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POWER_SATS

                                             July 30, 2007

An old idea that I've always liked:

   Solar Power Satellites.


     In rough outline:

     You take advantage of the
     "weightlessness" of orbit
     to build large scale, light
     weight arrays of
     photovoltaic cells.

     These receive sunlight
     unfiltered by the             In one version: you have the
     earth's atmosphere,           option of placing these between
     twenty-four hours a day.      earth and sun (at the L1 point?)
                                   as part of a global warming
       You then beam the           amelioration strategy.
       power down to
       earth-- most likely
       using relatively              But what if the
       low-intensity                 beam wandered off
       microwaves.                   target?  It would
                                     be set up to shut
                                     off automatically.    This sort of
                                                           thing is easy.
                                                           Really and truly.
                                     But what would
                                     happen if someone         HUMAN_ERROR
                                     wandered into the
                                     beam area?  Not
                                     much: they'd start
                                     feeling warm.



There are many reasons that
these might turn out to be          (Repairing damage
impractical...                      from micrometeorite
                                    strikes?  How hard
                                    is that?)
  But I think if we'd
  started working on                   In general, I'd guess the
  these seriously                      economics wouldn't work
  three decades ago                    out without multiple
  when space freaks                    interlocking technological
  like myself were                     advances: powersats,
  pushing for them,                    plus lunar/asteroid mining,
  the world would be                   and/or cheaper lift costs.
  a very different
  place.
                                          Not just one small step,
                                          or one giant leap, but
                                          several giant leaps.



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