[Spaceships] Query: Area of a Solar Panel Array

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by DaltonS

Okay, lets go with that. My SM+11 Martian “Gas” Station has three Solar Panel Arrays (one won't cut it at 1.5 AU) which have an SM+14 targeting modifier. That corresponds with a 1,500 foot length. Squaring that and multiplying by 3/2 gets me 3,375,000 square feet or 77.47934 acres. Wow, talk about a solar farm![/I] Spence[/SIZE][/FONT][/RIGHT]

Hm. Compare to Topaz solar farm at 3,500 acres. Actually, that's not an unreasonable size for your gas station, 3,500 acres is 14 million square meters, and 3 x SM+11 power plant should be on the order of 9 gigawatts (space-based systems are likely to be far more compact than ground-based).