25 Responses

1. @ProgRok

   Well I would supply power to anyone that is willing to pay for it. ;)

2. North to south? Nah.

3. If each were 10 gW Powersats. And you replaced 50% of the current energy consumption of North, Central, and South America. You would probably see a long string of, perhaps, 25 bright pearls in the night sky.

4. Can’t wait till batteries & electric motors become more efficient!

   We can actually have some clean air to breath!

5. Ahhhh … the soothing music bathes me ….

6. Actually, if Solaren, PowerSat, or other private groups can get 100% of their stuff up from the ground and show a return, it would be a great proof-of-concept for a national effort using private, inter-agency, and multinational partnerships for SBSP using lunar resources. The effort solves the permanent clean energy requirement and the climate problem. It drives the permanent settlement of space. Obama can channel Kennedy by announcing SBSP, which rolls energy and space into one program.

7. Here we go folks. PG&E is looking to buy 200MW of baseload space based solar power from Manhattan Beach, CA-based Solaren Corp. The rectenna will be in Fresno. Solaren will use existing lifters to get their powersat in geo. Leave it to California to lead on this one! Are you listening, Obama?

8. “For I say unto you. Seek that which is of the sun, and you shall be free. For it is the way, the truth, and the LIFE.”
   – Jesus

   Solar collectors are the new steam engine.

9. aahhahahaha Heavenly Donuts

10. Ahh, Chu!

11. Obama’s National Space Council should review SBSP in short order, so that an announcement can be made by spring 2009. NASA, DOE, and DOD have already reviewed. The announcement is the mother duck behind which all others align. More tests? Sure. Do all the tests and demos you want. I suggest that we need to fire up a helluva lot more than a light bulb from space to demo SBSP’s onions.

12. I can’t speak 100% to the design. After all, I am not the engineer. John Mankins is the guy. However, keep in mind that this structure is 5 km across; and those flexible tethers are solid structure. That being said, there will have to be stationkeeping thrusters in order to keep the whole thing stable and pointing correctly. The intent is also to have it at GEO – graphically, it looks better lower. The structure is exactly as John wanted it, however. He’s the genius. :)

13. Question about the satellite design: how is it that the transmitter would “hang” from the assembly in geo as if weighted? How do the mirror farms stay put by what appears to be flexible tethers? Does the rigid planar design go off the table with solar concentrators, or do you work up to that design later after this one, which looks to be in LEO, proves its concept? I understand the soothing blue smoke rings with heartbeat sound effects are more artistic license. Is same true with architecture?

14. The graphics in that show were actually based on this animation – several of the sequences are exactly the same camera moves. I was asked permission to use it; but I wasn’t expecting them to rip it. :/

15. Discovery Channel aired a demo of wireless power transfer on 9/12/08. Congratulations to John Mankins and his team, who beamed a low MW signal about 90 miles from one Hawaiian island to another, confirming with end-to-end hardware SSP theory. Congress and the new president should lend an ear to Mankins RE: space & energy policy going forward. He thinks a pilot plant in geo orbit can happen in 10 years with funding commitment. The sun does not set in geo, where waits our clean energy pot of gold.

16. Brian, that’s what some said about the Hadron Collider. Alas, the world is still here. At least one of the presidential candidates is supportive of science, and will listen to evidence and numbers before deciding things.

17. the u.s. will never do this…we always avoid the sensible things here…I bet some stupid group will probably take it to court and say something about how it could effect the whole space/time/continuum of the universe and destroy the whole galaxy…we have lost all intelligence hear…just take a look at our presidential candidates that should tell something….

18. The Aldrin reference was from a NY Daily News article “8 Questions for Astronaut Buzz Aldrin”, published 8/15/08. Personal thought: fusion doesn’t inspire international stasis, and it doesn’t move species into space.

19. Buzz didn’t mention it last time I heard from him. But having met Pickens’ science advisor, I suspect that it will fall on deaf ears, as said advisor expects fusion to be operational shortly…

20. A little nugget: Buzz Aldrin is bringing T. Boone Pickens into the loop on space solar power. Aldrin has also been working on large reusable lifters to start the program.

21. Well you know that and I know that, but a lot of the general public will hear “microwaves” and be “OMG THEY’RE GONNA COOK ME!”

    Now of course you are right: some people will oppose anything. We could transfer the power with magic pixie dust, and they would find a reason to shriek that we should all be deathly afraid of magic pixie dust.

    I’m thinking of the guys between us and the Anti-Pixie Brigade. The guy who might be afraid of a “microwave beam,” but isn’t afraid of everything in general.

22. I don’t think it really matters what we call it; those that are bent on negativity or fear will always find something wrong. The key is education – the only reason a microwave cooks anything is because it is specifically tuned to the resonant frequency of the OH bond. This will not be, so it won’t do much of anything to organics.

23. Just a PR suggestion: could we start talking about SHORT RADIO WAVES instead of MICROWAVES? It’s easier to convince people we aren’t going to cook them like a bag of Orville Redenbacher if we don’t keep saying “microwave beam.”

24. A flash light beams EM in a content stream, not pulses – the pulses gives the viewer the wrong impression, making them think it is a series of smoke rings pulsed rather than beamed.

25. It’s pretty simple. For one, the beam is easy to see, and relatively easy to implement. Two, the director wanted to have a beam that was reminiscent of a old-style sci-fi beam. Nothing was meant to be implied otherwise.