Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!cca!mirror!prism!billc
From: billc@prism.UUCP
Newsgroups: sci.crypt
Subject: Re: satellites
Message-ID: <201000010@prism>
Date: 15 Jan 88 17:23:00 GMT
References: <873@uop.edu>
Lines: 13
Nf-ID: #R:uop.edu:-87300:prism:201000010:000:701
Nf-From: prism.UUCP!billc    Jan 15 12:23:00 1988


> Yes, but those mirrors will have to be positioned to accuracies of a
> fraction of a wavelength. That's easily done at radio frequencies, but
> optical frequencies are a different story. I'm not saying it can never
> be done, only that it's well beyond our capabilities at present to do it
> on spacecraft. Not to say that there probably isn't a few billion buried
> somewhere in NRO's black budget for R&D into this sort of thing. (Can
> you say 'Welfare for Engineers?' Good! I knew you could!") :-)

	Actually, this sort of thing *is* being done, at least on land
	based systems.  The mirrors are
	not postioned once and for all at assembly, but are dynamically
	focussed under computer control.