Public Discussion Opened on Space Solar Power 195
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."
Too late for nonterrestrial resources utilization? (Score:5, Interesting)
The proximate cause was that despite there being an obvious direction in place subsequent to the space race (remember the Apollo program?) that could have been followed through to space industrialization -- the launch service industry did not enjoy the same protection from government competition that the satellite industry enjoyed [presageinc.com]:
It wasn't until 1990, when a coalition of grassroots groups across the country lobbied hard for 3 years [geocities.com], that similar legislation got passed for launch services.
The fact that Malthusian paradigm didn't precisely follow the Club of Rome's "Limits to Growth" model [majorityrights.com] doesn't change the reality of the Malthusian paradigm given a fundamentally limited biosphere undergoing its largest extinction event in 60 million years. The Club of Rome merely added academic fashion to the urgency of the Malthusian situation still facing the biosphere. The 1970s was the right time to start the drive for space industrialization based on a private launch service industry. It didn't happen, the pioneering culture that founded the US is being replaced by government policy with less pioneering cultures and now we're all facing some increasingly obvious difficulties -- not just pioneer American stock -- and not just humans.
The cost of getting silicon into space from the lunar surface would be orders of magnitude less than launching from earth due not only to the much shallower gravity well but also due to the absence of atmosphere.
No beanstalk needed.
At worst a Dyneema Rotovator [slashdot.org] might be needed but probably not even that.
First, the bulk of the materials are manufactured in space from lunar raw material transported to orbital facilities so you don't need to land those facilities on the lunar surface, and you don't have to worry about g-loading the raw materials you are sending to the orbital facilities.
Second, you don't manufacture everything in space -- only bulky materials like solar cells, reflectors, structural members and perhaps klystrons. Only residual materials (raw and manufactured) are of terrestria
Re:Wrong priorities? (Score:5, Interesting)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkVlkSnoGNM [youtube.com]
-Brandon
Re:I've got great ideas (Score:2, Interesting)
if the rest of the world wants to shut us up and keep them out of their hair they should just give us plans for an easy never ending supply of renewable energy.
Fascinating subject (Score:5, Interesting)
Three basic problematic areas:
1. Return Delivery for energy. A beam would be the most obvious approach, as no conventional matter would be easilly sustained without something like a space elevator bringing enriched material up and down constantly. An exception would be antimatter, though that would be horribly dangerous on a scale that would make any concentrated beam mishap look like nothing.
2. Energy effects on the earth. Increased energy use, in any form, is going to have various effects on our ecosystem. We'll have to devote a percentage of our global energy use to offset this in some way, hopefully without a tragedy of the commons effect leftover.
3. Upkeep: Materials break down when they transfer the kinds of energy under consideration here. This won't just be a simple solar-panel install job in space. The materials involved will have to be self-repairing in some way if they're going to get closer and closer to the sun. Perhaps they'll function by 'flowing' with the solar winds, then reforming at the front. This promises to be a fascinating task for engineers and scientists looking to harvest such enormous resources safely and (relatively) efficiently.
Every aspect of this subject bristles with the various concerns of humanity - it'll be interesting to say the least what this group can go over.
Ryan Fenton
Impossible? (Score:3, Interesting)
If these figures are accurate, then this is a pointless endeavor.
Re:Fascinating subject (Score:3, Interesting)
This would help to solve the scare of a huge beam missing and the worry of maintaining equipment that focuses excessive amounts of power through one part in space.
Microwave Transfer? (Score:2, Interesting)
However, once there is a space elevator, there is no need for using dangerous microwaves, when you already have a direct wire going from earth to space. Just send the electricity down the wire like any terrestrial power line.
Re:Wrong priorities? (Score:3, Interesting)
Place the receivers in, oh... North Dakota; RF spread control can already be feasibly done enough to keep spill-over to a dead-minimum (and the receivers should be large enough to catch that anyway). That, and IMHO, anybody who does air travel is likely already getting hammered with almost as much RF/cm2 thundering out of the ground and local ATC dishes than they'd likely get by standing betwixt power satellite and receiver panel... (that is, the panel is likely going to be rather big). Frequency diffs may affect this assertion, but not by much.
About 10-15 miles of it, yes. After that, it's gravy (vacuum itself doesn't diffuse for practical purposes, and you'd perhaps get residual interference from from Van Allen Belt and other solar/Earth magnetic concerns, save for the occasional (and rare!) solar CME's directed straight at Earth).
True. OTOH, we already set aside aerospace 'corridors' for atmospheric travel... why not set up similar "no entry" and "terminal control" areas for powersats?
Which ain't bad at all, even when compared to the energy conversion efficiency in oil- or coal-generated steam turbines (and w/ few to no moving parts on the reception side of the house, maintenance would be pretty easy and cheap).
Re:Too late for nonterrestrial resources utilizati (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Too late for nonterrestrial resources utilizati (Score:3, Interesting)
As we are all aware, the whole global warming problem presented by rising levels of CO2 is that more energy is trapped here on Earth. So how is trapping more energy from the sun and sending more energy to Earth going to help the problem? Maybe the solar collector will be directly between the Sun and Earth, thus removing as much incoming solar energy as it is beaming down to our power station. But which countries are going to volunteer to give up much of their sunlight? Perhaps thousands of little collectors evenly distributed in the Earth bound Sunshine would solve the politics by giving an even reduction of sunlight globally, but if we can do that, why are we so worried about CO2 levels, just reflect the nessecary amount of incoming solar energy to counteract our increased atmospheric insulation. Don't even bother with the energy collection, we have an excess of Earth bound energy as it is.
Re:silly idea (Score:3, Interesting)
Critical reactors just don't do it for me. They are hard to turn off. But sub critical reactors sound like the ticket. Need to do some R&D to get the accelerators up to spec. But then they can even burn nuclear waste. You can use Th instead of U as a fuel, and cut the power and the thing turns off like a light bulb. Off really is off. There waste is safe after a century or so rather than 1,000's of years.