NASA Wants to Know Cost of Space Solar Power

[thackney]

NASA Wants to Know Cost of Space Solar Power
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/lovesick-cyborg/2017/09/30/4111/#.WdN8bWhSw2x
September 30, 2017

Harnessing the sun’s energy with orbital space power stations and beaming the power to Earth has been a science fiction dream ever since Isaac Asimov wrote a 1941 short story called “Reason.” But the idea has never quite gotten off the ground despite decades of intermittent interest and research for the United States and other countries. NASA hopes to keep the idea going by funding a one-year study of how much it would cost to make commercially viable space-based solar power into a reality.

The new space solar power study by the Colorado School of Mines in Golden, Colorado is one of five research projects chosen by NASA to examine new opportunities for commercial development in space. In this case, the research will consider the government regulations and private investments needed to establish space solar power stations that could beam power to Earth-based collecting stations. But it will also examine how space solar power could support robotic mining operations on the moon or asteroids–a stepping stone toward enabling long-term human space exploration and possible colonization of the solar system beyond Earth.

“It’s one thing to model this out and say this is what we think will be the cost,” said Ian Lange, director of the Mineral and Energy Economics Program at the Colorado School of Mines, in a press release. “It’s another thing to say how are people going to purchase this, how are we going to ensure costs don’t run out of control, how are we going to market this or sell this to some kind of bank or venture capital fund.”

One huge challenge for getting space solar power off the ground is literally about the cost of launching all those components into space. Launching anything into space still costs thousands of U.S. dollars per pound on today’s rockets. But that could change with the rise of commercial spaceflight companies such as Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin that are focused on developing reusable rockets capable of launching payloads for much less....

[Joe Wooten]

I used to think that if launch costs dropped enough, space based power systems would be great, until I started thinking about hackers getting control of a powersat beaming megawatts of power back to earth and turned that microwave beam onto a city, or threatened to unless a ransom was paid.

[thackney]

I used to think that if launch costs dropped enough, space based power systems would be great, until I started thinking about hackers getting control of a powersat beaming megawatts of power back to earth and turned that microwave beam onto a city, or threatened to unless a ransom was paid.

Not just hackers, but our own government comes to mind.  Ruby Ridge without any one on site?

[Smokin Joe]

Not just hackers, but our own government comes to mind.  Ruby Ridge without any one on site?

A good point, but how would the potential for such a device to be a weapon (offensive or defensive) be ignored by other countries as well? Something pushing that much energy through the atmosphere would possible be used as an offensive or defensive weapon.

After all the hoopla about Freon and ozone layers, what would the effects of increasing insolation be, and what would be the atmospheric effects on say, the Ozone Layer?

[KingsX]

Here is an interesting quote from a 2004 article:


" But the U.S. government's decision to abandon research in 2001 could prevent the alternative energy source from ever seeing the light of day.

Solar panels on Earth are inherently limited in their ability to collect energy by two things -- the lack of direct sun at night and atmospheric interference from weather. NASA's now-abandoned Space Solar Power program would avoid these terrestrial impediments by launching satellites that would collect solar radiation and beam the energy to Earth. These satellite systems could each provide gigawatts of electricity, enough power for tens of thousands of homes.

Interest in solar space power peaked in 2000, when NASA officials testified before the House Committee on Science that by 2006 test satellites could be wirelessly transmitting energy from space. After three years of studying the challenges and a favorable report from the National Research Council, in 2001 NASA requested and received new funding for the space solar power program. But later that year, NASA canceled the program (the website was last updated in August 2001) and withdrew the funding.

When asked about the decision to pull the plug on the program, former NASA Director Dan Goldin, who resigned his post in November 2001, said in an e-mail that he does not comment on NASA policy issues.

"It was a done deal, the money was there," said Henry Brandhorst, director of space research at Auburn University. Brandhorst said that NASA decided to use the money for the space shuttle and International Space Station programs instead. "It was a policy change." 

more at link

http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2004/06/63913

[KingsX]

Article above says NASA space solar project was abandoned  in 2001
["website was last updated in August 2001. "]

Years later when I asked my [NASA scientist] brother about space solar,
he said initially it would be quite expensive... but that the money spent
on the war in Iraq would have been a good start. 

How's that for synchronistic irony.