Powersats on Discovery Channel RIGHT NOW!

On Sep 13, 2008, at 7:01 AM, sailor.barsoom quoted the show as saying:

> Yes, the "orbital power station" could be built,
>
> and it would work, and it could be just what we
> need, but it might be a Very Bad Thing on the
> grounds that all the world's energy could be in
> the hands of a few people, corporations, or
> governments. So it might not be possible for
> political reasons, see you next episode.
>

I agree with you: that's just silly. Powersats would be far more
equitably distributed than, say, oil, which only exists where it
exists -- powersats could be built (or purchased) anywhere. Sure,
currently there are only a few countries with big space programs, but
if this became a major source of energy, just watch how quickly other
countries suddenly get launch capability.

> It seems to me that this is a way to REDUCE
> centralization of power. The US won't have to
> import energy from the Middle East, and they
> won't have to import it from us. Japan won't
> have to import from anybody. Every nation that
> can afford powersats will have them, and those
> that cannot, well, they were having to import
> their energy already, and now they will have a
> wider choice of who to import from.
>

Word.

> It almost seems that Discovery was desperately
> trying to find something (ANYTHING!) wrong with
> the idea, so that it would be "the equal of"
> their other ideas, rather than an obvious Grand
> Champion of Proposals.
>

Probably. I guess they missed the usual "launch costs are too high
for this to be practical" objection. Of course there's a sort of
inverse-catch-22 here: if we started launching things at the rates
space solar power would require, launch costs would come down from
economies of scale.

Best,
- Joe

Joe Strout
joe@...

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