2026-04-19 19:56 UTC
> Yeah I’m sure that’ll be about as efficient as Elon Musk’s approach to designing the Starship+HeavyBooster.
Compared to microwave energy transmission which has even worse efficiency.
> Ok now do that with aircraft, at 15k feet, going 600 mph.
This is about drones. At 5 km distance and close to mach 1 you can absolutely forget any microwave based charging systems.
Replies (1)
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@sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2026-04-20 01:52
You are aware that we've been shooting drones out the sky with lasers for about a decade now, right? Not too long ago DHS/CBP freaked out over some balloons in Texas, thought they were cartel drones, shut down the airspace, burned them outta the sky with truck mounted lasers. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/military/us-military-used-laser-take-border-protection-drone-lawmakers-say-rcna260887 JPL got 80% microwave power transmission efficiency at ~1.5 km, 8 years ago. Granted, that was a fixed land point to fixed land point test, but also, it was 8 years ago. I'll take 50% efficiency loss over 10% chance of 'everything explodes and crashes' any day.