[Spaceships] Million Merchant Marathon

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

They need to make the shades out of photovoltaic film so they an absorb that sunshine and use it to power the reactionless drve units that do the stationkeeping.

I believe photovoltaic films tend to be a bit too fragile for this task, but coating your metal (or whatever you opt to use) with such would be a good idea (or maybe this society knows how to make ultra-durable photovoltaic film). I was simply going off of scc's desire to have the surface be reflective.

Although I do wonder how Venus would appear in Earth's night sky with such a large, high-albedo "structure" up in its orbit. How bright would that be?

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

The thrust units also need to be around the edges rather than in the center. You would need a stiff disc for a center mount. There'll be some extremely strong cables involved too.

Depending on what the minimum efficient size is for these reactionless drives, simply having several dozen small ones spread out over the inner surface may be ideal.