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Nobody mentioning the biggest hope for basically having ventures bundling abundant energy in space and sending it to earth? Carbon free with nearly no infrastr

Nobody mentioning the biggest hope for basically having ventures bundling abundant energy in space and sending it to earth? Carbon free with nearly no infrastructure costs beside some huge foilmirrors and heat collecting powerstations? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space-based_solar_power https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space-based_solar_power

sremani 8y ago
George Friedman does :) https://worldview.stratfor.com/article/george-friedman-spacexs-significance-agenda https://worldview.stratfor.com/article/george-friedman-space...
hughes 8y ago
Is there some kind of sunlight shortage on Earth? Why would this be necessary?
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- Pica_soO 8y ago
  Building structures on earth to collect sunlight is expensive due to need for maintenance, inefficient due to weather and day/night cycles and the transportproblem (no line of sight/ cables) and needs lots of land. Spacebased power generation can get around that.
  - ceejayoz 8y ago
    Space stations are expensive to maintain, experience a day/night cycle in the sort of orbits you'd have to use, and can't have cables either...
- Symmetry 8y ago
  A solar panel in space can be in direct sunlight almost 24/7 without worrying about night or weather, is the big benefit.
gameshot911 8y ago
Wouldn't it be really easy to convert that technology into a weapon? Giant space lasers and all that jazz?
- JoeAltmaier 8y ago
  The cost of doing that would have to exceed the value of providing clean energy? So the political gain would have to be enormous to bother (already have bombs etc). Granted, anything designed to project terawatts has got to be treated with respect.
  - rbanffy 8y ago
    Having a weapon no country can shoot down on short notice is a very attractive proposition. Satellite killers already developed are aimed at destroying spy satellites. Putting your space weapon on a higher orbit (and having a couple of them, able to cover all the surface of the Earth at any given time) would make it immune to ground interference. By the time someone is able to launch a rocket to get you, you already melted down the launch facility into a nice sheet of glass.
rotexo 8y ago
Based on what I've read (in particular, this blogpost: https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2012/03/space-based-solar-power/ https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2012/03/space-based-solar-power/) space-based solar power (SBSP) is not as easy or promising as it might appear. Getting that energy to the ground is difficult. Maintaining a solar power plant in space is difficult. With the energy required to make and launch solar power installations, the energy returned on energy invested might not be all that much better than terrestrial solar panels. Additionally, the factor of 10- to factor of 100-reductions in launch costs that seem to be necessary to make SBSP economical might never materialize. SpaceX seems to have had success in reducing launch costs, but it could be credibly argued that that success so far has been a result of their organizational approach. Also, I think they are still running the experiment regarding whether or not reusability can reduce launch costs further (an impression I have gathered from reading the NASASpaceFlight forums, so take it with a grain of salt--I'm just a biologist). Remember that dramatic reductions in launch costs were promised with the shuttle and never materialized. SpaceX has learned from many of those mistakes, but maybe there are other unknown problems yet to discover.
- fixermark 8y ago
  In addition to the physical concern, there's the unfortunate political concern that anyone who builds something that can redirect useful amounts of energy from space to Earth for planet-side consumption has probably also built a death ray.
  - Pica_soO 8y ago
    I find this argument to be pretty useless by now. We all live in a modern society. You can order a crisper-cas do it yourself chemistry kit for your home, your devices are powered by potential electric hand grenades and you can write software in your basement that could cripple the worlds infrastructure for months. Everyone can create a potential doomsday device in his/her basement. And with every physics discover, the likelihood for ease of access to the world-burning zippo is dropping faster and faster. And its a good thing. Any high energy ray in orbit could be gunned down with railguns or destroyed with reflection. I know its fancy to pretend that security is something real, not just a safety dance, ever after 9/11 - so in order for everyone to feel safe- we are going to do cavity searches on astronauts from now on.
Symmetry 8y ago
It's probably not economical for cases where there's a grid available for the reasons others have given. On the other hand it might be useful for remote outposts. Or it could potentially make electric passenger planes viable.
- rbanffy 8y ago
  The idea of flying a plane whose power depends on shooting it with a space-based death-ray is not very attractive. The plane still has to land safely in case power is lost.
ben_w 8y ago
While the technology for cost-effective space solar is almost ready, any way to get it from space to the ground has a few problems: 1) Flux. Direct sunlight isn’t good for you. Even just as heat. If the system is 1kw/m^2, it’s simultaneously a weapon and needs a really large and expensive ground station to make use of. 2) Distances. To get power with 24-hour reliably from space, either you need to be in high orbit (significant compared to diameter of planet), or you need to bounce the power around a lot: again, meaning either highly focused and automatically a super-weapon or massive (~ 1 square kilometre per gigawatt) satellites, but the options have fairly similar minimum total distance and you exchange an inverse-square problem for an exponential-in-number-of-repeaters problem. If you can solve #2, it makes more sense to leave the panels on the ground. For example, you can just build a wide-ish strip of panels from Nouakchott to Muscat, and similar ones in other deserts, noting that some of them are in daylight at all times, and use the same tech to send the power conveniently around the surface of the Earth without needing space launches.
nickik 8y ago
Its not the biggest hope. We already have unlimited carbon free energy and some people already use it to power their country. Its only ignorance and political shit-show that prevents people from losing it. Its called uranium. Elon himself said often that space based solar power is a bad idea.

sremani 8y ago

George Friedman does :) https://worldview.stratfor.com/article/george-friedman-spacexs-significance-agenda https://worldview.stratfor.com/article/george-friedman-space...

hughes 8y ago

Is there some kind of sunlight shortage on Earth? Why would this be necessary?

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
Pica_soO 8y ago
Building structures on earth to collect sunlight is expensive due to need for maintenance, inefficient due to weather and day/night cycles and the transportproblem (no line of sight/ cables) and needs lots of land. Spacebased power generation can get around that.
- ceejayoz 8y ago
  Space stations are expensive to maintain, experience a day/night cycle in the sort of orbits you'd have to use, and can't have cables either...
Symmetry 8y ago
A solar panel in space can be in direct sunlight almost 24/7 without worrying about night or weather, is the big benefit.

gameshot911 8y ago

Wouldn't it be really easy to convert that technology into a weapon? Giant space lasers and all that jazz?

JoeAltmaier 8y ago
The cost of doing that would have to exceed the value of providing clean energy? So the political gain would have to be enormous to bother (already have bombs etc). Granted, anything designed to project terawatts has got to be treated with respect.
- rbanffy 8y ago
  Having a weapon no country can shoot down on short notice is a very attractive proposition. Satellite killers already developed are aimed at destroying spy satellites. Putting your space weapon on a higher orbit (and having a couple of them, able to cover all the surface of the Earth at any given time) would make it immune to ground interference. By the time someone is able to launch a rocket to get you, you already melted down the launch facility into a nice sheet of glass.

rotexo 8y ago

Based on what I've read (in particular, this blogpost: https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2012/03/space-based-solar-power/ https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2012/03/space-based-solar-power/) space-based solar power (SBSP) is not as easy or promising as it might appear. Getting that energy to the ground is difficult. Maintaining a solar power plant in space is difficult. With the energy required to make and launch solar power installations, the energy returned on energy invested might not be all that much better than terrestrial solar panels. Additionally, the factor of 10- to factor of 100-reductions in launch costs that seem to be necessary to make SBSP economical might never materialize. SpaceX seems to have had success in reducing launch costs, but it could be credibly argued that that success so far has been a result of their organizational approach. Also, I think they are still running the experiment regarding whether or not reusability can reduce launch costs further (an impression I have gathered from reading the NASASpaceFlight forums, so take it with a grain of salt--I'm just a biologist). Remember that dramatic reductions in launch costs were promised with the shuttle and never materialized. SpaceX has learned from many of those mistakes, but maybe there are other unknown problems yet to discover.

fixermark 8y ago
In addition to the physical concern, there's the unfortunate political concern that anyone who builds something that can redirect useful amounts of energy from space to Earth for planet-side consumption has probably also built a death ray.
- Pica_soO 8y ago
  I find this argument to be pretty useless by now. We all live in a modern society. You can order a crisper-cas do it yourself chemistry kit for your home, your devices are powered by potential electric hand grenades and you can write software in your basement that could cripple the worlds infrastructure for months. Everyone can create a potential doomsday device in his/her basement. And with every physics discover, the likelihood for ease of access to the world-burning zippo is dropping faster and faster. And its a good thing. Any high energy ray in orbit could be gunned down with railguns or destroyed with reflection. I know its fancy to pretend that security is something real, not just a safety dance, ever after 9/11 - so in order for everyone to feel safe- we are going to do cavity searches on astronauts from now on.

Symmetry 8y ago

It's probably not economical for cases where there's a grid available for the reasons others have given. On the other hand it might be useful for remote outposts. Or it could potentially make electric passenger planes viable.

rbanffy 8y ago
The idea of flying a plane whose power depends on shooting it with a space-based death-ray is not very attractive. The plane still has to land safely in case power is lost.

ben_w 8y ago

While the technology for cost-effective space solar is almost ready, any way to get it from space to the ground has a few problems: 1) Flux. Direct sunlight isn’t good for you. Even just as heat. If the system is 1kw/m^2, it’s simultaneously a weapon and needs a really large and expensive ground station to make use of. 2) Distances. To get power with 24-hour reliably from space, either you need to be in high orbit (significant compared to diameter of planet), or you need to bounce the power around a lot: again, meaning either highly focused and automatically a super-weapon or massive (~ 1 square kilometre per gigawatt) satellites, but the options have fairly similar minimum total distance and you exchange an inverse-square problem for an exponential-in-number-of-repeaters problem. If you can solve #2, it makes more sense to leave the panels on the ground. For example, you can just build a wide-ish strip of panels from Nouakchott to Muscat, and similar ones in other deserts, noting that some of them are in daylight at all times, and use the same tech to send the power conveniently around the surface of the Earth without needing space launches.

nickik 8y ago

Its not the biggest hope. We already have unlimited carbon free energy and some people already use it to power their country. Its only ignorance and political shit-show that prevents people from losing it. Its called uranium. Elon himself said often that space based solar power is a bad idea.