America needs to get serious about its spacefaring future. There needs to be an aggressive political, economic, and military strategy to help transition to space-based sustainable energy to replace fossil fuels.
A fully reusable SpaceX BFR will enable space-based solar power to be a clean energy source that is lower cost than coal.
In order to take advantage of this then hundreds of very large space solar power systems will need to be built and they will collectively generate more power than the dozens of Hoover Dams.
Gingrich and other have talked about the need to strengthen congressional support for developing dramatically improved American human space access. The Aerospace States Association needs to also push for the funding of the SpaceX BFR and construction of spaceports.
Space mining, space manufacturing, space power, and spacefaring logistics industries must all be established and scaled.
Space mining, space manufacturing and space power will reduce the cost of space construction by several times.
Space based solar power satellites could replace fossil fuels. This would require both low cost launch and very high volume. The cost to GEO can’t go to over $200 per kilogram and the required traffic level is 15 million tons per year to LEO. (12 million to GEO.)
The main advantage of orbital space-based solar is you get 5 times as much sun as the best deserts and 15 times for places like Japan and the UK.
Giant Mirrors could boost solar farms on the ground and would not need power beaming
A constellation of 12 or more mirror satellites was proposed in a polar sun synchronous orbit at an altitude of approximately 1000 km above the earth. Each mirror satellite contains a multitude of 2 axis tracking mirror segments that collectively direct a sunbeam down at a target solar electric field site delivering a solar intensity to said terrestrial site equivalent to the normal daylight sun intensity extending the sunlight hours at said site by about 2 hours at dawn and 2 hours at dusk each day. Each mirror satellite in the constellation has a diameter of approximately 10 km and each terrestrial solar electric field site has a similar diameter and can produce approximately 5 GW per terrestrial site. Assuming that approximately 50 terrestrial solar electric field sites are evening distributed in sunny locations near cities around the world, this system can produce more affordable solar electric power during the day and further into the morning and evening hours. The typical operating hours for a terrestrial solar electric field site can thus be extended from approximately 8 hours per day by 50% to approximately 12 hours per day.
This constellation is potentially viable now because of the rapid growth in solar installations around the world. However, it is assumed here that a political decision will be required to implement this MiraSolar constellation concept and its actual implementation will then take approximately 10 years. By that time, we assume that there will be approximately fifty 5 GW ground solar electric generating locations distributed around the world with approximately 5 available in each 30 degree longitudinal increment such that 10 of the 12 mirror satellites will always be directing sunlight down to a station for 24 hours each day. If in fact there are 50 x 5 GW = 250 GW of solar ground stations available 10 years from now, that will still be only 250/1300 = 20% of the projected solar electric power production in 2022.
10 km diameter satellite mirror array shown with 1 km mirror elements to simplify the drawing. Smaller mirror elements can be used such as the 0.5 km mirror elements proposed for the ISC Space Power Satellite. Even smaller mirrors can be used with more mirror elements then required. The optimum mirror size would require more detailed design study.
Mirror element section with detail
Keith Henson Space Based Solar Plan
Henson uses a method of designing to cost. Design to cost is a management strategy and supporting methodologies to achieve an affordable product by treating target cost as an independent design parameter that needs to be achieved during the development of a product
Synthetic Oil from electricity. Hydrogen in a barrel of oil takes ~20 MWh. At two cents, $40 per bbl.
Capital $10 per bbl based on this plant below
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
Known for identifying cutting edge technologies, he is currently a Co-Founder of a startup and fundraiser for high potential early-stage companies. He is the Head of Research for Allocations for deep technology investments and an Angel Investor at Space Angels.
A frequent speaker at corporations, he has been a TEDx speaker, a Singularity University speaker and guest at numerous interviews for radio and podcasts. He is open to public speaking and advising engagements.
I think that you need to do the arithmetic on what it will take to sufficiently scale back fossil fuel usage in a world that is growing in energy usage.
I agree that colonizing space with people is probably a fantasy and not necessary for anything useful, however, I think that our robots will do the exploring and colonizing and this will enable humanity to grow and flourish.
Yes, lets cover our deserts with solar power plants. That’s what it will take to sufficiently reduce fossil fuel usage. How come no one adds the cost of damage from climate change due to the continued and increasing use of fossil fuels into the equation???
While it sounds cool I don’t think it is needed. Current Solar and Wind systems are already cheaper than coal. Future renewable will be even cheaper. Batteries are getting cheaper so storage won’t be as expensive as people think. And lets not forget the external costs associated with burning fossil fuel like pollution and Climate Change.
Oh yea that makes sense. Not only will you cause layoffs of people on third shift at factories costing them their jobs you’ll also freeze them to death because how are they supposed to afford the power then. Grats you win the “reality is more complicated than my head award.
Simple is most often better. I like the old idea of using simple orbital reflectors to just illuminate cities. Energy savings will come from not having to turn on street lamps. The russians did some experiments https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Znamya_(satellite)
Solar illumination to grow more food would be nice.
While it sounds cool I don’t think it is needed. Current Solar and Wind systems are already cheaper than coal. Future renewable will be even cheaper. Batteries are getting cheaper so storage won’t be as expensive as people think. And lets not forget the external costs associated with burning fossil fuel like pollution and Climate Change.
Oh yea that makes sense. Not only will you cause layoffs of people on third shift at factories costing them their jobs you’ll also freeze them to death because how are they supposed to afford the power then.Grats you win the reality is more complicated than my head award.”
Simple is most often better.I like the old idea of using simple orbital reflectors to just illuminate cities. Energy savings will come from not having to turn on street lamps. The russians did some experimentshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Znamya_(satellite)
It’s good and all until then transmission beam miss its mark and fry us all. Is there any other way than using microwave to beam back the energy?
Mmmm… half our atmosphere? That’d take quite a bit of bad luck and piss-poor metrology. Nope… the problem may be the POLLUTION of the stratosphere, ionosphere, mesosphere and exosphere, and that’s worth debating. But the Earth’s gravitation is going to keep its atmosphere, pollutants and all, quite tightly as its done over the last 4,000,000,000+ years.
LOL … perpetual motion and free energy too!
Except when it’s cloudy, of course. For that reason beaming down microwaves is still fine.
This could give solar energy what it currently lacks: 24h/24h baseline power capability. And stop inanities like trans-continental grids for moving electricity from where the sun still shines to where it no longer does for a few hours.
our atmosphere is ripped off” – Where do you think it goes?
Projects like this will be totally viable when space-launch companies start adopting the latest propulsion technology called a Centrifugal Propeller. It successfully converts centrifugal force into directed thrust in a completely closed unit with no external moving parts and no external vents. It will make rockets obsolete. It continually accelerates in space. A single unit can launch thousands of pounds into space and return to Earth, 5 or 6 times in a single day.
All well and good, but what will the impact be on the atmosphere of dozens, if not hundreds of BFR launches? A near-vertical launch of a Falcon 9 last August punched a large hole in the ionosphere, and here’s an indication of the damage which could be done by multiple Falcon Heavy launches: https://www.space.com/39705-spacex-falcon-heavy-rocket-earth-atmosphere. Cheap solar power from space isn’t much good if half our atmosphere is ripped off in the process.
I’m sure there are better things we can do in space.
Mark, why is it countries/areas with the greatest extent of solar and wind have the highest cost of energy? (“Current Solar and Wind systems are already cheaper than coal”)
The savings would be a lot greater than the cost. Oil, coal and gas ain’t cheap. And exploring and drilling for them ain’t free either. Building and maintaining fossil fuel power plant ain’t free. Providing additional Health Care for people sickens by air pollution isn’t free. What we should be talking about is not the cost of a renewable solution but the savings.
A lot of people including me won’t do it for $200/month but since I have seen more and more solar panels on roofs in the neighborhood I see that there are people who think different. But if a solar installation could warm and cool my house and power the family’s car I might go for it because that is a lot more than $200/month. And it would be nice to sell the excess to the utility and get a check from them instead of sending them one.
Solar illumination to grow more food would be nice.
It’s good and all until then transmission beam miss its mark and fry us all. Is there any other way than using microwave to beam back the energy?
Mmmm… half our atmosphere? That’d take quite a bit of bad luck and piss-poor metrology. Nope… the problem may be the POLLUTION of the stratosphere ionosphere mesosphere and exosphere and that’s worth debating. But the Earth’s gravitation is going to keep its atmosphere pollutants and all quite tightly as its done over the last 4000000000+ years.
LOL … perpetual motion and free energy too!
Except when it’s cloudy of course. For that reason beaming down microwaves is still fine.
This could give solar energy what it currently lacks: 24h/24h baseline power capability.And stop inanities like trans-continental grids for moving electricity from where the sun still shines to where it no longer does for a few hours.
our atmosphere is ripped off”” – Where do you think it goes?”””
Projects like this will be totally viable when space-launch companies start adopting the latest propulsion technology called a Centrifugal Propeller. It successfully converts centrifugal force into directed thrust in a completely closed unit with no external moving parts and no external vents. It will make rockets obsolete. It continually accelerates in space. A single unit can launch thousands of pounds into space and return to Earth 5 or 6 times in a single day.
All well and good but what will the impact be on the atmosphere of dozens if not hundreds of BFR launches? A near-vertical launch of a Falcon 9 last August punched a large hole in the ionosphere and here’s an indication of the damage which could be done by multiple Falcon Heavy launches: https://www.space.com/39705-spacex-falcon-heavy-rocket-earth-atmosphere.Cheap solar power from space isn’t much good if half our atmosphere is ripped off in the process.
I’m sure there are better things we can do in space.
Mark why is it countries/areas with the greatest extent of solar and wind have the highest cost of energy?(Current Solar and Wind systems are already cheaper than coal””)”””
The savings would be a lot greater than the cost. Oil coal and gas ain’t cheap. And exploring and drilling for them ain’t free either. Building and maintaining fossil fuel power plant ain’t free. Providing additional Health Care for people sickens by air pollution isn’t free. What we should be talking about is not the cost of a renewable solution but the savings.
A lot of people including me won’t do it for $200/month but since I have seen more and more solar panels on roofs in the neighborhood I see that there are people who think different. But if a solar installation could warm and cool my house and power the family’s car I might go for it because that is a lot more than $200/month. And it would be nice to sell the excess to the utility and get a check from them instead of sending them one.
Likely a very good but long term project – will prob takes decade or two to even get basic operational ability but you cant beat the result
Where did $360m for a BFR launch come from? According to Elon Musk the cost will be less than the Falcon 9 or Falcon Heavy.
Seems to beg for orbital debris.
Longer waves would be fine … except they cannot be focussed to a very compact area unless the focussing antenna is very larger. Doing that tho’ ends up negating the goodness that is their nominal promise. [b]Goat[/b]Guy
Actually solar here on good old fashioned Terra Firma is cheaper than coal. Also, we really don’t need giant mirrors raising the temperatures of things down here either because if you haven’t guessed, we not exactly in the middle of an ice age.
those space mirrors could be multi purpose? telescopes, weapons,spot heaters for orange crops, melting ice ect. laser repeaters/magnifiers and boosters. like in the si-fi novels spinning glass in orbit is a neat trick . down in millville the furnices burn bright both by day and by night to bid the sand let in the light.
I like to think of space-based solar power as humanity’s first practical “fusion power”, with good Ol’ Sol doin’ the fusing for us, a safe 150,000,000 kilometers away. SPACE based solar circumvents most of terrestrial solar’s shortcomings: dusts, wind, hail, rain, cloudcover, hazes, acids, caustics (with rain), oxidation, vibrations, pests, poop, shade, ‘the turning earth’, gravity, weather-vs-location choices, vandals, earthquakes, and so forth. And replaces all that with “distance problems” and “continuously orbiting” and “high maintenance complexity”. The DISTANCE PROBLEMS are not obvious to the non-technical amongst us, but really it comes down to desire-for-simplicity vs. trigonometric limitations. (What?… yep. Trig) Ideally it takes little imagination to wish for a big mirror “up there” that one just joggles to the right angle, to beam down a nice bright, tight spot of concentrated sunlight to a waiting receiving field down Dirtside. Right? The problem is related tho’ to the physics of optics: The Sun is not a point source, but 0.5o in extent (0.0096 radians) across. Why this matters is because the SIZE of a focussed spot made by a curved mirror or lens is S = radians * focal length. 0.0096 radians * 1,000 kilometers (per article) = 9.6 kilometers for a “sun circle” here on Dirt. That’s a reality that no amount of mirrors can overcome. Imagining further tho, then one asks … well, what can be done to tighten the spot? From a physics perspective, nothing optical. But the obvious alternative is, “make power up there, collected it to a transmitter of ultra-high power, form a beam that can get thru clouds, hazes and storms, and further have a ‘tightness’ which makes a much smaller spot.” Solar –> electricity –> microwaves –> beaming –> reception –> synchronous conversion and inversion –> power to grid. CONTINUOUSLY ORBITING is another vexing problem: the Earth is spinning, the satellites are whizzing, the orbit of the Earth ar
With BFR we can build an Orbital Ring with current tech. Then accessing space becomes comparable to a train ride.
Like Stevet says, a transmission beam is a city killer. It would either get shot down or never be allowed to get up. No imaginable geopolitics will allow it.
There’s always at least one!
While wind and solar are relatively cheap, storage is not. The best that a lithium ion battery can do according to 2017 estimates is about $0.26 cents per kWh, while pump storage (e.g. pumping up to a large water reservoir) is estimated at about $0.15 cents per kWh. Space based solar power likely won’t displace wind in terms of cost which is now around $0.05 cents per kWh and getting, but when compared to wind/solar + battery which goes for anywhere from $0.20 – $0.35 cents per kWh, space based power could look pretty competitive for supplying 24h base load power.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha…hem..he.he he he…aho..ha Really? And just exactly when is the IPO for your new no-thrust-propulsion company? I look forward to your desperate explanations of why your magic propeller demonstrates a complete inability to producre any measurable thrust in a vacuum. Go ahead post a youtube video of your working model. I won’t hold my breath.
Likely a very good but long term project – will prob takes decade or two to even get basic operational ability but you cant beat the result
Where did $360m for a BFR launch come from? According to Elon Musk the cost will be less than the Falcon 9 or Falcon Heavy.
Seems to beg for orbital debris.
Longer waves would be fine … except they cannot be focussed to a very compact area unless the focussing antenna is very larger. Doing that tho’ ends up negating the goodness that is their nominal promise. [b]Goat[/b]Guy
Actually solar here on good old fashioned Terra Firma is cheaper than coal. Also we really don’t need giant mirrors raising the temperatures of things down here either because if you haven’t guessed we not exactly in the middle of an ice age.
those space mirrors could be multi purpose?telescopes weaponsspot heaters for orange crops melting ice ect. laser repeaters/magnifiers and boosters. like in the si-fi novels spinning glass in orbit is a neat trick .down in millville the furnices burn brightboth by day and by nightto bid the sandlet in the light.
I like to think of space-based solar power as humanity’s first practical fusion power””” with good Ol’ Sol doin’ the fusing for us a safe 1500000 kilometers away. SPACE based solar circumvents most of terrestrial solar’s shortcomings: dusts wind hail rain cloudcover hazes acids caustics (with rain) oxidation vibrations pests poop shade ‘the turning earth’ gravity weather-vs-location choices vandals earthquakes”” and so forth.And replaces all that with “”””distance problems”””” and “”””continuously orbiting”””” and “”””high maintenance complexity””””. The DISTANCE PROBLEMS are not obvious to the non-technical amongst us”””” but really it comes down to desire-for-simplicity vs. trigonometric limitations. (What?… yep. Trig) Ideally it takes little imagination to wish for a big mirror “”””up there”””” that one just joggles to the right angle”” to beam down a nice bright tight spot of concentrated sunlight to a waiting receiving field down Dirtside. Right?The problem is related tho’ to the physics of optics: The Sun is not a point source but 0.5o in extent (0.0096 radians) across. Why this matters is because the SIZE of a focussed spot made by a curved mirror or lens is S = radians * focal length. 0.0096 radians * 1″”000 kilometers (per article) = 9.6 kilometers for a “”””sun circle”””” here on Dirt. That’s a reality that no amount of mirrors can overcome. Imagining further tho”” then one asks … well what can be done to tighten the spot? From a physics perspective nothing optical. But the obvious alternative is”” “”””make power up there”” collected it to a transmitter of ultra-high power form a beam that can get thru clouds hazes and storms”” and further have a ‘tightness’ which makes a much smaller spot.”””” Solar –> electricity –> microwaves –> beaming –> reception –> synchronous conversion and inversion –> power to grid. CONTINUOUSLY ORBITING is another vexing problem: the Earth is spinning”” the satellites are whizzing”” the”
With BFR we can build an Orbital Ring with current tech. Then accessing space becomes comparable to a train ride.
Like Stevet says a transmission beam is a city killer. It would either get shot down or never be allowed to get up. No imaginable geopolitics will allow it.
There’s always at least one!
While wind and solar are relatively cheap storage is not. The best that a lithium ion battery can do according to 2017 estimates is about $0.26 cents per kWh while pump storage (e.g. pumping up to a large water reservoir) is estimated at about $0.15 cents per kWh. Space based solar power likely won’t displace wind in terms of cost which is now around $0.05 cents per kWh and getting but when compared to wind/solar + battery which goes for anywhere from $0.20 – $0.35 cents per kWh space based power could look pretty competitive for supplying 24h base load power.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha…hem..he.he he he…aho..ha Really? And just exactly when is the IPO for your new no-thrust-propulsion company? I look forward to your desperate explanations of why your magic propeller demonstrates a complete inability to producre any measurable thrust in a vacuum. Go ahead post a youtube video of your working model. I won’t hold my breath.
If the SPS system were built from lunar / asteroid resources the atmospheric pollution problem could be avoided. Lunar regolith contains materials to build structures as well as for glass and mirrors for optics as well as materials to fabricate semiconductors whether Si or iron-titanates (ilmanate – hematite, others. The value of power delivered to the lunar surface could be >$5 / KWhr and be competitive. The availability of vacuum / clean-room conditions on the lunar surface appears to offer opportunities for much lower cost manufacturing on the Moon of PV systems than on Earth. Use of tethered SBSP with the rectennas mounted on aerostats above the cloud layer offers the potential for direct power beaming or laser with little loss in the atmosphere lowering the size of the transmitted significantly due to use of higher frequencies than microwave. See – https://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?R=20130009113 2018-06-21T07:10:51+00:00Z The “hyper-modular” architecture offered by John Mankins provides solutions both to the cost of constructing large devices (with millions of identical modules produced like consumer devices) and to the cost of maintenance with use of autonomous robots continually monitoring the array and replacing modules with increased likelihood of failure. Mankins forecasts a 3% replacement rate per annum would keep the overall array functional with a lifetime for the total system more comparable to hydro than technologies like nuclear or coal. See – http://space.nss.org/media/NSS-JOURNAL-New-Developments-in-Space-Solar-Power.pdf An integrated Moon-Earth strategy is presented in http://thespacereview.com/article/3528/1
Cheap sensationalism. Some scientist (or more likely, some random writer paraphrasing him) exchanged the word “ripple” with “hole” and we have a “hole” the size of California from one launch. Seriously, how much energy do you think it would take to actually punch a hole that big? Hundreds of launches won’t be a problem at all. When you drop a pebble in a lake a mile across, you will create a ripple spanning the entire lake….. Do you imagine the fish have to worry?
If the SPS system were built from lunar / asteroid resources the atmospheric pollution problem could be avoided. Lunar regolith contains materials to build structures as well as for glass and mirrors for optics as well as materials to fabricate semiconductors whether Si or iron-titanates (ilmanate – hematite others. The value of power delivered to the lunar surface could be >$5 / KWhr and be competitive. The availability of vacuum / clean-room conditions on the lunar surface appears to offer opportunities for much lower cost manufacturing on the Moon of PV systems than on Earth. Use of tethered SBSP with the rectennas mounted on aerostats above the cloud layer offers the potential for direct power beaming or laser with little loss in the atmosphere lowering the size of the transmitted significantly due to use of higher frequencies than microwave. See – https://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?R=20130009113 2018-06-21T07:10:51+00:00Z The hyper-modular”” architecture offered by John Mankins provides solutions both to the cost of constructing large devices (with millions of identical modules produced like consumer devices) and to the cost of maintenance with use of autonomous robots continually monitoring the array and replacing modules with increased likelihood of failure. Mankins forecasts a 3{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} replacement rate per annum would keep the overall array functional with a lifetime for the total system more comparable to hydro than technologies like nuclear or coal. See – http://space.nss.org/media/NSS-JOURNAL-New-Developments-in-Space-Solar-Power.pdfAn integrated Moon-Earth strategy is presented in http://thespacereview.com/article/3528/1“””
Cheap sensationalism. Some scientist (or more likely some random writer paraphrasing him) exchanged the word ripple”” with “”””hole”””” and we have a “”””hole”””” the size of California from one launch. Seriously”” how much energy do you think it would take to actually punch a hole that big? Hundreds of launches won’t be a problem at all. When you drop a pebble in a lake a mile across”” you will create a ripple spanning the entire lake….. Do you imagine the fish have to worry?”””
America needs to get serious about its spacefaring future. There needs to be an aggressive political, economic, and military strategy to help transition to space-based sustainable energy to replace fossil fuels.” The first paragraph contains truth and not truth. The truth is that America does need to get serious about our space faring future. The part that is not true is that we need space based sustainable energy. What is really needed is private industry to be unleashed and let them follow the profit and let the market determine what type or use we make from space instead of some big overly expensive government boondoggle. Otherwise our future in space could be summed up in three letters, SLS.
I suggest that you read the replies that I have given above.
I suggest that you view the video that is referred to in the reply I gave to the sceptic above.
It is already on YouTube. You can stop holding your breath now. The video is of a prototype proof of concept test. I hate when people who know nothing about what they are talking about, spout off like you. Several weeks ago I met with two government of Canada officials. One of them had 4 degrees, two of which were in physics and in engineering. His initial scepticism turned into full on support and his continuing to repeat “you will win the Nobel Prize for this”.
So a nation would invite certain destruction by war to prevent possible but unlikely destruction by SPS?
I suggest that you read the replies that I have given above.
I suggest that you view the video that is referred to in the reply I gave to the sceptic above.
It is already on YouTube. You can stop holding your breath now. The video is of a prototype proof of concept test. I hate when people who know nothing about what they are talking about spout off like you. Several weeks ago I met with two government of Canada officials. One of them had 4 degrees two of which were in physics and in engineering. His initial scepticism turned into full on support and his continuing to repeat you will win the Nobel Prize for this””.”””
America needs to get serious about its spacefaring future. There needs to be an aggressive political economic” and military strategy to help transition to space-based sustainable energy to replace fossil fuels.”” The first paragraph contains truth and not truth. The truth is that America does need to get serious about our space faring future. The part that is not true is that we need space based sustainable energy. What is really needed is private industry to be unleashed and let them follow the profit and let the market determine what type or use we make from space instead of some big overly expensive government boondoggle. Otherwise our future in space could be summed up in three letters”””” SLS.”””
Studies for use of off-planet resources (some of which I worked on while with Boeing) indicate 98-99% of SPS materials can come from the Moon or asteroids. The remaining 1-2% are either components not worth making in space (ie computer chips) or rare elements not found in enough quantity in space to be worth mining, given cheap launch from Earth. The off-planet production facilities, as opposed to the SPS product, can *also* reach a 98-99% use of local materials. Your production equipment can therefore be “grown” from a starter set (a seed factory) of core machines which in turn make the rest of the machines you need. For example, metallic asteroids (5% of the asteroid population) are an iron-nickel-cobalt alloy. Carbonaceous asteroids, as their name indicates, have carbon. Iron alloy + carbon = steel alloy. With a source of steel, you can then build most or all of a lot of other industrial machines.
Technically we are in a midst of an ice age. It is just that we are in an interglacial period of it.
So a nation would invite certain destruction by war to prevent possible but unlikely destruction by SPS?
Studies for use of off-planet resources (some of which I worked on while with Boeing) indicate 98-99{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} of SPS materials can come from the Moon or asteroids. The remaining 1-2{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} are either components not worth making in space (ie computer chips) or rare elements not found in enough quantity in space to be worth mining given cheap launch from Earth.The off-planet production facilities as opposed to the SPS product can *also* reach a 98-99{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} use of local materials. Your production equipment can therefore be grown”” from a starter set (a seed factory) of core machines which in turn make the rest of the machines you need. For example”” metallic asteroids (5{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} of the asteroid population) are an iron-nickel-cobalt alloy. Carbonaceous asteroids as their name indicates have carbon. Iron alloy + carbon = steel alloy. With a source of steel”” you can then build most or all of a lot of other industrial machines.”””
Technically we are in a midst of an ice age. It is just that we are in an interglacial period of it.
My local electric company sells retail solar-based electricity for about $0.11/kWh, and unsubsidized utility-scale levelized cost is $0.03-0.06 for wind and solar in the US. So I don’t know why to your question, unless you or your source is making stuff up.
There may be, but energy is a *huge* fraction of the world’s GDP. So any energy system that can compete has the potential for huge revenues and investment. For comparison, world clean energy investment in 2017 was a third of a trillion dollars. Wall Street would be salivating to enter a market of that scale.
Sure. You could use LED’s or lasers. The main requirements are (1) reasonable conversion efficiency from sunlight to beam, and then beam back to electricity, (2) a wavelength not blocked by the atmosphere or weather, and (3) ability to focus the beam on a reasonable size antenna on the ground. Reasonable here means “makes economic sense for the overall system”.
A slightly-warmer-area death ray is not very menacing. Which is good.
You know, this was considered in the 1970’s, when the first microwave SPS’s were studied. The transmitting antenna in orbit is a phased array. The *phase reference* is supplied by a transmitter on the ground in the center of the receiving antenna. Aside from momentary startup, when it uses ground power, the phase reference is powered by the down-coming beam. So if the beam wanders, it lose phase-lock, and therefore defocuses. Even when focused, the beam power is limited to 300 W/m^2, or 30% of full sunlight. So it is not immediately dangerous even if you were standing in the middle of the receiver. Being that it is microwaves, you would not want to spend long periods in the beam without a conductive suit to protect you, but it won’t kill you or set fire to things without it.
$360m is probably the *manufacturing cost* of a BFR. Musk has quoted “less than a Falcon 1” launch cost, which would be $6m to fly, and I conservatively expect early flights to run $20m before they gain flight experience and traffic. Note that cost and price are not the same thing. SpaceX can probably get away with charging a lot more than cost for the BFR, since the payload is so large.
My local electric company sells retail solar-based electricity for about $0.11/kWh and unsubsidized utility-scale levelized cost is $0.03-0.06 for wind and solar in the US.So I don’t know why to your question unless you or your source is making stuff up.
There may be but energy is a *huge* fraction of the world’s GDP. So any energy system that can compete has the potential for huge revenues and investment. For comparison world clean energy investment in 2017 was a third of a trillion dollars. Wall Street would be salivating to enter a market of that scale.
Sure. You could use LED’s or lasers. The main requirements are (1) reasonable conversion efficiency from sunlight to beam and then beam back to electricity (2) a wavelength not blocked by the atmosphere or weather and (3) ability to focus the beam on a reasonable size antenna on the ground. Reasonable here means makes economic sense for the overall system””.”””
A slightly-warmer-area death ray is not very menacing. Which is good.
You know this was considered in the 1970’s when the first microwave SPS’s were studied. The transmitting antenna in orbit is a phased array. The *phase reference* is supplied by a transmitter on the ground in the center of the receiving antenna. Aside from momentary startup when it uses ground power the phase reference is powered by the down-coming beam. So if the beam wanders it lose phase-lock and therefore defocuses.Even when focused the beam power is limited to 300 W/m^2 or 30{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} of full sunlight. So it is not immediately dangerous even if you were standing in the middle of the receiver. Being that it is microwaves you would not want to spend long periods in the beam without a conductive suit to protect you but it won’t kill you or set fire to things without it.
$360m is probably the *manufacturing cost* of a BFR. Musk has quoted less than a Falcon 1″” launch cost”” which would be $6m to fly and I conservatively expect early flights to run $20m before they gain flight experience and traffic. Note that cost and price are not the same thing. SpaceX can probably get away with charging a lot more than cost for the BFR”” since the payload is so large.”””
The original SPS studies assumed the satellites were in synchronous orbit. That orbit only gets in the Earth’s shadow about 2% of the time. There are lower “sun synchronous” orbits which are in sunlight all the time. Lower orbits would mean the satellites move, so you would need several satellites and several ground stations working in concert to get 100% coverage. The reason to study SPS in the first place is that high orbits receive 4-10 times as much sunlight as compared to various places on the ground. That’s due to night, weather, and atmospheric absorption. That advantage gives you room to work with and still be competitive with ground solar. Sunny locations, like the Chilean desert, don’t need help from SPS. It’s the cloudy climates, where space has the 10:1 advantage, which would benefit the most.
So, you’ve managed to build all this stuff in orbit… then what? How doesn’t anybody here on earth actually benefit from it or looking at a broader scope how does humanity actually benefit??? I strongly believe that the idea of colonizing space is romantic bunk. People aren’t evolved to live in zero or even low gravity environments. We know that people do poorly living in space from the experiences of astronauts living on space stations.
Just a thought, but unless the solar power satellites are in a fairly high orbit then how can they beam any power to the night side of earth because wouldn’t they be in earths shadow when they were over the night side of earth. If they are in a high enough orbit that the shadow doesn’t matter then doesn’t it make beaming power harder in the same way plinking at a beer can at 100 yards is harder than shooting at one at 50 feet??? My point here is solar power here on the ground is just fine if you geographically distribute it sufficiently.
I totally agree, So called experts still do not grasp how much of a game changer a fully reusable BFR is, Elon Musk plans to give and update on the BFR development in 4-8 weeks time, looking forward to it 🙂 I guess most people will only begin to understand when next year (2019) the BFS(spaceship) does it first hopper test.
Tell that to any of the people effected by the record heat wave this summer and they will laugh at you (if you are lucky.) 😉
The original SPS studies assumed the satellites were in synchronous orbit. That orbit only gets in the Earth’s shadow about 2{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} of the time. There are lower sun synchronous”” orbits which are in sunlight all the time. Lower orbits would mean the satellites move”” so you would need several satellites and several ground stations working in concert to get 100{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} coverage.The reason to study SPS in the first place is that high orbits receive 4-10 times as much sunlight as compared to various places on the ground. That’s due to night weather and atmospheric absorption. That advantage gives you room to work with and still be competitive with ground solar. Sunny locations like the Chilean desert don’t need help from SPS. It’s the cloudy climates where space has the 10:1 advantage”” which would benefit the most.”””
So you’ve managed to build all this stuff in orbit… then what? How doesn’t anybody here on earth actually benefit from it or looking at a broader scope how does humanity actually benefit??? I strongly believe that the idea of colonizing space is romantic bunk. People aren’t evolved to live in zero or even low gravity environments. We know that people do poorly living in space from the experiences of astronauts living on space stations.
Just a thought but unless the solar power satellites are in a fairly high orbit then how can they beam any power to the night side of earth because wouldn’t they be in earths shadow when they were over the night side of earth. If they are in a high enough orbit that the shadow doesn’t matter then doesn’t it make beaming power harder in the same way plinking at a beer can at 100 yards is harder than shooting at one at 50 feet??? My point here is solar power here on the ground is just fine if you geographically distribute it sufficiently.
I totally agree So called experts still do not grasp how much of a game changer a fully reusable BFR is Elon Musk plans to give and update on the BFR development in 4-8 weeks time looking forward to it 🙂 I guess most people will only begin to understand when next year (2019) the BFS(spaceship) does it first hopper test.
Tell that to any of the people effected by the record heat wave this summer and they will laugh at you (if you are lucky.) 😉
OK, I know all that stuff but you neglected a couple major downsides of SPS. First, building stuff in Space is expensive. Second, there are losses in getting the power from the satellites to the grid. Third, you risk a malfunction turning a SPS satellite into a solar powered space based death-ray (kind of silly but still possible.) Note, long distance DC grid can transmit power from the sunny Chilean Desert to other places that aren’t so lucky and we’ve got plenty of sunny deserts here in the US too.
OK I know all that stuff but you neglected a couple major downsides of SPS. First building stuff in Space is expensive. Second there are losses in getting the power from the satellites to the grid. Third you risk a malfunction turning a SPS satellite into a solar powered space based death-ray (kind of silly but still possible.)Note long distance DC grid can transmit power from the sunny Chilean Desert to other places that aren’t so lucky and we’ve got plenty of sunny deserts here in the US too.
Is solar still cheaper than coal once you include the night-time power production systems and likely fuel; Or the huge batteries needed to cover not just nights but also periods when much of the country is covered in clouds; Or the cost of building out massive global solar so the daylit areas of the world can supply all the world’s power needs, and installing massive global-super-conducting power distribution? The answer is: Unfortunately, No. Except maybe if you build your solar plants in orbit – and find a realistic way to do it cheaply.
Youtube search for “Centrifugal Propellor” gives 20 000 hits. If you want people to watch your videos you might want to be a little easier to find.
300 W/m^2 of microwaves might be survivable, but double or triple that would end up being an effective area denial weapon. You don’t kill everyone in the city, but you do force them to move out within a day or two. You have effectively destroyed the city without a death toll (though no doubt lots of sympathetic refugees). A “non-lethal” weapon of mass destruction. Could be VERY useful. Of course even the 300 W/m^2 would probably fry all the electronics.
If you can beam power from a GEO satellite to the earth, then you can probably beam it from the earth (say a sunny desert), to a satellite, and back down again to an industrialised customer. The lower efficiency of the desert solar farm then just has to make up for the much, much cheaper on-Earth construction costs. Then all you need to launch is the microwave part of your satellite scheme.
Is solar still cheaper than coal once you include the night-time power production systems and likely fuel; Or the huge batteries needed to cover not just nights but also periods when much of the country is covered in clouds; Or the cost of building out massive global solar so the daylit areas of the world can supply all the world’s power needs and installing massive global-super-conducting power distribution? The answer is: Unfortunately No. Except maybe if you build your solar plants in orbit – and find a realistic way to do it cheaply.
Youtube search for Centrifugal Propellor”” gives 20 000 hits. If you want people to watch your videos you might want to be a little easier to find.”””
300 W/m^2 of microwaves might be survivable but double or triple that would end up being an effective area denial weapon. You don’t kill everyone in the city but you do force them to move out within a day or two. You have effectively destroyed the city without a death toll (though no doubt lots of sympathetic refugees). A on-lethal”” weapon of mass destruction. Could be VERY useful.Of course even the 300 W/m^2 would probably fry all the electronics.”””
If you can beam power from a GEO satellite to the earth then you can probably beam it from the earth (say a sunny desert) to a satellite and back down again to an industrialised customer.The lower efficiency of the desert solar farm then just has to make up for the much much cheaper on-Earth construction costs. Then all you need to launch is the microwave part of your satellite scheme.
> How doesn’t anybody here on earth actually benefit from it or looking at a broader scope how does humanity actually benefit??? I Space industry already accounts for half a percent of world GDP. It provides a variety of services – communications, research, weather observation, navigation, a little internet service (soon to be a lot more), etc. What it does not yet supply is basic industries like energy and manufacturing. If those can be bootstrapped economically, they can make a measurable impact on society. > I strongly believe that the idea of colonizing space is romantic bunk. That’s not how I look at it. I treat the development of the Solar System like economic development on Earth. It needs to demonstrate a reasonable rate of return to happen. Aside from rich people who can afford to be in space purely for their own reasons, I expect workers to be up there when they are needed, like drilling platforms in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico. > People aren’t evolved to live in zero or even low gravity environments. Everybody involved in space systems engineering, including myself, already knows that. We are also aware of other hazards, like radiation exposure and micrometeorite impacts. Part of the research being done on the ISS is to find out how long people can go in zero-g (one year is the demonstrated duration), and what interventions (exercise, drugs, etc.) can or cannot make a difference. We don’t yet have significant data for gravity levels between zero and one. The ISS was originally intended to have a “centrifuge module” to collect such data, but it got deleted due to budget cuts. Due to the lack of data, the only safe assumption we engineers can make is we need full gravity for missions or colonies where people live longer than a year. This can be achieved by rotation, both on the ground and in orbit. Radiation and micrometeoroid protection can be achieved with multiple-layer pressure hulls, enough equipment and storage mass, or bulk so
> How doesn’t anybody here on earth actually benefit from it or looking at a broader scope how does humanity actually benefit??? ISpace industry already accounts for half a percent of world GDP. It provides a variety of services – communications research weather observation navigation a little internet service (soon to be a lot more) etc. What it does not yet supply is basic industries like energy and manufacturing. If those can be bootstrapped economically they can make a measurable impact on society.> I strongly believe that the idea of colonizing space is romantic bunk.That’s not how I look at it. I treat the development of the Solar System like economic development on Earth. It needs to demonstrate a reasonable rate of return to happen. Aside from rich people who can afford to be in space purely for their own reasons I expect workers to be up there when they are needed like drilling platforms in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico.> People aren’t evolved to live in zero or even low gravity environments. Everybody involved in space systems engineering including myself already knows that. We are also aware of other hazards like radiation exposure and micrometeorite impacts. Part of the research being done on the ISS is to find out how long people can go in zero-g (one year is the demonstrated duration) and what interventions (exercise drugs etc.) can or cannot make a difference.We don’t yet have significant data for gravity levels between zero and one. The ISS was originally intended to have a centrifuge module”” to collect such data”” but it got deleted due to budget cuts. Due to the lack of data the only safe assumption we engineers can make is we need full gravity for missions or colonies where people live longer than a year. This can be achieved by rotation both on the ground and in orbit. Radiation and micrometeoroid protection can be achieved with multiple-layer pressure hulls enough equipment and storage mass”” or bulk”
Yes, mirrors, as mentioned in the article. They don’t mention microwaves.
The article mentions mirrors, not microwaves.
India was proposing exactly that, using a sun terminator riding SSO SPS, and MEO equatorial relay sats including ground power uplink beaming via the same relay sats.
> First, building stuff in Space is expensive.
That has been true in the past, but it doesn’t have to be in the future. If the BFR reaches Musk’s goal of $6M per launch, that comes to $40/kg. If you can get 99% of materials from space, you lower the transport contributor to cost of materials another factor of 100 to $0.40/kg. That’s about half the price of a large bag of flour at Walmart. Those are optimistic goals, but it gives you an idea what is possible.
In terms of energy, modern space solar cells recover their energy of production in 2 days of full sunlight, and last nominally 15 years. So you have plenty of surplus energy to run other industrial processes and turn raw lunar and asteroid rocks to useful products.
> Second, there are losses in getting the power from the satellites to the grid.
That was allowed for in the SPS studies. 68 GW of solar flux at 1970’s efficiency of 12% yields 8 GW electric on-board, which in turn yields 5 GW inserted at the power line We can do better today.
> Third, you risk a malfunction turning a SPS satellite into a solar powered space based death-ray (kind of silly but still possible.)
The laws of optics and proper design prevent that. At best, when properly focused, the beam is 30% of max solar intensity. If it wanders off the ground antenna, it loses phase-lock (it is a phased array transmitter), and the beam de-focuses. How that works is the phase reference comes from a small transmitter at the center of the ground antenna *and is powered by the incoming beam*. Without it, the individual transmitter elements get out of phase, and the beam is no longer coherent. The beam is now spread over the whole Earth and half the sky.
(Really, don’t you think that a bunch of really smart people working for years wouldn’t think of the obvious safety questions?)
> sunny Chilean Desert
What you say is true. SPS is better suited to supplying power to cloudy climates like Seattle or Germany. Most power generation has local advantages and disadvantages. For example the Vogtle Nuclear plant units 3&4, which are the only ones still under construction in the US, are 175 miles from Atlanta, for which half their power is destined. The reason is they need the Savannah River for cooling water. The US mid-West is windy. The south is not very. The western deserts are sunny. The northwest has big rivers and mountains. Each region preferentially builds power generation according to local advantages.
> How doesn’t anybody here on earth actually benefit from it or looking at a broader scope how does humanity actually benefit??? I
Space industry already accounts for half a percent of world GDP. It provides a variety of services – communications, research, weather observation, navigation, a little internet service (soon to be a lot more), etc. What it does not yet supply is basic industries like energy and manufacturing. If those can be bootstrapped economically, they can make a measurable impact on society.
> I strongly believe that the idea of colonizing space is romantic bunk.
That’s not how I look at it. I treat the development of the Solar System like economic development on Earth. It needs to demonstrate a reasonable rate of return to happen. Aside from rich people who can afford to be in space purely for their own reasons, I expect workers to be up there when they are needed, like drilling platforms in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico.
> People aren’t evolved to live in zero or even low gravity environments.
Everybody involved in space systems engineering, including myself, already knows that. We are also aware of other hazards, like radiation exposure and micrometeorite impacts. Part of the research being done on the ISS is to find out how long people can go in zero-g (one year is the demonstrated duration), and what interventions (exercise, drugs, etc.) can or cannot make a difference.
We don’t yet have significant data for gravity levels between zero and one. The ISS was originally intended to have a “centrifuge module” to collect such data, but it got deleted due to budget cuts. Due to the lack of data, the only safe assumption we engineers can make is we need full gravity for missions or colonies where people live longer than a year. This can be achieved by rotation, both on the ground and in orbit. Radiation and micrometeoroid protection can be achieved with multiple-layer pressure hulls, enough equipment and storage mass, or bulk soil if you need more.
Is solar still cheaper than coal once you include the night-time power production systems and likely fuel;
Or the huge batteries needed to cover not just nights but also periods when much of the country is covered in clouds;
Or the cost of building out massive global solar so the daylit areas of the world can supply all the world’s power needs, and installing massive global-super-conducting power distribution?
The answer is: Unfortunately, No. Except maybe if you build your solar plants in orbit – and find a realistic way to do it cheaply.
Youtube search for “Centrifugal Propellor” gives 20 000 hits. If you want people to watch your videos you might want to be a little easier to find.
300 W/m^2 of microwaves might be survivable, but double or triple that would end up being an effective area denial weapon. You don’t kill everyone in the city, but you do force them to move out within a day or two. You have effectively destroyed the city without a death toll (though no doubt lots of sympathetic refugees). A “non-lethal” weapon of mass destruction. Could be VERY useful.
Of course even the 300 W/m^2 would probably fry all the electronics.
If you can beam power from a GEO satellite to the earth, then you can probably beam it from the earth (say a sunny desert), to a satellite, and back down again to an industrialised customer.
The lower efficiency of the desert solar farm then just has to make up for the much, much cheaper on-Earth construction costs. Then all you need to launch is the microwave part of your satellite scheme.
OK, I know all that stuff but you neglected a couple major downsides of SPS. First, building stuff in Space is expensive. Second, there are losses in getting the power from the satellites to the grid. Third, you risk a malfunction turning a SPS satellite into a solar powered space based death-ray (kind of silly but still possible.)
Note, long distance DC grid can transmit power from the sunny Chilean Desert to other places that aren’t so lucky and we’ve got plenty of sunny deserts here in the US too.
The original SPS studies assumed the satellites were in synchronous orbit. That orbit only gets in the Earth’s shadow about 2% of the time. There are lower “sun synchronous” orbits which are in sunlight all the time. Lower orbits would mean the satellites move, so you would need several satellites and several ground stations working in concert to get 100% coverage.
The reason to study SPS in the first place is that high orbits receive 4-10 times as much sunlight as compared to various places on the ground. That’s due to night, weather, and atmospheric absorption. That advantage gives you room to work with and still be competitive with ground solar. Sunny locations, like the Chilean desert, don’t need help from SPS. It’s the cloudy climates, where space has the 10:1 advantage, which would benefit the most.
So, you’ve managed to build all this stuff in orbit… then what? How doesn’t anybody here on earth actually benefit from it or looking at a broader scope how does humanity actually benefit??? I strongly believe that the idea of colonizing space is romantic bunk. People aren’t evolved to live in zero or even low gravity environments. We know that people do poorly living in space from the experiences of astronauts living on space stations.
Just a thought, but unless the solar power satellites are in a fairly high orbit then how can they beam any power to the night side of earth because wouldn’t they be in earths shadow when they were over the night side of earth. If they are in a high enough orbit that the shadow doesn’t matter then doesn’t it make beaming power harder in the same way plinking at a beer can at 100 yards is harder than shooting at one at 50 feet??? My point here is solar power here on the ground is just fine if you geographically distribute it sufficiently.
I totally agree, So called experts still do not grasp how much of a game changer a fully reusable BFR is, Elon Musk plans to give and update on the BFR development in 4-8 weeks time, looking forward to it 🙂 I guess most people will only begin to understand when next year (2019) the BFS(spaceship) does it first hopper test.
Tell that to any of the people effected by the record heat wave this summer and they will laugh at you (if you are lucky.) 😉
My local electric company sells retail solar-based electricity for about $0.11/kWh, and unsubsidized utility-scale levelized cost is $0.03-0.06 for wind and solar in the US.
So I don’t know why to your question, unless you or your source is making stuff up.
There may be, but energy is a *huge* fraction of the world’s GDP. So any energy system that can compete has the potential for huge revenues and investment. For comparison, world clean energy investment in 2017 was a third of a trillion dollars. Wall Street would be salivating to enter a market of that scale.
Sure. You could use LED’s or lasers. The main requirements are (1) reasonable conversion efficiency from sunlight to beam, and then beam back to electricity, (2) a wavelength not blocked by the atmosphere or weather, and (3) ability to focus the beam on a reasonable size antenna on the ground. Reasonable here means “makes economic sense for the overall system”.
A slightly-warmer-area death ray is not very menacing. Which is good.
You know, this was considered in the 1970’s, when the first microwave SPS’s were studied. The transmitting antenna in orbit is a phased array. The *phase reference* is supplied by a transmitter on the ground in the center of the receiving antenna. Aside from momentary startup, when it uses ground power, the phase reference is powered by the down-coming beam. So if the beam wanders, it lose phase-lock, and therefore defocuses.
Even when focused, the beam power is limited to 300 W/m^2, or 30% of full sunlight. So it is not immediately dangerous even if you were standing in the middle of the receiver. Being that it is microwaves, you would not want to spend long periods in the beam without a conductive suit to protect you, but it won’t kill you or set fire to things without it.
$360m is probably the *manufacturing cost* of a BFR. Musk has quoted “less than a Falcon 1” launch cost, which would be $6m to fly, and I conservatively expect early flights to run $20m before they gain flight experience and traffic. Note that cost and price are not the same thing. SpaceX can probably get away with charging a lot more than cost for the BFR, since the payload is so large.
Studies for use of off-planet resources (some of which I worked on while with Boeing) indicate 98-99% of SPS materials can come from the Moon or asteroids. The remaining 1-2% are either components not worth making in space (ie computer chips) or rare elements not found in enough quantity in space to be worth mining, given cheap launch from Earth.
The off-planet production facilities, as opposed to the SPS product, can *also* reach a 98-99% use of local materials. Your production equipment can therefore be “grown” from a starter set (a seed factory) of core machines which in turn make the rest of the machines you need. For example, metallic asteroids (5% of the asteroid population) are an iron-nickel-cobalt alloy. Carbonaceous asteroids, as their name indicates, have carbon. Iron alloy + carbon = steel alloy. With a source of steel, you can then build most or all of a lot of other industrial machines.
Technically we are in a midst of an ice age. It is just that we are in an interglacial period of it.
So a nation would invite certain destruction by war to prevent possible but unlikely destruction by SPS?
I suggest that you read the replies that I have given above.
I suggest that you view the video that is referred to in the reply I gave to the sceptic above.
It is already on YouTube. You can stop holding your breath now. The video is of a prototype proof of concept test. I hate when people who know nothing about what they are talking about, spout off like you. Several weeks ago I met with two government of Canada officials. One of them had 4 degrees, two of which were in physics and in engineering. His initial scepticism turned into full on support and his continuing to repeat “you will win the Nobel Prize for this”.
“America needs to get serious about its spacefaring future. There needs to be an aggressive political, economic, and military strategy to help transition to space-based sustainable energy to replace fossil fuels.”
The first paragraph contains truth and not truth. The truth is that America does need to get serious about our space faring future. The part that is not true is that we need space based sustainable energy. What is really needed is private industry to be unleashed and let them follow the profit and let the market determine what type or use we make from space instead of some big overly expensive government boondoggle. Otherwise our future in space could be summed up in three letters, SLS.
If the SPS system were built from lunar / asteroid resources the atmospheric pollution problem could be avoided. Lunar regolith contains materials to build structures as well as for glass and mirrors for optics as well as materials to fabricate semiconductors whether Si or iron-titanates (ilmanate – hematite, others. The value of power delivered to the lunar surface could be >$5 / KWhr and be competitive. The availability of vacuum / clean-room conditions on the lunar surface appears to offer opportunities for much lower cost manufacturing on the Moon of PV systems than on Earth.
Use of tethered SBSP with the rectennas mounted on aerostats above the cloud layer offers the potential for direct power beaming or laser with little loss in the atmosphere lowering the size of the transmitted significantly due to use of higher frequencies than microwave. See – https://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?R=20130009113 2018-06-21T07:10:51+00:00Z
The “hyper-modular” architecture offered by John Mankins provides solutions both to the cost of constructing large devices (with millions of identical modules produced like consumer devices) and to the cost of maintenance with use of autonomous robots continually monitoring the array and replacing modules with increased likelihood of failure. Mankins forecasts a 3% replacement rate per annum would keep the overall array functional with a lifetime for the total system more comparable to hydro than technologies like nuclear or coal. See – http://space.nss.org/media/NSS-JOURNAL-New-Developments-in-Space-Solar-Power.pdf
An integrated Moon-Earth strategy is presented in http://thespacereview.com/article/3528/1
Cheap sensationalism. Some scientist (or more likely, some random writer paraphrasing him) exchanged the word “ripple” with “hole” and we have a “hole” the size of California from one launch. Seriously, how much energy do you think it would take to actually punch a hole that big? Hundreds of launches won’t be a problem at all. When you drop a pebble in a lake a mile across, you will create a ripple spanning the entire lake….. Do you imagine the fish have to worry?
Ha ha ha ha ha ha…hem..he.he he he…aho..ha Really? And just exactly when is the IPO for your new no-thrust-propulsion company? I look forward to your desperate explanations of why your magic propeller demonstrates a complete inability to producre any measurable thrust in a vacuum. Go ahead post a youtube video of your working model. I won’t hold my breath.
Likely a very good but long term project – will prob takes decade or two to even get basic operational ability but you cant beat the result
Where did $360m for a BFR launch come from? According to Elon Musk the cost will be less than the Falcon 9 or Falcon Heavy.
Seems to beg for orbital debris.
Longer waves would be fine … except they cannot be focussed to a very compact area unless the focussing antenna is very larger. Doing that tho’ ends up negating the goodness that is their nominal promise. [b]Goat[/b]Guy
Actually solar here on good old fashioned Terra Firma is cheaper than coal. Also, we really don’t need giant mirrors raising the temperatures of things down here either because if you haven’t guessed, we not exactly in the middle of an ice age.
those space mirrors could be multi purpose?
telescopes, weapons,spot heaters for orange crops, melting ice ect. laser repeaters/magnifiers and boosters.
like in the si-fi novels spinning glass in orbit is a neat trick .
down in millville
the furnices burn bright
both by day and by night
to bid the sand
let in the light.
I like to think of space-based solar power as humanity’s first practical “fusion power”, with good Ol’ Sol doin’ the fusing for us, a safe 150,000,000 kilometers away.
SPACE based solar circumvents most of terrestrial solar’s shortcomings: dusts, wind, hail, rain, cloudcover, hazes, acids, caustics (with rain), oxidation, vibrations, pests, poop, shade, ‘the turning earth’, gravity, weather-vs-location choices, vandals, earthquakes, and so forth.
And replaces all that with “distance problems” and “continuously orbiting” and “high maintenance complexity”.
The DISTANCE PROBLEMS are not obvious to the non-technical amongst us, but really it comes down to desire-for-simplicity vs. trigonometric limitations. (What?… yep. Trig) Ideally it takes little imagination to wish for a big mirror “up there” that one just joggles to the right angle, to beam down a nice bright, tight spot of concentrated sunlight to a waiting receiving field down Dirtside. Right?
The problem is related tho’ to the physics of optics: The Sun is not a point source, but 0.5o in extent (0.0096 radians) across. Why this matters is because the SIZE of a focussed spot made by a curved mirror or lens is S = radians * focal length. 0.0096 radians * 1,000 kilometers (per article) = 9.6 kilometers for a “sun circle” here on Dirt. That’s a reality that no amount of mirrors can overcome.
Imagining further tho, then one asks … well, what can be done to tighten the spot? From a physics perspective, nothing optical. But the obvious alternative is, “make power up there, collected it to a transmitter of ultra-high power, form a beam that can get thru clouds, hazes and storms, and further have a ‘tightness’ which makes a much smaller spot.” Solar –> electricity –> microwaves –> beaming –> reception –> synchronous conversion and inversion –> power to grid.
CONTINUOUSLY ORBITING is another vexing problem: the Earth is spinning, the satellites are whizzing, the orbit of the Earth around Sol changes every day (think of as “the Sun is moving”), and one can imagine that the politics of receiver site availability varies “by the hour”. You know, the Yemeni’s Luddites decide to steal all the copper at the receiving site.
So, literally by the minute, the output of the gigawatt-class microwave stack needs to be dynamically tracking the ground stations to within 10 meter accuracy. Because the ground stations (for microwave) are only perhaps 250 meters — quarter kilometer — across. 10 meter precision is about 5%!
HIGH MAINTENANCE COMPLEXITY is the other big one: Unlike those pesky ground-based solar farms, you can’t just hop in a truck with a couple of min-wage helpers, drive out, and check out what all is going wrong with a particular part of the system. And reach into the bed, haul out some spanners and impact wrenches, wire cutters and bailing wire … and fix the problem. Space is rather more complicated than that.
gg
With BFR we can build an Orbital Ring with current tech. Then accessing space becomes comparable to a train ride.
Like Stevet says, a transmission beam is a city killer. It would either get shot down or never be allowed to get up. No imaginable geopolitics will allow it.
There’s always at least one!
While wind and solar are relatively cheap, storage is not. The best that a lithium ion battery can do according to 2017 estimates is about $0.26 cents per kWh, while pump storage (e.g. pumping up to a large water reservoir) is estimated at about $0.15 cents per kWh. Space based solar power likely won’t displace wind in terms of cost which is now around $0.05 cents per kWh and getting, but when compared to wind/solar + battery which goes for anywhere from $0.20 – $0.35 cents per kWh, space based power could look pretty competitive for supplying 24h base load power.
It’s good and all until then transmission beam miss its mark and fry us all. Is there any other way than using microwave to beam back the energy?
Mmmm… half our atmosphere? That’d take quite a bit of bad luck and piss-poor metrology. Nope… the problem may be the POLLUTION of the stratosphere, ionosphere, mesosphere and exosphere, and that’s worth debating. But the Earth’s gravitation is going to keep its atmosphere, pollutants and all, quite tightly as its done over the last 4,000,000,000+ years.
LOL … perpetual motion and free energy too!
Except when it’s cloudy, of course. For that reason beaming down microwaves is still fine.
This could give solar energy what it currently lacks: 24h/24h baseline power capability.
And stop inanities like trans-continental grids for moving electricity from where the sun still shines to where it no longer does for a few hours.
“our atmosphere is ripped off” – Where do you think it goes?
Projects like this will be totally viable when space-launch companies start adopting the latest propulsion technology called a Centrifugal Propeller. It successfully converts centrifugal force into directed thrust in a completely closed unit with no external moving parts and no external vents. It will make rockets obsolete. It continually accelerates in space. A single unit can launch thousands of pounds into space and return to Earth, 5 or 6 times in a single day.
All well and good, but what will the impact be on the atmosphere of dozens, if not hundreds of BFR launches? A near-vertical launch of a Falcon 9 last August punched a large hole in the ionosphere, and here’s an indication of the damage which could be done by multiple Falcon Heavy launches:
https://www.space.com/39705-spacex-falcon-heavy-rocket-earth-atmosphere.
Cheap solar power from space isn’t much good if half our atmosphere is ripped off in the process.
I’m sure there are better things we can do in space.
Mark, why is it countries/areas with the greatest extent of solar and wind have the highest cost of energy?
(“Current Solar and Wind systems are already cheaper than coal”)
The savings would be a lot greater than the cost. Oil, coal and gas ain’t cheap. And exploring and drilling for them ain’t free either. Building and maintaining fossil fuel power plant ain’t free. Providing additional Health Care for people sickens by air pollution isn’t free. What we should be talking about is not the cost of a renewable solution but the savings.
A lot of people including me won’t do it for $200/month but since I have seen more and more solar panels on roofs in the neighborhood I see that there are people who think different. But if a solar installation could warm and cool my house and power the family’s car I might go for it because that is a lot more than $200/month. And it would be nice to sell the excess to the utility and get a check from them instead of sending them one.
Solar illumination to grow more food would be nice.
While it sounds cool I don’t think it is needed. Current Solar and Wind systems are already cheaper than coal. Future renewable will be even cheaper. Batteries are getting cheaper so storage won’t be as expensive as people think. And lets not forget the external costs associated with burning fossil fuel like pollution and Climate Change.
Oh yea that makes sense. Not only will you cause layoffs of people on third shift at factories costing them their jobs you’ll also freeze them to death because how are they supposed to afford the power then.
Grats you win the “reality is more complicated than my head award.
Simple is most often better.
I like the old idea of using simple orbital reflectors to just illuminate cities. Energy savings will come from not having to turn on street lamps. The russians did some experiments
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Znamya_(satellite)