->  DW> Certainly, the ISS is is darkness for a significant fraction of the 
->  DW> time, but that's no reason to waste the sunlight it does get.     
->  DW> I don't follow your "as much logic" argument.  
 
-> where do you get "significant fraction" from? it takes 90
minutes for the IS 
-> to go around the earth... seems to me that 45 minutes of that is in the ligh 
-> and the other half in the dark ;) 
 
-> )\/(ark 
  
So 1/2 is not a significant fraction? 
  
Actually, the ISS is in darkness for less than half the time. It's a 
few hundred kilometres above the surface fo the earth, so it receives 
sunlight when the ground below it is just in darkness. Suppose it's 400 
km up. The earth's diameter is about 13,000 km. So the length of the 
tangent from the surface to the station would be sqr(400 * 13400), 
which is about 2300 km. That's about 1/20 of the circumference of the 
orbit. If my brain is working right, that means the station is in 
sunlight for about 60% of the time, when the sun is in the plane of 
the orbit. When it isn't, the fraction would be even higher. 
  
                              dow 
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