Space-Based Solar Power Interim Assessment (Release 0.1) is Published!

[cfrjlr]

Space-Based Solar Power Interim Assessment (Release 0.1) is Published!

Posted by Coyote on October 10, 2007

 

Hello Everyone!

 

Click here for the “Interim Assessment!”

 

From the Foreword of the report itself:

 

Preventing resource conflicts in the face of increasing global populations and demands in the 21st century is a high priority for the Department of Defense. All solution options to these challenges should be explored, including opportunities from space.

 

In March 2007, the National Security Space Office’s Advanced Concepts Office presented the idea of space‐based solar power (SBSP) as a potential grand opportunity to address not only energy security, but environmental, economic, intellectual, and space security as well. First proposed in the late 1960’s, the concept was last explored in the NASA’s 1997 “Fresh Look” Study. In the decade since this last study, advances in technology and new challenges to security have warranted a current exploration of the strategic implications of SBSP. For these reasons, my office sponsored a no‐cost Phase 0 Architecture Feasibility Study of SBSP during the Spring and Summer of 2007.

 

Unlike traditional contracted architecture studies, the attached report was compiled through an innovative and collaborative approach that relied heavily upon voluntary internet discussions by more than 170 academic, scientific, technical, legal, and business experts around the world. I applaud the high quality of work accomplished by the team leaders and all participants who contributed in the last six months. I encourage them to continue their work in earnest as they move beyond this interim report and seek to answer the question of whether SBSP can be developed and deployed within the first half of this century to provide affordable, clean, safe, reliable, sustainable and expandable energy for mankind.

 

This interim assessment contains significant initial findings and recommendations that should provide pause and consideration for national and international policy makers, business leaders, and citizens alike. It appears that technological challenges are closing rapidly and the business case for creating SBSP is improving with each passing year. Still absent, however, is an appropriate catalyst to stimulate the various interested parties toward actually developing a SBSP capability. I encourage all to read this report and consider the opportunities that SBSP presents as part of a national and international debate for action on how best to preserve security for all.

 

//signed 9 Oct 07//

JOSEPH D. ROUGE, SES

Acting Director, National Security Space Office

[Pyrotex]

no links :)

[cfrjlr]

no links :)

 

 

Yes, alas, the security policy of this web site does not allow me to post links.

 

Send me an email and I will fill you in.

 

You can also click on the link in my profile on this site which will take you to to my personal blog where there are more links and details

[InfiniteNow]

Here it is in .pdf:

 

http://spacesolarpower.files.wordpress.com/2007/11/final-sbsp-interim-assessment-release-01.pdf

[CraigD]

Thank you, cfrjlr, for bringing “Interim Assessment” to hypography. Although a fairly long and detailed read, it appears full of authoritative information about the current state and near future of space-based solar power. The page 6 article in the 11/2007 “BEEEP” seemed to me shorter and more readable introduction, and both the Space Solar Power website and Charles Radley’s Weblog blog good sources of info on the subject. ;)

 

Peacenik that I am, I’d thought much about the now obvious-seeming military advantages of SBSP over fuel-powered generators, or that the US DOD would take the lead in developing, but am glad for any government promotion of this or any other space-based power technology. I believe that the long-term success of humankind requires a many-power-of-ten increase in available engineering power (as described, for example, in this post), which will require space-based solar power exceeding the Earth’s total “solar power budget”. Solar power beamed from orbit is likely a first step in the development of such technology (though I’ve some misgivings that a incremental approach to the technology may be less effective – possibly critically so – than more ambitious ones).

 

I found it educational that the earliest documents about SBSP were written in the late 1960s by the late Peter Glaser – and a bit surprising. The idea of geostationary communication satellites is generally attributed to an 1945 paper by Arthur C Clarke, while the idea of radio frequency beamed power (not a far stretch from microwave frequency) was notably present in Hugo (of Hugo Award fame) Gernsback’s Ralph 124C 41+, so it’s reasonable to assume that the idea of beaming solar power from satellites was “in the air” prior to the 1960s. I first encountered the idea in the 1980 and 90s writing of the late Robert Forward.

 

As mentioned in the Interim Assessment, one of Forward’s most interesting and compelling ideas was the use of SBSP satellites to launch Starwisp interstellar probes. A Forward idea of possible application to SBSP that I didn’t find in the IA is the use of powered orbits to place satellites in geostationary orbits at lower orbits than ordinary, and/or directly above non-equatorial points on Earth.

 

As I mentioned above, I’m uncertain that the considerable challenges of boosting objects as massive as a 3,000,000 kg, 1 - 10 GW space solar power satellite into a usable (or any stable) orbit can be met. The IA notes “this may seem unimaginably large and ambitious” – and it does, to me. My intuition favors a less familiar – in fact, an unprecedented – approach: the manufacturing and assembly of SPPSs from raw materials collected from low-mass sources in space (ie: asteroids). Although at first glance, this approach may appear much more ambitious (and unrealistic) than repeating the proven (by, for example, the ISS) approach of manufacturing parts on Earth. However, it requires much less total launch energy – an advantage that I suspect may prove critical.

Yes, alas, the security policy of this web site does not allow me to post links.

This restriction, regrettably necessary to discourage spamming, will automatically lift when a post count of 10 is reached. At the same user level, you will be able to edit your old posts to add links to them.