Solar Power from Space

@kousha8420 WInd power, geothermal, terrestrial based solar – all band aids. Solar Power Satellites are the only system that can deliver enough power to drive our economy. You need massive amounts of electricity to produce steel, aluminum, automobiles. If we want to be competitive in the world economy we need this system It will pay dividends, just like Grand Coulee Dam has, after all these years. It’s expensive up front, but it pays for itself 10 times over in the long run. INVESTMENT

@kousha8420 Wind, geothermal, terrestrial based solar – all band aids.They may help power a few homes, but they can never power industry, like the steel or aluminum industries. The United States will be in deep trouble if we don’t develop this system. We will never be competitive in the world economy if we don’t do it. Besides, we are currently the only country with the capability of doing it, right now. We could become the next OPEC, selling energy and satellites to other countries. Seriously.

Boeing engineered a Solar Power Satellite plan after the first oil embargo in 1973. Their plan was approved by the Dept. Of Energy and subsequently shut down by the Carter administration and nuclear power lobbyists and of course, the oil lobbyists. This is still the only solution to the worlds future energy needs. For excellent text book explanations, read either one of Ralph Nansen’s books on the subject. He was one of the engineers at Boeing in the day…Sun Power or Energy Crisis. Checkitout

you know how lucky we are to even have a sun that is a giant freaking planet on freaking fire in the middle of the universe that is probably older than our earth. Do you know how lucky we are even to exist near this ball that has been burning for this long?

I don’t think anyone see’s this. Your all concerned about trivial media concerns. I’m done here.

werner von braun discussed this concept in a television interview in the mid? sixties . It has occured to me that this concept might be applied directly to launching spacecraft in that the powdered aluminum propellent , which is the main constituent of solid rocket boosters could be ‘maximized” via a continuous stream of electrical power from above therby allowing SRB’s underslung a gliding type re-entry vehichle to achieve a much higher apogee ?

ooh, multidimensional graphs.

Anyway, the idea would only be practical if launch costs were massively reduced first.

As well as all the ideas that are already floating around (space elevator, spaceplane, railgun, etc.) i’ve got my own (patent pending) idea -
have a solar-powered balloon collect water vapour from the atmosphere and electrolyse it into hydrogen+oxygen rocket fuel, then climb to a high altitude and launch a reusable rocket.

I totally agree with you. Humans are so dependant on energy that we have to do this.

Good points. I just hope with the cost of oil going down, we don’t do what we did in the past and stop developing other forms or energy.

We should throw a lot of money at this, like the arms race of the 60s. The sun is always shinning in space.

Actually, Peter Glaser proposed it in 1968. O’Neill saw it as the major industrial reason to settle high orbit, and, therefore, a reason to build his 1-g rotating habitats. SSP has been favorably reviewed by NASA, DOE, and now DOD, and it is rapidly approaching a business case. A little nugget: Buzz Aldrin is talking with T. Boone Pickens about SSP, and he is working on large reusable launchers to start the job.