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That's just not going to happen. You could put 5x panels on the ground plus batteries and still have budget left over compared to launching it into orbit.
by eloff 4y ago
That's just not going to happen. You could put 5x panels on the ground plus batteries and still have budget left over compared to launching it into orbit.
- DennisP 4y agoThat depends on launch costs and satellite design. The old designs from the 1970s would have been absurdly expensive. Modern designs like NASA's SPS-ALPHA are cheap to manufacture at scale. The book The Case for Space Solar Power has a detailed cost breakdown and puts a 2GW geostationary plant at 15 cents/kWh, but was published before SpaceX did much. I plugged in Starship launch costs and it came to 4 cents/kWh, which is pretty great for 24/7 clean power without storage. Here is NASA's study (pdf): https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/niac_2011_phasei_mankins_spsalpha_tagged.pdf https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/niac_20...