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This is an entertaining read and a plausible scenario, but Elon Musk is not one to be shy about sharing his plans, and he hasn't even hinted at SPS as far as I

This is an entertaining read and a plausible scenario, but Elon Musk is not one to be shy about sharing his plans, and he hasn't even hinted at SPS as far as I know. I'm not sure why he would keep this specific part of his Mars plan a secret while going out of his way to talk about every other aspect.

bryanlarsen 4y ago
Elon Musk called Space Based Solar Power "the stupidest thing ever" in 2012. Let me tell you of one of my pet pieces: space solar power. OK, the stupidest thing ever. And if anybody should think, should like space solar power, it should be me. I’ve got a rocket company and a solar company. I should be like – I should really be on it, you know. But it’s like super obviously not going to work because if you have solar panels … First of all it has to be better than having solar panels on Earth, right? Solar panel is in orbit you get twice the solar energy, assuming that it’s out of Earth’s shadow, but you have got to do a double conversion. So you are going to covert it from photon to electron to photon back to electron. So you got to make this double conversion. What’s your conversion efficiency? All in you are going to have a real hard time actually even getting to sort of 50 percent. (Side comment on conversion efficiency responding to remark from the audience.) Take any given solar cell, is it better to have it on Earth or better to have it in orbit? What do you get for being in Orbit? You get twice as much sun, best case, but you have got to do a conversion – you’ve got to convert it to photons, the energy to photons or you have incoming photons that go to electrons but you’ve got to do two conversions that you don’t have to do on Earth which is you got to turn it into photons and turn the photons back into electrons – and that double conversion is going to get you back to where you started, basically. So why are you bothering sending them to bloody space? And, by the way, electron to photon converters are not free and nor is sending stuff to space. Obviously, super (likely meaning space solar power) doesn’t work. Case closed. https://www.spacefaringamerica.com/?p=277 https://www.spacefaringamerica.com/?p=277

bryanlarsen 4y ago

Elon Musk called Space Based Solar Power "the stupidest thing ever" in 2012. Let me tell you of one of my pet pieces: space solar power. OK, the stupidest thing ever. And if anybody should think, should like space solar power, it should be me. I’ve got a rocket company and a solar company. I should be like – I should really be on it, you know. But it’s like super obviously not going to work because if you have solar panels … First of all it has to be better than having solar panels on Earth, right? Solar panel is in orbit you get twice the solar energy, assuming that it’s out of Earth’s shadow, but you have got to do a double conversion. So you are going to covert it from photon to electron to photon back to electron. So you got to make this double conversion. What’s your conversion efficiency? All in you are going to have a real hard time actually even getting to sort of 50 percent. (Side comment on conversion efficiency responding to remark from the audience.) Take any given solar cell, is it better to have it on Earth or better to have it in orbit? What do you get for being in Orbit? You get twice as much sun, best case, but you have got to do a conversion – you’ve got to convert it to photons, the energy to photons or you have incoming photons that go to electrons but you’ve got to do two conversions that you don’t have to do on Earth which is you got to turn it into photons and turn the photons back into electrons – and that double conversion is going to get you back to where you started, basically. So why are you bothering sending them to bloody space? And, by the way, electron to photon converters are not free and nor is sending stuff to space. Obviously, super (likely meaning space solar power) doesn’t work. Case closed. https://www.spacefaringamerica.com/?p=277 https://www.spacefaringamerica.com/?p=277