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Space Science

NASA Abandons SimCIty Microwave Power Concept 251

Posted by Hemos from the that-wonderful-burning-path-of-destruction dept.
TexasDex writes "Wired reports: The NASA Space Solar Power project--a method of collecting solar energy efficiently from space and beaming it down to earth--was canceled in early 2001 after enjoying intermittent attention from scientists. NASA officials cited a policy shift toward the International Space Station and the space shuttle program. But there is still hope for it yet. A conference this month in spain hopes to advance the cause, dispite the fact that there is no public funding available in the US for this project. Some even claim that microwave power is essential for farther explanation. Accordong to the folks at Maxis, Microwave power should be available around 2020, depending on which version of SimCity you play."
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NASA Abandons SimCIty Microwave Power Concept More

NASA Abandons SimCIty Microwave Power Concept

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  • Not where I get my info... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Epistax ( 544591 ) <epistax @ g m a il.com> on Saturday June 26, 2004 @08:36AM (#9536609) Journal
    Sorry I don't get my info about the future from video games. I get them from flash-forwards in the Simpsons and occasionally Futurama.
    • I'm sorry but this post deserves a medal. I know I'm tooting my own horn but after starting at +1 (karma) this post dropped to -1 troll. Now, through years of fighting adversity it has risen to the rank of +4.

      For some more on topic info I'd like to suggest this microwave power plant of sorts could be made with a lot less danger simply by putting more of it in orbit. I would like to ask what the point is of collecting a lot of solar energy is, if you're simply turning it into another kind of solar ener

  • Excellent... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Paulrothrock ( 685079 ) on Saturday June 26, 2004 @08:37AM (#9536614) Homepage Journal
    Now maybe a private company can develop it for 2% of the cost and we'll have cheap, environmentally benign power.

    • Re:Excellent... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by tomhudson ( 43916 ) <barbara.hudson@b ... com minus distro> on Saturday June 26, 2004 @08:50AM (#9536684) Journal
      Now maybe a private company can develop it for 2% of the cost and we'll have cheap, environmentally benign power.
      No ... they've figured out it makes a great space-based weapon (ever watch your sims melt down when the beamer mis-aligns?)

      Actually, this (steering) IS one of the problems with any space-based microwave power project.

      • Misalignment is really a problem, when the energy density increases. Even if the satellites remain perfectly stable, the beam would "dance" around its intended target due to atmospheric turbulances. You would actually need a large area [51] just as security perimeter, for every collector on the surface.

        Regular maintenance work within that area is impossible with the beam turned on. You have to defocus the beam or better yet, turn it off completely, every time you need to repair something. That's not so bi

        • There are ways around this issue through a combination of these:

          1) Use a visible light along the same path as the microwave, providing a visible indicator of the "Energy Beam/Zone".

          2) Use a some form of optical interconnect verification, then send short microwaves bursts of the energy, that pools up while still in orbit. This would aleviate the Melting Things Problem, at the expense of transmition preformance; not a bad expense in my opinon.

          3) Off topic, but a satalite based Power Delivery System would

        • Even if the satellites remain perfectly stable, the beam would "dance" around its intended target due to atmospheric turbulances.

          How much could microwave radiation "dance" around purely due to atmospheric turbulances?

          • Good question! It depends on the amount of energy the atmosphere absorbs. The more energy the beam transmits, the higher that amount and the atmosphere would heat up (a little), just enough for this effect to be a real problem.

        • Wouldn't the repair crews just wear portable faraday cages? Much like current "power on" cross country power line repair folks do, just good up to the frequencies involved. Seems a better solution when you just have to repair some small portion of the ground antenna array. You could even put a scattering effect pup tent up that shielded the internal space so "shirtsleeves environment" repairs on components could be done. It is not so tough a problem to solve. Besides the workers might be all sparkly as they

    • Insightful? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by xtermin8 ( 719661 )
      How can tech savy nerds be so stubbornly simplistic when it comes to economics? The internet certainly wasn't a private venture for many years (not profitable). The technology behind all computers was developed and heavily subsidized by the government. There is next to know chance that any private company is going to develop this technology. Even if it were possible I think the powers that control expensive, polluting power would ever let it happen.

    • Re:Excellent... (Score:2, Insightful)

      by dcw3 ( 649211 )
      Now maybe a private company can develop it for 2% of the cost and we'll have cheap, environmentally benign power.

      Sure private industry can probably develop something, but the chance that consumers will see a significant cost savings is slim, and none. I'm no fan of big govt., but when it comes to utilities, if it ain't regulated, the profit margins with be astronomical (pun intended).

    • Re:Excellent... (Score:3, Informative)

      by orthogonal ( 588627 )
      Now maybe a private company can develop it for 2% of the cost and we'll have cheap, environmentally benign power.

      Or, now maybe we can continue to be dependent on ( mostly [libyaonline.com] foreign [saudiembassy.net]) oil, established oil companies [halliburton.com] with little incentive to develop newer and ultimately cheaper energy sources, and politicians who make sure NASA [whitehouse.gov] doesn't undermine those vested interests [opensecrets.org].

      "NASA officials cited a policy shift toward the International Space Station and the space shuttle program."

      Now, I know the Shuttle has been s [cnn.com]

      • Re:Excellent... (Score:3, Interesting)

        by SEE ( 7681 )
        Oh, please!

        Electrical power isn't even remotely a threat to the petroleum industry. Sure, it's all "energy", but even completely free electricity has so many drawbacks in vehicles that it wouldn't put a dent in petroleum use; batteries just don't have competitive energy density when put up against a tank of hydrocarbons.

        You know what Bush would do if he really wanted to help the oil industry? Push the ratification of the Kyoto treaty.

        Why? Because natural gas is a byproduct of petroleum extraction, coa
        • Except we are already using so much natural gas that the price has risen and supply is shortened (and there is a major source of natural gas that is not associated with oil directly, many many gas wells that provide zero crude oil). So before everyone goes ga-ga for gas turbine co-generation or fuel cells consider the current supply of natural gas is stressed already.
      • Jesus christ! Last time I checked this was 'News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters.' Not the Sean Hannity [hannity.com] show. Go over there if you want to discuss your political stance. I've had enough of this GW Bush sucks/Kerry sucks/Where are the WMDs.

        Shut the fuck up and go to another board if you care that much.

    • Now maybe a private company can develop it for 2% of the cost and we'll have cheap, environmentally benign power.

      Is that extra power really environmentally benign? IIRC, intercepting solar energy that would have missed the Earth means directing more energy towards our planet. This excess energy would contribute to increase the global temperature. Nobody know exactly by how many 1/10th of degrees, but it will definitely have some kind of impact.

      Even if we only diverted solar energy from A to B (with A

    • If energy were more expensive than it is today, you betcha some entrepreneur would start collecting solar power in space and beam it down. And, yes, it will probably be much less expensive than if NASA did it.

      Unfortunately, who ever wants to start this project, will have to convice a lot of governments to get a license. Directing a high energy beam towards the ground is risky, and it puts a lot of power in the hands of the corps steering the beam.

      A high energy beam can be used as a WMD, and governments

  • Break-even point? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by gevmage ( 213603 ) * on Saturday June 26, 2004 @08:38AM (#9536617) Homepage
    It would be interesting to find out what the break-even point is. If you did deploy such a system, how long would it take until the energy savings recouped the cost of putting the thing into orbit.

    That measurement as compared to the expected mean time between failure of the orbital system would be a very important number to the reliability of such a system. If the MTBF was 5X, then it's golden; 1.5X not so good.

    • It would be interesing but also carries huge risk. You spend a fortune putting the infrastructure in place hoping to make it back over the next 20-30 years and 10 years down the line someone perfects cold fusion. We have cheap, unlimited power and you are dead in the water.
      • If that's the biggest outstanding obstacle to such a system, then let's have at it!

        Someone needs to figure out a way to put a canard on a solar power station, and then Burt Rutan will build one inside of 10 years.

        • Its not though, its just one of the big risks and thats the problem. This would be difficult technically to achieve, never mind the cost. There would be reliability issues. If it breaks how are you going to fix it while we have no power down here. There will be sunbstantial ongoing and maintenance costs, since it will probably be in a decaying orbit. Its vunerable to attack. It also has huge potential as a weapon which would make it a no-no for any other country as far as the US is concerned.
      • You've gotta be kidding...that's like the idiots who are always waiting to buy their next computer because they heard that Intel is coming out with a faster processor in a few months. Do you seriously think that even if both technologies were developed that we'd EVER have "enough" energy?
      • Don't hold your breath too much while waiting for cold fusion, as there is still no agreement on where to build ITER.
      • So if the government does it, it will drive private investment in alternatives (since it is a dramatically huge undertaking the government can be expected to invest the requisite large amounts, then hopefully privatize it after the risk period is mostly over). Since private investment by current and new energy firms then _might_ kill off orbital energy production no private industry loss would occur. So spend money on science and create lots of spin-offs, or spend money enforcing the DMCA or the CAN-SPAM (S

    • Capital cost is a good proxy (Score:5, Informative)

      by apsmith ( 17989 ) * on Saturday June 26, 2004 @09:23AM (#9536843) Homepage
      Economic energy intensity numbers mean you're using about 10 MJ for every dollar. Typical ground-side power plants cost on the order of $1000 - $3000/kW (nuclear on the high end of that, coal on the low end) which translates to 10-30 GJ/kW, or 10 - 30 million seconds - i.e. the energy payback is a few months to a year.

      For a space power plant to be economically competitive, it's numbers had better be pretty close. Unfortunately right now space launch is about a factor of 10 too expensive, which puts the energy payback into the few to 10-year timeframe.

      By the way, I'm the one quoted in the Wired article as saying $10 billion RD&D over 10 years would do the trick - but I don't remember saying it had to go through NASA! And yes, I will be in Spain at the meeting next week.

  • Other tech predicted in games? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by xirtam_work ( 560625 ) on Saturday June 26, 2004 @08:38AM (#9536619)
    Apart from SF movies, books and tv shows, can anyone suggest other technology predicted by video/computer games that we might actually see in the near future?

    I'm still waiting for my robot maid, holiday on the moon and flying car. how about you?
    • The article [slashdot.org] that Slashdot had the other day on the Navy's rail-gun. That seems pretty much out of video games if you ask me.
      • The article that Slashdot had the other day on the Navy's rail-gun. That seems pretty much out of video games if you ask me.

        Inventions don't magically pop out of the air. The ideas are usually stewing for years. The game developers get their ideas from these ideas. They hear about these wacky concepts in college or whatever then toss them into their games. Because the real thing shows up later doesn't mean that the idea came from the game.
    • I'm still waiting for my robot maid, holiday on the moon and flying car.

      Flying cars are already here [moller.com], you can't spend a holiday on the moon (yet [xprize.org]), but this guy got the next best thing [space.com], and there aren't any fully fledged robotic maids [mahoro-matic.com] out there yet, so you'll have to do with this sucker [roombavac.com].

      The 21st century has only just begun.
    • Well, I'm fairly sure that the GDI Ion Cannon will end being a reality sooner or later. And it seems the US Army is already doing some development that sounds a lot like the Nod Obelisk of Light.

    • Re:Other tech predicted in games? (Score:5, Funny)

      by Jonathan ( 5011 ) on Saturday June 26, 2004 @09:41AM (#9536949) Homepage
      Apart from SF movies, books and tv shows, can anyone suggest other technology predicted by video/computer games that we might actually see in the near future?

      Arkanoid. In fact, I bet that metallic balls falling on modern spacecraft would bounce even using today's technology

    • AC (Score:2, Funny)

      by mnemonic_ ( 164550 )
      Alpha Centauri has tons of them (artificial spider silk, monopole magnets etc.).
    • I remember reading about this EXACT technology in the early nineties. And that was in an archive of science magazines (the french Science & Vie). So the idea isn't new, and it certainly didn't originate from the game makers. What the game makers do, though, is help popularize such under-the-radar ideas that people would've otherwise ignored.

      On a side note, I can't wait to see pre-cooked birds falling from the sky ;)

  • Another new power source required (Score:5, Funny)

    by Timesprout ( 579035 ) on Saturday June 26, 2004 @08:39AM (#9536628)
    Some even claim that microwave power is essential for farther explanation. Accordong to the folks at Maxis

    For a spelling and typo checker.

  • Weapon Capability (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 26, 2004 @08:43AM (#9536645)
    Well, just point out that a 9GW focussed beam can take care of any banana republic in the world without sending troops abroad. You have 3 settings on your "mertilizer":
    - low power - sterilize males, give it a few years and the problem in more or less "gone". Add to this that the strike will not be much noticed until 9 months...
    - medium power - blind people. The retina is very sensitive to heating induced by microwaves, almost as sensitive as your testicles (modulus gender of course)
    - deep fry - do I need to expand on this?

    So, just tell Pentagon and you will have a grillion dollar funding yesterday already.

    • No weapon Re:Weapon Capability (Score:4, Interesting)

      by WolfWithoutAClause ( 162946 ) on Saturday June 26, 2004 @09:32AM (#9536891) Homepage
      The beam power might be 9 GW, but the energy density would be about the same as a cell phone gives out. The idea is that you create a big aerial called a rectenna that covers whole square kilometers and collect the dilute energy.

      The problem is that in order to beam the microwaves down from geosynchronous orbit a huge antenna is needed to focus it down to even cell phone power density.

      There's only two ways to up the power intensity in the beam:

      a) build a bigger antenna in space (people would notice)

      b) increase the power in the antenna (needs much bigger solar panels- people would notice)

      Basically either way involves incredibly large amounts of money, and the weapon can't move so is easy to shoot at, easy to defend against (silver foil) and obvious.

      It's really a non starter as far as weapons go.

      • The beam power might be 9 GW, but the energy density would be about the same as a cell phone gives out. The idea is that you create a big aerial called a rectenna that covers whole square kilometers and collect the dilute energy.

        Begin Mi-agi voice:

        Focus Danu-san Focus

      • Re:No weapon Re:Weapon Capability (Score:5, Funny)

        by cms108 ( 96258 ) on Saturday June 26, 2004 @10:26AM (#9537191)
        "..big aerial called a rectenna"

        am i the only one who thought of cartman standing in a field?

  • SimCity Concept? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    This concept was floating around when I was in High School before you could even buy a personal computer.

  • Maxis (Score:4, Interesting)

    by mfh ( 56 ) on Saturday June 26, 2004 @08:43AM (#9536648) Homepage Journal
    ...folks at Maxis, Microwave power should be available around 2020, depending on which version of SimCity you play.

    And they really *should* know, right? If you're a scientist and you're reading this, you'd better get started on Arco technology now, so it can be ready in time to send us all to Alpha Centauri when Earth is too polluted and crime-infested to control. In other news, I saw a copy of Sim City 3000 bundled with a bunch of other great games like Alpha Centauri for $20 CAD, and I was tempted to pick it up. I might just do that, when I'm finished with TOEE, in all its bug-ridden glory. I've since lost most of the games in the package, so it would be great to play them this summer while I wait for Doom 3, and of course winning the lottery to fund a system that can handle it.

    • In other news, I saw a copy of Sim City 3000 bundled with a bunch of other great games like Alpha Centauri for $20 CAD, and I was tempted to pick it up.

      Definitely worth it, if it's the unlimited edition (still worth it even if it isn't :-)

      Unfortunately, I find that the game play isn't as much fun with each succeeding version. When I bought SC3KU, my computer just wasn't fast enough to play it properly ... so it sat around for a few years.

      Now if Maxis was to re-release SC2K with larger terrains (say 256

  • If some company actually does this, it will be the frst step towards making our own Dyson sphere :)

  • Just remember (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Nuskrad ( 740518 )
    Don't build it near a hospital, because the beam might miss and BOOM! Ah, SimCity 2000, what fun.

  • Offensive! (Score:2, Funny)

    by bugmenot ( 788326 )
    A conference this month in spain hopes to advance the cause, dispite the fact that there is no public funding available in the US for this project.

    Spain should be capitalized. Only france does not require capitalization.

  • Outstanding idea. . . and will never happen. . . (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Salgak1 ( 20136 ) <salgak.speakeasy@net> on Saturday June 26, 2004 @08:52AM (#9536695) Homepage
    . . .because our "Zero-risk" society, and the Safety/Environmental "Nazi"s will go absolutely ape over the idea . . . add to that the general scientific illteracy of the general public and. . . .

    "Death beams from space, that can microwave a city if terrorists got control of it". . .

    • Safety/Environmental "Nazi"s will go absolutely ape

      Those people go ape about ANYTHING. Suggest the use of wind power, one group will cheer and the other group will start bitching claiming seagulls might get whacked by the rotorblades. Suggest hydropower, one group will cheer and another group will bitch about the safety of the backward-swimming Russian troutski. Suggest solar power, one group will cheer and another will bitch about "landscape polution".

      Enviromentalist extremists are best left unhe

    • Well, here's a critique of the idea from someone who can't in any way be fitted into those categories: USS Clueless [denbeste.nu]

      [...] When it comes to power generation, the job's not done until the energy reaches the end user. The challenge of energy delivery is particularly severe for solar satellite technology.

      Generally speaking, every time energy is converted from one form to another a lot of it will be lost (because of the Second Law of Thermodynamics). All technologies which generate power and deliver it to

      • A critique of the critique:

        1. He never outlines the numbers he uses to reach that "I would be surprised if the system had a yield as high as 5%" conclusion. Hey, I think there's a 0.367539 probability that USS Clueless is a actually a front organization for al-Qaeda! No, you can't see my numbers, they're classified.

        2. 5% of efficiency on (to make some numbers up) an initial power intake of 1 GW beats 50% efficiency on 10 MW every time. He conveniently ignores the fact that we have to expend resources t
        • 3. Beware anyone, anywhere, who leads his argument with the 2nd law of thermodynamic
          Well in this case it used right: energy conversion has to be wasteful (i.e. create entropy). However as you point out, the amount of power wasted when the initial power is "free" is not really relevant (especially if the power is wasted into space).
          But his point that the amount of resources to build the plant could be higher than what it produces is appealing (though of course it would be interesting to have some numbers),
      • Though I kind of doubt these satellites are feasable, arguing about their efficiency is ridiculous.

        If they lose 99% of the energy hitting them, just build them 100 times larger. The only selling point of them is that, if it is possible to build them at all, there is probably no size limit, and the costs are likely to drop considerably per area as the size goes up.

        He might as well argue that their efficency is really really terrible because the sun puts out a hundred billion billion times as much energy as

      • We'd be much better off spending our money to build more coal-fired generation plants. We could produce much more power while spending much less money.

        Oh yes, this is a logical conclusion. It's obvious [rti.org] just exactly what a great idea [environmen...egrity.org] building a bunch of coal-fired power plants is.

        Do yourself a favor, and next time you paste that article somewhere, chop off that last paragraph.

  • If I'm reading this right, the concept of power beamed down to Earth from satellites is credited to the SimCity crew.
    However, at least one version of this idea has occurred before; namely in the comic Flash Gordon. The episode was called "The Observer" (translated to Finnish and now back again to English).

  • should have happened already (Score:5, Interesting)

    by fermion ( 181285 ) on Saturday June 26, 2004 @08:57AM (#9536711) Homepage Journal
    This type of solar power is like the space elevator. It has been around forever, the technological needs are well known, but no one can seem to get it done.

    The difference is that the microwave solar power project has probably been technologically possible since before a single line of Sim City was ever written, and economically possible for at least 10 years. I remember my dad talking about how designs were making their way around the science magazines in the 70's. He said the everyone really expected a test project up by the 80's. It obviously never happened. It is really silly not to have an experimental platform in orbit, especially since there have been so many advance in solar power generation.

    The big obstacles I see are safety, environmental, economics, and military. Obviously, the satellite is transmitting a lot of power, and so a large buffer area will be needed to prevent casualty. Such an area will be a site of environmental damage, so we will have to study that. I doubt that the power generation will yet be profitable, but that does not preclude launching a test vehicle and building a test site. Finally, the satellite will be hard to defend and would be a target for those who with to disable a country, but unlikely more so than the GPS vehicles.

    Most of these are equally true of fission power, which has received tons of money for little results. I wonder if the Big Problem is that many researchers are not comfortable with the cost and complexity of space research, and may therefore shy away from it. The ones who are confortable with space are tend to be more focused on military needs.

    • I would hardly consider anything beaming out gigawtts of microwaves to be "hard to defend", just make it able to direct the beam towarsd incoming threats (or hell, have a lsesr mounted on it for defense, it's not like it needs to run on batteries or anything)
    • Good comments.

      Actually the "buffer area" and antenna area required should be considerably less than the area required for ground-solar, wind, coal mines etc. for the same annual energy production. And environmental impact should be minimal - the idea is to capture over 90% of incoming energy in the receiving array. Power levels in the center will likely be on the order of 10% of peak solar (but 24x7 rather than just in mid-day) so stray power would be 1% of peak sunlight, not enough to cause much damage to
    • is pretty well established now.
      You're thinking of fusion power.

  • Microwave beam misalignment (Score:4, Insightful)

    by zhenlin ( 722930 ) on Saturday June 26, 2004 @08:58AM (#9536715)
    What would happen, if the microwave beam moved slightly out of alignment? From such a high altitude, even a fraction of a degree could move the endpoint of the beam a few tens of metres...

    Even if the reciever could detect this, it would be a few seconds before the satellite could recieve the command and turn off the beam...

    And what if, something flies into the path of the beam, whether or not it is misaligned? Birds, planes, lower orbit satellites...

    The question is not just what would happen, but also how to prevent it.

    -- someone who hopes for safe, clean, efficient power, be it microwave or fission or fusion

    • Re:Microwave beam misalignment (Score:5, Informative)

      by wowbagger ( 69688 ) on Saturday June 26, 2004 @09:06AM (#9536760) Homepage Journal
      Most designs for such a system use a phased-array antenna for transmit - the beam angle can be switched in milliseconds.

      They also use a very large beam with a very low power density, so that even if you were to stand in the middle of the beam you would not be cooked - you'd just feel warmth like standing in the sun.

      Lastly, most designs use a retroreflector on the ground to send a small reference signal back to the bird, which uses the reference signal to steer the beam. If the beam drifts, the reference signal is lost and the system shuts down automatically.

    • What if a plane crashes near an airport?
      What if a chemical plant explodes?
      What if a blast furnance collapses?
      What if a truck full of gasoline runs into an appartment complex?
      What if ...

      There is ALWAYS risk involved. People die all the time because of accidents.

      And i guess they wont place the reciever into the central park or so, but somewhere where there is little damage if there are spills.

    • Re:Microwave beam misalignment (Score:4, Funny)

      by timeOday ( 582209 ) on Saturday June 26, 2004 @09:31AM (#9536883)
      ...What if they cross the streams?

  • Health Risk (Score:3, Insightful)

    by lachlan76 ( 770870 ) on Saturday June 26, 2004 @09:01AM (#9536731)
    I was under the impression that to send that much power down, you would need wither very thin, high energy beams which are dangerous, or a dish a kilometer across. No technology can lower the amount of power sent down to the earth while still dramatically increasing the power output. The beam can be wither wider or more dangerous.

  • I studied this in school (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Gothmolly ( 148874 ) on Saturday June 26, 2004 @09:09AM (#9536771)
    I worked with a Prof from California who had worked on this and other projects. The technology to aim the beam is there. If they can hit an ICBM travelling at Mach 25, they can keep a beam pointed directly at a stationary target.
    • Sure, they can keep the beam pointed correctly, but what about the rest of the satellite?

      I did a case study on a such a satellite involving a 10km^2 solar array launched into orbit and here's what I learned:
      -The density of such a satellite has never been tested before. Most satellites are packed to be the smallest in volume possible, whereas this would be the opposite. We don't have any experimental data for non-nominal modes.
      -The attitude constraint requirement for the solar array is incredibly high. F

  • Older Idea, Asimov used it in 1950 (Score:4, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 26, 2004 @09:19AM (#9536823)
    Hi there,

    So many geeks and nobody read "Reason" (Supossedly 2015 AD. I, Robot; The Complete Robot; Robot Visions) ??? In that story eveything happens in a satellite around the sun that collects the energy to beam it down to Earth.

    Shame on you guys... but the point is that its an OLD idea.

    Read Asimov, its great!
  • In the '70's I read a book about space colonization that said these orbiting microwave power stations were going to pay the hundred-billion-dollar cost of putting a 10,000-person space colony in orbit, by 2000 or so. Anyone remember that book?

    A.

  • I wonder how much microwave popcorn that could have made

  • Asimov (Score:4, Informative)

    by BumpyCarrot ( 775949 ) on Saturday June 26, 2004 @09:33AM (#9536893)
    The earliest I've seen this power source suggested was in Asimov's I, Robot. Unfortunately, I don't have a copy on me to check the dates ;)
  • NASDA, NAtional Space Development Agency of Japan too had plans [space.com] for harnessing energy through satellites.

    Just hope that the NASA effect doesn't reflect upon NASDA

  • X-Prize (Score:4, Insightful)

    by vijaya_chandra ( 618284 ) on Saturday June 26, 2004 @09:38AM (#9536922)
    Considering the response being received for the X-Prize, it wouldn't be a bad idea for some wealthy guy to sponsor some Y-Prize for an extremely efficient, eco-friendly setup for generating power.
    Am damn sure the current hydel, thermal, fission, solar, wind sources can be made use of in other better ways than the current ones
  • Here's the link [sciscoop.com] - yeah it's closer to a blog than slashdot, but it's community edited!

  • SimCity? (Score:4, Funny)

    by NTiOzymandias ( 753325 ) on Saturday June 26, 2004 @09:57AM (#9537044)
    A tip for NASA:

    Shift-F-U-N-D

  • I saw an article in an IEEE magazine a few years ago about a French project to trial wireless power transmission for a remote village on a mountainous island - It may be small scale, but it does seem to be a real working system, which is a step towards what would be required for whats being discussed here

    A little googling for it eventually turns up this English language page : Grand Bassin (Réunion Island) Wireless Power Transmission [lerelaisinternet.com], but I couldn't find very much technical information on it.

  • Coincidence? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by aapold ( 753705 )
    The Oil companies get their man in power and we cancel the space solar energy program.

    • Re:Coincidence? (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Well, that is just the US. In Japan electric power is very, very expensive (I lived there) and there is a big interest there in spolar power sattelites. A quick tour on Google will show that.

      With Japanese energy rates they could afford a costly space project. Moreover they also have a great interest in reducing their dependency on foreign energy. During the power crisis in the 70's they were forced to make deals they did not like.

  • Good for electric propulsion (ion drives) (Score:3, Insightful)

    by calidoscope ( 312571 ) on Saturday June 26, 2004 @12:01PM (#9537738)
    We can get really high Isp's with electric propulsion, but a lot of the advantage is lost when the mass of the power source is figured in (solar cells or nuclear). With microwave power, it is easy to make a low-mass, very efficient power collector.
  • Microwave power should be available around 2020, depending on which version of SimCity you play."

    So, will all Microwave plants explode for no reason around 2070?

  • 2020 too late: As Microprose has shown us, we need to be on our way to Alpha Centauri before 2025. I mean, if SimCity can be right, why can't Civilization?
  • Exciting research into superconductivity using carbon nanotubes [superconductors.org] coupled with the space elevator using carbon nanotube based cable [space.com] would lead one to the conclusion that they should use a set of parallel cables/conductors, abondon the whole laser lights the elevator to get it power concept and just pas the power through the elevator cables, with the excess delivered to the ground.

    Don't these scientists talk to each other or leverage each others work? This is why we are not getting to space at an acceptable p

    1. spain: Spain is a proper noun, to be capitalized.
    2. dispite: This word has an E: "despite"
    3. farther explanation: What? Is this "further exploration" or is the answer just really far away?
    4. Accordong: Huhuh Beavis he said "dong"
    5. Microwave: This is not a proper noun and is properly uncapitalized in the prior sentence.
    I'll let "canceled" slide because one-L or two-Ls is a style issue.

    Now, back to the sunshine.

  • at $250/ton to LEO, the project is practical (Score:3, Interesting)

    by alizard ( 107678 ) <alizard.ecis@com> on Sunday June 27, 2004 @04:17PM (#9545717) Homepage
    The original NASA numbers were based on $400/kg.

    A cheaper alternative not only to rocket boosters, but to the obsolete Space Elevator concept is under development. For more about blimps to space, go to this slashdot [slashdot.org] article and follow the links.

    Remember the art deco artist's conceptions done in the 1930s of skycars we'd all be driving in 2000? Shove the Space Elevator into those pictures and let's start actually putting stuff into space instead.

    Unlike the space elevator, the blimp doesn't require solving some rather fundamental materials problems involving taking a lab process and scaling up fibers a few inches long into linear structures thousands of miles long, or building a giant ribbon which in and of itself is a safety hazard (YOU want to be aroud one that breaks? Or on your way up/down?), the blimp-to-space project is simply a logical extension of technologies we already know.

    The NASA 20TW configuration [nasa.gov] orginally discussed would probably be a lot cheaper to build using the new space transportation methods even including building the transportation than the original would have been. At $250/ton, we can simply buy the solar cells, build modular structures to put them in, and assemble them around L5.

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