Daily Finance has an interview with Solaren’s Director of Energy Services Cal Boerman about the California start-up’s plans to launch a space-based solar power satellite.
Daily Finance: What has changed over to make space-based power technically feasible today? Have there been any breakthroughs that have made this possible?
Boerman: Actually, not really. The technology is fairly well developed. if you look at today’s communications satellites, they have solar cells that generate the electricity they need. These satellites convert the electricity into radio waves, then signal to your home to your television. That’s what DirecTV does. Except unlike them, we don’t throw away the center part of the beam where all the energy is located. They only want to signal around the edges. So there is no novel technology development required. It’s an engineering problem. Our challenge is to make the surface areas a little bigger and lighter but not to develop a key technology that makes or breaks the project. What we have done differently is keep the weight of our satellites down. Unlike other projects, we won’t have to build them in space. That’s a big difference.
How many launches will it take to the get the whole system up and orbiting?
We can do it with a small number of launches, only four. To get that, we had to come up with a design that was lightweight and innovative. We’re still using a big rocket….
Read the full story.
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it’s every day more INCREDIBLE to see that a so CRAZY and SENSELESS “concept” like the “Space Solar Power” STILL has credibility in the press, from military and in the space industry!!!
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it’s really INCREDIBLE that NO ONE sees (or WANT to see) that EVERY KIND of solar array, also the most efficient, cheap and lightweight, will cost 300-1000 TIMES more, than deployed in a desert place on Earth, due to today’s (and future) very high launch costs!!!
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and (MOST INCREDIBLE AT ALL) the companies that study and develop this kind of NONSENSE technology, have every day more credit and receive lots of funds from an energy-hungry planet!!!
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as explained in my article “Space Solar Power hoax/illusion DEBUNKED” [ http://www.ghostnasa.com/posts/038sspdebunked.htm... ] the “Space Solar Power” will NEVER become a viable alternative to the Earth-based solar power plants, NOT EVEN if (thanks to new, cheap and reusable rockets, we DON’T HAVE today!) the launch costs will fall (someday in a FAR future) from today’s $10-20 million per ton, to 1/10th or 1/50th
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also, the “Space Solar Power” (that must be deployed in GEO at 36,000 km. of altitude!) is impossible to repair and maintain with astronauts, must be replaced with new arrays every 10-20 years and will face several safety problems and strategic security issues!!!
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in other words, if we’ll rely on the SSP, someday, every crazy country with a bunch of rockets (also with non-nuclear explosive heads) could launch them towards our energy source and destroy the solar power plants, to “shut-off” the energy to the entire planet in a matter of minutes!!!
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Space based solar power is an unrealistic solution. Not just because of the complexity and funding, but because so much energy and resources are required, compared to what you get back. We also need solutions today, not 20-50 years in the future. By then, there won’t be much of a world left.
http://www.selfdestructivebastards.com/2009/09/space-based-solar-power.html
Solar Power is one of the best ways to get clean energy. Today the efficiency of solar power is a bit low but with advances in technology, solar cells will become more and more efficient in harnessing the energy of the sun.