Gaia Two has been standing at the ready to be just the thing for Solar Power generation...get NASA, et al to promise it won't double as a weapon, and I'll tell 'em how to do it...cheap...effective...ASAP

I'm not old enough to know how ideas like those in Arthur C. Clarke's article "Extra-Terrestrial Relays" were received in 1945. But I imagine it may have been met with skepticism similar to that found surrounding the solar-power satellite debate. However, we know how that turned out ;-)

I have not studied this in depth, but I think the possibility of deploying a network of satellites deserves very serious consideration and a national investment in R&D. The civil and military prospects are quite exciting. Even if a steady development program takes a few decades.

With the companies out there very close to providing low-cost, high reliability, easily launched (relatively) boosters, it seems like there is a possibility that the right combination of technologies will mature close enough together to make this feasible.

That is if this country gets some VISION and starts investing in the future. It would be a great industry to create in this country...and this kind of power-source could improve the quality of life the world over...and take it easy on the environment. The future is now.

I think it's a great idea. With no atmosphere and clouds to filter out the sun's rays the solar cells will get a constant beam of light, during most of the orbit. All satellites generate more energy than they can ever use. With the right cells, maybe 35% efficiency or higher, solar harvesting satellites would be a great investment. The power to send electricity to places in need makes it all worth it anyway.

Also, people don't take into consideration time. I'm sure by the year 2015 we will have solar cells MUCH more efficient than the ones we have now.

Solar Power Beaming was tested successfully in California in 1968 at one kilometer distance.

While the U.S. is doing nothing, Japan promises to provide 23% of the world's electric power by 2025 using SPS, probably improving on the U.S. technology that was developed by the U.S. in 1968 and then shelved.

America's politicians receive financial contributions from the American oil companies, and the oil companies oppose SPS development. The U.S. oil companies should be participating, because petroleum is a chemical raw material, too valuable to burn in power plants and automotive vehicles.

Orbital solar arrays would have to be quite large to be effective and/or in quantities.  I wonder, large enough to ALSO partially shade parts of the planet?  Say...  Part's of the ocean where hurricanes are forming?  Nice little side-benefit and possibly a component to eventual weather modification, save a few lives too!

First comments just appeared.

Technology: Check: Solar Power Systems (SPS) program first suggested by Peter Glaser in 1968. There is a great deal of information on the Web.
Good use for International Space Station: Assemble components at 250 miles above earth for launch to 36,000 mile geostationary orbit. At this height, a Solar Power Station will have permanet sun except for about an hour yearly.
Solar Cells - Boeing has concentrated solar cells exceeding 40% efficiency today. Both rovers on Mars are using Boeing solar cells.
Government financing: The cross-country railroad was financed by private capital in return for millions of acres of land along the right of way. A seldom-mentioned clause in the railroad contracts granted reduced freight charges to the U.S. government after completion of the railroad until 1946, returning over ten times the original land value. A similar clause giving the federal government a reduction in the cost of electricity for 75 years would offset any government financed expenses paid by the taxpayers while creating a reduction in future energy costs to the government (taxpayers).
Cost: In 1968, the estimated cost was $100 million. If inflation has increased the estimate to $1 billion, Bush is wasting more than that in a week or two in Iraq just to get oil. That estimate was before there was a Space Station waypoint for assembly of components, before there was the lifting capability of Russian rockets, before $70 per barrell petroleum, and before the global warming campaigns.

Relative to terrestrial-based systems, the benefits achieved from putting solar collectors in space are eclipsed by the outrageous cost of getting them there.  Even so-called low-cost launch systems will not make this an economical solution.  I can certainly see military applications for this, as cost is not the primary objective in that case.  I'm therefore not surprised to see that the pentagon is interested.  Besides transmitting power to battlefields, there is the other obvious military application.  I'm not normally a conspiracy nut, but the ability to use these platforms as weapons in disguise is far too easy.  The obvious connection, whether true or not, would have the whole world up in arms.  So even if this could be made economically viable, it will never fly from a political perspective.

Well worth looking into. To get away from fossil-fuels we more than likely will need a combination of several technologies, both on the ground and from space.

For emergency power, or in remote locations, or military purposes, such satellite beamed energy would be useful.

For most purposes, however, solar arrays would be far cheaper in desert areas [North African, Western US, Australia, etc.], where the attenuation due to atmosphere is neglible, there is no energy and effort expended in lifting the arrays into orbit, and most importantly, they can be easily serviced.

hmmm interesting idea. positioning would be important since you don't want to shade the world that you want to power. if i remember right that power getting transferred wirelessly or even wired will degrade as the distance increases, it will only be a fraction of what it was initially. however, the plus is the panels will work all of the time (there is no night time). it should be non-polluting reception...

retarded...are we serious??? no nuclear fusion reactor that has been around for 50 years, nope lets beem down sun rays....gosh America is just so..so...so dumb.

If, instead of flushing billions a month down the tubes in Iraq, we'd spent that money on a system like this, it'd be finished by now, it could have been expanded to provide a lot more than just "10% of our energy needs", and we'd be well on our way to becoming the next Saudia Arabia of energy export.

This technology has been around since the late 1970's when it was developed in response to the '72 Arab Oil Embargo, but it was always considered "too expensive" to pursue.

Heh. "Too expensive". Well over 3,000 America service men have given their lives. We've been spending BILLIONS per MONTH for MORE THAN 5 YEARS!

Just how much do we have to sacrifice as a nation before alternatives like this will be considered affordable?

I wrote a book titled SUNSTROKE (The Berkley Publishing Group, NY), a thriller depicting the deployment and operation of a large powersat utilizing microwaves for power-beaming to Earth.  The dual nature of the satellite (energy supplier/space-based weapons system) is revealed in the story with some unpleasant results.

How interesting that the concept behind SUNSTROKE may soon become reality.  Let's hope the "power from above" will be used safely.

I'm just wundering but do plants help with solar power,because they use the sun to make food, so can't we find a way to make electricity with the same process?

Any and all ideas, no matter how radical they may seem now, should be given fair hearing. With the amount that we consume, this is the only approach that makes sense.

Despite the economic costs of using space-based solar power compared to Earth-based variants, I believe it to be an avenue that needs to be explored -- now -- and developed as an alternative.  Right now we're pretty much dependent on fossil fuels in many contexts, fuels available from a limited number of sources, and look at the mess we're in with that.  I have long felt we should develop all sorts of alternative energy sources -- solar (both Earth-based and space-based), wind, hydro, etc.

While the costs of developing space-based solar power are high, in an absolute sense, they're small compared to other expenditures we make, expenditures not limited to the war in Iraq -- health care springs to mind.

Photovoltaic conversion could be optimized if used in conjunction with light reflection. Reflective materials could be very cheap, very lightweight, and expandable (like a huge roll of refective thin material). Then multiple large areas/patches of reflected light could be focused on one panel/cluster of more expensive, but very efficient high light intensity PV cells. One thing space has a lot of is space.  

Anyone else immediately think of Icarus from "Die Another Day"?

This is a neat idea but one I long ago came the conclusion is impractical. It is far to expensive to boost and build SPSs, especially using our pathetic primitive rockets to get there. There are thousands of square kms of desert that can be used (some of which are already), where losses in power due to atmospheric interference is only a few percent. The reasons oil industry shills use for not developing solar energy are, as usual, cherry picked info. For example, technology is not static, so the claim that photovoltaics efficiency is low, beside being specious, conveniently ignores the existence of Science.  The day-night cycle is another of these excuses, not a real reason not to 'harvest' solar power. When the US is ready (and obviously GWB is gone...) hopefully we'll turn to developing this technology. But harvesting in space instead of on the surface is a non-starter until we have some *much* cheaper, cleaner way of getting at least up to low earth orbit.

   Also, to me, its potential use as a weapon is unacceptable; I would *not* work on such a project especially for what we currently have for leaders.

We could then stop fighting over oil and then start
fighting over space. Space assets are far more vulnerable to attack and harder to defend than any land asset. China proved that a few months ago with
their surprise destruction of one of their old sattelites.

How stupid! What about the energy cost alone of making and deploying those "fleets of spaceplanes and reusable rockets"? With thousands of square miles of blank rooftops already built directly on top of where the power is needed, if we put all that research effort into developing economical reflector-enhanced Solar cells and improved batteries or capacitors to store power, we'd realize a greater results much faster.

It seems that consensus here is HOOEY!
That's because you are all stuck with antiquated thinking.
Gaia Two can be developed, launched, positioned, and recovered/re-used as needed for less money than a single SST launch...the second one will cost less...and so on.
The vehicle is the solar array.
Her curvilinear shape provides transmitter/receptor foci over her entire surface.
Too bad about the foolish Star Wars mentality we all endure.
There's no friggin' aliens out there...good or bad...there's no space war scenario that doesn't involve Humans.
Until we smarten up, Gaia Two sits...denying Humanity a basic need...no weapons, Kids!
Lobby NASA, et al...I'll stand and deliver whenever they come to their senses.
Rememember...all the space weaponry points this way.

I wish folks would just stop with the War for Oil mantra. No one stole anyone's oil, the International Oil market as it exists today doesn't make that feasible except in the instances of Smuggling and misdirecting of shipments which are well known criminal operations, lucritive on a comparitively small scale but not the sort of situation in which military actions are needed, just plain old greed and sticky fingers.

As the US Oil market sits today we could do without Middle Eastern Oil altogether simply by letting them sell theirs to china and the US buying up the Oil supplies of the South American and other Oil producing states which would otherwise go to China.
Middle East Oil is simply not that big of a factor in US Oil Imports.
We buy Oil produced in the Mid East just as we buy Beef from Argentina, they produce it and US companies can make a profit buying it and reselling it as Gasoline , heating fuel, plastics, etc.
They have to sell Oil to someone in order to survive, you can't eat and drink oil. Though after those Chinese Miners told of surviving on urine and eating coaldust I'm wondering if the Reds put them back in the hole for a couple more months to see if they would adapt to the diet well enough to start urinating Gasoline.

If saddam were still in power his cohorts at the UN would have had the sanctions lifted by now, the cash strapped North Koreans would have delivered those No Dong missiles he had made the 10 million USD down payent on and probably sold him the plans for the Tapei Dong missile as well. With the Guidance system he had already obtained from a British aerospace company years ago he could probably have had better success with it.
Whether Saddam's IIS would have sold their private stash of Mustard gas munnitions and toxins to Zarqawi and the al-Quida funded Ansar al-Islam isn't certain but probable, while the breakout Mustard gas production using disposable crucibles would have allowed Saddam to field battlefield quantities of poison gas within months of the end of sanctions.
Long story short, no blood for oil. If anything Saddam would be trading oil for weaponry to reap a harvest of blood.

Now as for beaming power from orbit, maybe next century. Its neither technologically or economically feasible on the scale necessary to provide even a fraction of the power needed.
It does sound like a good way to power specialized space missions, like near earth asteroid wrangling, or pushing light sail craft up to speed for long range exploration.

Some years back ,the Russians tried to unfurl a giant mirror to light up and defrost frozen tundra and increase growing seasons. It ended up wrapped around the spindle that was supposed to keep it spread by centifical force. I don't think they, or anyone else had realized just how much such lightweight constructs are effected by solar winds.

Any Solar cell will transform only a fraction of the light striking it into electricity, the rest of that light will act to push the cell and whatever its mounted on like a sail.
The constant tweaking of orbits would end up using about as much, possibly mor energy than the cells would produce, unless anchored to a massive object, like an NEA. Then you'd have the Sword of Damocles big time.
The engineering problems are just beyond the present level of expertise.  

I Agree the idea of Solar Satellites is a great, but with all the space junk out there, missions from many space capable governments, we would need not only a ton of capital and resources needed, but a system much like that of today air traffic controllers.  Now a small system set up controlled remotely from the space station would be a great idea for power backup for natural disasters and mobile military bases, but a large scale world power plant would make our sky seem like a backwards Dyson’s Sphere.  The sun would be blockaded by tons of debris and our ecosystem would take a hit to temperature and our agriculture.  I believe our goals are more likely to succeed by created better battery storage as Ned (from Fisherville) stated, and use the hundreds of million homes (global) as our field.  I mean we put shingles on homes that reflect light, why not have some that turn that into energy for that home or for power companies.  Also arrays in the desert have worked for a long time and I feel that with a good portion of our world that gets amble sunshine we could find a way to break our ties to oil so that those materials could be better used for other applications.

Ned's thought is a MUCH better way to spend our energy-related efforts than SPSs. While I am big enthusiast of space exploration and eventualy use, I reject super-expensive, inefficient 'make-work' projects, like SPSs currently are. The only people who ultimately profit from such 'work' are those who bambooze others into paying them (billions) to do the 'work'....

I'm astonished that no one has yet mentioned the concept of the space elevator in conjunction with space-based solar power.

In short, because having a space elevator radically changes the mass-to-energy ratio of getting stuff out into space, it also radically changes the economics of space-based solar.

Yes, there are huge technical hurdles in building a space elevator.  No one disputes that.  But if we can figure out how to manufacture high quality carbon nanotubes at industrial scales, then a space elevator becomes a no-brainer.  Of course you'd do it that way; conventional rockets are just too expensive by comparison.

I attended a lecture a few months back by someone in the space elevator field, who had an economist analyze space based solar as a business proposals.  It was analyzed under two scenarios: One, do everything with conventional rockets.  Two, first build a space elevator, and then use that.

The payback time--time to recoup the initial investment--for scenario one was something like 26 years.  Too long for any reasonable businessperson to go for it.  The payback time in scenario two was more like seven years.

I'm all for space-based solar, because I honestly think it solves humanity's energy problem for a long, long time to come.  If we can do it.  And of all the ideas I've seen, the only one that actually makes space-based solar affordable in the first place is to build a space elevator first.

That's what we should be researching.

What well this do to the human body!It's not safe to live by high power lines,So now solar power beam down to earth! What if the satellites orbit is move?
Say by some terror network? What if!!!! Yes there is a lot STUDY.

I suspect that energy derived from deep geothermal wells would be far more cost effective, far less technically challenging, and have far less environmental impact when compared to spaced based solar power -- with almost no risk of weaponization.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20145410/

Yea, Now That's a great idea. Let's put our energy sources into space where any whack job with a sounding rocket and coffee can full of ball bearings could take it out. Much less the fact LEO would be useless for a hundred years plus...

Jason -- The space elevator was one of the very first things to cross my mind in relation to this article.  It would drastically change the equation.  It's a great idea, and I have an ongoing interest in this technology.  (I've got a short in "Running the Line.  Stories of the Space Elevator.").  I declined to mention it for the simple reason that a mature space-elevator technology that could support a program such as this is still a fair distance into the future -- I'd guess 15-20 years.  During that time, we can make tremendous progress on earth-bound energy technologies.  Nonetheless, we will need to revisit a lot of old paradigms once access to space becomes a couple of orders of magnitude cheaper.  Hey -- did you see the recent article on new carbon nanotube technology by NASA?  Go to
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/topstory/2007/nano_tech.html

A few thoughts occur...

If we beam power to the earth from space won't the additional energy coming into earth add to overall global warming? If the space solar arrays are set between the sun and earth will they reflect or block enough sunlight to make any difference?

Will the reduction of carbon in the atmosphere from less reliance on burning hydrocarbons offset the additional global energy intake?

Is a beam more efficient than a wire in transmitting electrical power? If a wire is more efficient can we combine space based solar power and tethered space elevators?

I don't know enough to have an informed opinion on any of this, those are just a few questions that popped into my mind.

I considering building a passive solar waterheater into the roof of a small vacation home on some mountain property I inherited.
The Idea is an old one and simple as can be. Just run black pipes back and forth on the roof. I'm figuring on stiff tubing rater than the flexible hose used in early designs, with the tubing suspended by a rack, not touching the roof's surface.

The design offers some built in fire safety. any fire reaching the tubing that enters the roof would breech the tubes showering the source of heat with water. Not just the water normally resting in the tubing but a constant stream fed by the regular water flow.

Also the water in the tubing could act as an emergency water supply if needed. Just add a valve to prevent it from flowing back the way it came if lines burst or service was interupted.

Of course the tubing would have to be drained for the winter. Lines running under the roof could collect waste heat from home heating to reduce the energy required to heat the water by a normal water heater in winter.
If the lines ran above the ceiling boards but under the insulation they'd collect even more heat, and provide a built in fire suppression system.

I fully expect some nation will do this in the next decade or so. I wish it would be the U.S. but I no longer have high hopes that it will be. I have seen too many goals abandoned and too many collapse from underfunding and incompetent "leadership", going all the way to the top.

That sounds like a plan.  But I think an even better idea would be to plan on sending the energy back to earth via an elevator to space in due time... that way you could send even more energy back at once. Plus you could use the elevator to send up more nano woven parabolic solar collectors for extremly cheep.   check this out:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_elevator

I have an idea! y don't we just go back to walking and riding our bikes like the good old days and chuck all of our cars and other stuff into space? sounds like a good idea huh. haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahahahahahahahahaha

Wow, I notice many people are already talking about the space elevator and solar collection.  I was wondering months how many people thought of this.  Here are some resources for my last post. #1.

"Parabolic Trough Solar Collector Systems Made More Energy Efficient"

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/05/070515174832.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parabolic_trough

This is what I want to see.  If there was a way to, how to put this, make a parabolic mirror out of a sphere it would take up much less space... if you built a sphere using smilar patterns and geometry as nature, you can build an onion like sphere which reflects light back into itself, bouncing layer by layer deeper into its core and  into the center then out a small hole, or directly into a nano solar panel built into the core.  This would also remove the nessicity of a means to keep it facing the sun... it wouldn't need any thrusters or extra gadjets, only the sun and a means of transporting the collected power.  Who has thought of this before, there has to be many...

Here is somthing that might help you visualize this:
http://members.shaw.ca/ravenise/Polar_Contortion.jpg

Also I have a question for you savys out there, how efficient can thermal vents be? What about harnessing a volcano? What would that take?

Feel free to add me on myspace!

Jerry Pournelle, scientist and science fiction author has been advocating solar power satelites for over 20 years.  He was on the National Science Council or some such during the Reagan era.  See his website at Jerrypournelle.com

No blood for sunlight!

(Or something like that.)

We can put the satellites in orbit.  We can generate the power.  We can NOT beam it back to earth effectively.  What are we supposed to do about 'one over R squared' losses?  The power spreads out from the satellite and very little will shine own on any given receiver on the ground.

I cannot believe I am reading this. I thought we got all this technology from the USAFs exploitation of the UFOs at Roswell in the 40s and 50s.

And to think some of you consider we should replace something as fungible as oil and as plentifull as gas with space based solar arrays.  Where is the power cord to get the power back to terra firma?

JC SOMEWHERE TX, your questions are right on the mark.  The hazard/risk factors need to be thoroughly studied before giving this project the go-ahead.  You'll find many answers regarding the power-beaming of high-intensity microwaves from space in this website:
http://www.theendoftheuniverse.ca/node/762

Feel free to post any comments there.

Also you might want to check out a very recent article by space.com that states a solar power demonstration satellite will be deployed in orbit by the military in the next five to seven years.  You can read this story here:
http://www.space.com/businesstechnology070919_sps_airforce.html

More power to you!

If you can make an elevator into outerspace: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_elevator

You can make permanent powerlines... maybe if they refracted light so to be nearly invisible it would be much safer in case of a terror attack and whatnot... I wonder how big these will be? I can concieve them being tens of meters wide

We cannot make permanent power lines... and We cannot make a space elevator..

Unless we make it out of something that is totally resistant to conducting electricity...

If we were to put power cables tens of meters wide, from space to earth... all it would do is short out the ionosphere to the earth ...the solar current flow(what you call "wind")would continually recharge that, and you would be left with a massive crater.

It is a foolish idea on all accounts.

For those who think this theory is farsighted, unattainable, or dangerous, then you should look at the work of Nikola Tesla. His work on Wireless Energy transfer has not only proven this idea is possible, he actually demonstrated it.

For any major space base project of the next decades to come really  work, we will need some thing I call Mega-Lifters (1000s of Metric tonnes). These weight ranges of today are far to small. I can see the idea being put to use to warm up Mars. However  there a more simple and easier way to get solar energy geerated right here on earth rather than a hugh space base reflector and collecters. Its an idea form a University of West Indies professor ,Cave hill Campus in Barbados  from 2002. HE suggested that a a glass crystal lens shaped into angles like a diamond  could  virtually collect the light of the sun , and have a magnifile glass light and heat effects in the beam produced , whereby it is re-reflected with the diamond shaped crystal glass lens and brought to bear  at one focus point and beam out, a process simlar to what one what do with a magnifying glass  to create a small fire  when held in the sun.
The professor died in 2002 just before he was about to deleived a lecture on his project. He had developed a prototype , but since his unnatural death in 2002, the research at the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill campus In barbados has stopped.
Just imaged what power could be generated form the useage of multipule diamond shaped glass crystals placed in layer on a platform with photo cell of today type  just out side you home , mounted on a sun trackering rack? Power for heating and  ELECTRICITY!
Now that is definilty a far far way cheaper and more pragmatic system or appoach to power genteration  right now than ,oil or coal. I still love outer space but America is not using a common sense proggrammes,and cost effiecetive approach to development of a long term infrastural evolution to comerical and Industrial explotation of the frontier. it seem more to me that China, Japan and the European Union willl take the leader. America seem  to be becoming  just a player on the frontier.

I'm glad that the article mentioned Dr. Gerard O'Neill -  his work, "The High Frontier", was the first instance I'd read (and I've seen other sources crediting him with the first published idea) of Solar Power Satellites in orbit beaming down energy via microwave. Seemed like a plausible idea to this then college student - I'm just amazed that the idea has not been taken more seriously.

But then, maybe oil has to get to $100/barrel before we pull our collective heads out and see that unless we all start to realize that our dependency on foreign oil is a little like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic - a waste of time - when *time* is the the precious commodity. We need something *in place* before oil becomes SUCH a strategic asset that it fuels (no pun intended) all future warfare.

If you "short the ionosphere to the earth", well, there's your power!  All you have to do is insulate it from the ground and tap into it instead of shorting it.
I don't see the physical cable idea working though.  I think this will take another direction - using the power IN outer space.  You can manufacture a lot of things from metal found in asteroids.

If the outer layers of the nano cables are simply made out of a non conductive material, say aero gel or something like that and the inside is conductive then this could fix the problem, no?

 The facts are: The Nuclear Reaction Sun is the ONLY source of energy we have; other than making our own nuclear reactions here on Earth.  The Space based Solar Array is the ONLY solution to our energy and global warming problems; we had better get started sooner than later.

I don't think this is as simple an idea as the news report implies.  There are political issues, including the point that the difference between a power-sat and an orbital death ray is mostly where you aim it. There are some obvious problems with using it for military operations:  to wit, it's going to be sort of hard to hide giant solar-collector array, and destroying one is a good bit easier than putting one up.  

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