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1) You can't beam round a curved surface and the atmosphere isn't refractive enough in the visible spectrum (only works for shortwave radio)

2) The death ray is an environmental and safety hazard

3) Atmospheric attenuation would probably be more than electrical attenuation at that distance

I know HN is not for humor, but i really got a laugh out of “the death ray is an environmental and safety hazard”, listed with such seriousness.

Thankyou - that was entirely deliberate, you can only get humour past the HN voting system if either it's totally deadpan or you explain the joke in the same comment.

Satellite with a mirror at the apex?

Curious how this would work from a practical standpoint? Could planes fly through it? How high off the ground would the light be beamed? Could a boat pass through it's path?

I know absolutely nothing about this area so just generally curious!

You can power planes with lasers. You could power rockets too.

wouldn't the energy efficiency be low? effectively: light source -> PV panels, focus etc are bound to be difficult (long distance so parallel rays, any tiny deviation... well schlieren photography) and then there's diffuse scattering