Public Discussion Opened on Space Solar Power

eldavojohn writes "The National Security Space Office (NSSO), an office of the DoD, has taken a novel approach to a study they are doing on space based solar power. They've opened a public forum for it and are interested in anyone and everyone's expertise, experience and ideas on the best means to harvest energy in space. I suppose this is similar to the DoD's $1 million for an energy pack just without the award. Still, if you want to have an influence on the US's plans in space, this would be an easy armchair place to start. Space.com also has more on the details."

Dear Slashdot,

[KillerCow]

Dear Slashdot,
    please do our homework for us.

Sincerely,
  The National Security Space Office (NSSO), an office of the DoD

P.S. we won't use your ideas to kill or oppress people*

*actually, we will.

Giant Space Death Ray

[Anonymous Coward]

Warning: Giant Space Death Ray may lead to premature combustion.

random idea #2453

[Arthur B.]

Build a giant parabolic mirror on the moon, from moon material and use (solar powered) motors to make it point to a specific location on earth. Alternatively, point it on the Whitehouse unless they pay $1,000,000,000,000,000,000

Re:I've got great ideas

[Pojut]

You know what, you're right. Fuck the rest of the world. We (America) will pull every troop out of every nation we are operating in, we will stop providing billions to the world in food, medicine, and clothing, and we will no longer respond when a natural disaster occurs.

We will put every one of our troops on our border and shoot anyone trying to get in. Anyone that want's out is free to leave. Once you leave, you cannot come back in.

We will give ZERO food and money to ANY nation. We will simply take care of ourselves, and fuck the rest of you.

America may do some horrible things, but people seem to forget the GOOD things that we do. You don't like it or appreciate it? Fine. Fuck if we care.

If we do help out, we are being nosey and putting ourselves where "we don't belong". If we DON'T help, we are being "stupid selfish Americans". Well FUCK you. No one makes us give away billions upon billions of dollars a year. NO ONE.

We have done and do fucked up things; I will never deny that. However, NEVER forget that we also do some amazing things. We help literally millions of people a day soley because we WANT to. We will gladly bow out and let the world deal with it's own problems. Just don't come crying and bitching to us when a giant wave floods your entire country or when lava buries your villages.

Uninformed: Microwaves

[StCredZero]

Microwave Rectennas would enable the transport of power back to the Earth's surface just fine. The radiation is relatively diffuse, non-ionizing, and would do no more to birds flying overhead than heat them up.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_satellite [wikipedia.org]

Unlimited Solar Power, a burgeoning Space Program, and free cooked poultry falling from the sky! What more could you ask for?

Dear Mr. Chairman:

[RichPowers]

As an avid SimCity 2000 player, I know that constructing large microwave dishes that receive concentrated ion beams from satellites is the best way to harvest solar energy from space. For more on ion beam satellites -- and their military uses against shadowy quasi-nationstates led by enigmatic bald men - I refer you to Command&Conquer.

ps: I suggest building these microwave power stations far away from cities, as they occasionally explode. They're also frequent targets of large, mechanical alien spider robots.

Re:Wrong priorities?

[Orange Crush]

That is, move lots of energy, a long distance, on a "truck". Theoretically, since you can draw nuclear energy from uranium, you should be able to convert lower-numbered elements into uranium to store energy.

It's not a truck. It's a series of tubes, silly. In all seriousness, yes, you can build hydrogen all the way up to Uranium. Happens all the time in supernovae. Well . . . some of the time. But that generates an awful lot of "waste heat" you aren't capturing, you have to ship the mass of the uranium out of the gravity well of a star, slow it down to catch it when it gets here (which will take tens or tens of thousands of years depending on how fast you throw it and which star you're using). I figure, if you can build a dyson sphere around a distant star, you can probably build a tightly focused high energy and high efficiency laser emitter and receiver/collector that'll recover a useful amount of power to make the whole ordeal worthwhile. Tho if you're that advanced, you might as well just go to that star and live there.

Re:I've got great ideas

[Pojut]

Only a Sith sees things in terms of black and white. And we've certainly "helped out" in Iraq.

Did I or did I not say we have done and do some fucked up things? I'm fairly certain I did. I admit that we do wrong things sometimes...but you cannot sit there and say that America doesn't support millions of people with food, clothing, and water.

Too bad that the vast majority of the billions we give away are to Boeing and McDonald-Douglas and Northrop Grumman and Haliburton.

You know what? I could be wrong in this, but last time I checked we give away hundreds of thousands of tons of food every year to 3rd world countries. Last time I checked, we spend BILLIONS in assisting countries that take the brunt of a natural disaster.

Last time I checked, we spend billions on other countries in ways that DO NOT BENEFIT US. Billions that we could instead spend on our OWN country.

Is our government corrupt? Yes. But whose government isn't? Once again, we may do fucked up things, but NO ONE, and I repeat NO ONE, makes us help a SINGLE country. We could just as easily lock ourselves up and give a big fuck you to the rest of the world. Instead, we spend our time, rescources, and risk the lives of our own men and women to assist those in need around the world.

Wherever you live, I hope you remember that when you see our national guard risking their own lives to save the lives of YOUR countrymen when their homes flood from a massive hurricane. I hope you remember that when you see OUR OWN TROOPS risk THEIR OWN LIVES to save someone like you.

The world may hate America, the world may have a shit view of us, but that hasn't stopped us has it? You may spit in our faces, but you will be spitting in our faces as we put food on the tables of millions of people around the world.

Re:Dear Mr. Chairman:

[Chris Burke]

As an avid SimCity 2000 player, I know that constructing large microwave dishes that receive concentrated ion beams from satellites is the best way to harvest solar energy from space. For more on ion beam satellites -- and their military uses against shadowy quasi-nationstates led by enigmatic bald men - I refer you to Command&Conquer.

What about using them against shadowy quasi-nationstates led by men with mullets? That's really the more immediate need for me right now.