emitting soft light and smiling kindly like a mother.

In a blue sunken star sea, the moon hangs quietly on it, so elegant and quiet. I stared at him intently. The moon seemed ashamed, blushed and quietly hid behind the clouds. The little star blinked as if looking for the moon. It was a long time before the moon showed half its head. When he found that the ground was very quiet, he dared to run out and hang quietly in Xinghai.

A few minutes later, the moon seemed to be bitten by something and turned into a golden boat.

That night, I had a sweet dream: I was sitting on that boat, rippling among the stars. ...

Earlier, we talked about the Earth-Moon Space Economic Zone. It stands to reason that the Earth-Moon Space Economic Zone has a lot of imagination and a feasible operation plan because it involves national interests and long-term planning. Although this news is very exciting, it can't attract public attention again with another thing related to the moon in the near future:

China boarded the "artificial moon" and illuminated the Chengdu area for the first time.

Compared with the Earth-Moon Space Economic Zone, the artificial moon is obviously more exciting and imaginative. Moreover, this idea of focusing on space has frequently appeared in newspapers in recent years. Why does Musk use satellites to talk about WiFi coverage around the world? Japan wants to build a space elevator to the moon, which seems to imply that the earth can hardly accommodate the feeling of expanding human beings.

Moreover, because the protagonist is China, many people have some unknown so when some marketing figures are rhythmic, and a sense of national pride arises spontaneously.

But can the artificial moon really shine for a long time as reported, saving1200 million electricity bills a year? Does it have a lesson? What is the possibility of this "artificial moon" going to heaven?

Next, let's take a look.

The Russians have completed the artificial moon.

Regarding the artificial moon, China (in fact, the author searched the whole network, and didn't find any official news about the artificial moon. The most authoritative news is probably a science and technology daily published by Xinhuanet last year. Others are mostly foreign media and some rhythmic marketing numbers. To illustrate the need, let's just say that the plan is serious.

As early as 1993, Russia made its own artificial moon plan. Russia's artificial moon program, also known as the "flag program", is divided into three steps, the first of which is called the "space mirror" program.

To put it simply, a cargo ship is used to leave the space station after completing the cargo mission, and a thin film mirror with a diameter of 20 meters is spread above itself to reflect the sunlight to the ground. The light intensity it forms is about the same as that of a full moon. Practice has proved that the flag project 1.0 is indeed successful, and the Russian mainland has ushered in the first artificial light from space in human history.

If nothing else, Russia is worthy of being a fighting nation because it has the courage to change the world.

After the successful implementation of the first step, Russia started the second step of Flag Plan 2.0 at 1999, increasing the mirror diameter to 2.5 meters, trying to increase the brightness to 5-7 times that of the full moon, and the illumination diameter to 7 kilometers. Unfortunately, due to being entangled in the antenna of Mir space station, the membrane mirror was finally torn, and this attempt ended in failure.

Due to the huge cost of artificial moon, Russia is also facing the realistic dilemma of economic depression, and the flag plan is also declared bankrupt. It seems that the plan was caused by an accident. In fact, any accident in the sky is not accidental. What is hidden behind is the shortcomings of technology and the lack of national strength. Since then, no country has put forward a similar plan for more than ten years, until a news in Science and Technology Daily linked it with China last year.

According to reports, the artificial moon project in China aims to illuminate the whole Chengdu on a 500-kilometer track, and its main purpose is to save electricity for Chengdu, with an annual output value of 65.438+0.2 billion yuan. According to Science and Technology Daily, Wu, director of the Tianfu New District System Science Research Association, said that the artificial moon in China also increases the light on the ground by reflecting sunlight, similar to the principle of Russian thin film mirror. The difference is that China's artificial moon is actually "an artificial space lighting satellite with a large space reflector". Due to the different materials, it can easily achieve 8 times the brightness of moonlight. And there are three satellites planned to be launched in 2022, and three satellites are alternately illuminated, which can achieve 24-hour coverage in an area of 3,600 to 6,400 square kilometers.

If you only look at the effect, the artificial moon is quite attractive. Whether it is feasible or not, let's put it on hold and think about such a question:

Why are the two superpowers so fond of artificial moons?