How Energy From Space Relates To Fighting Terrorism

I don't see any reason why an energy company, such as Exxon, couldn't
invest in powersats and reap huge profits. They might be happy to
see the end of worry about what OPEC will do. And the chance to make
friends with the environmentalists (instead of being the favorite
boogieman of the same). I'm convinced this is so. I'm reminded of a conversation I had with a friend on SPS. He said, "The oil companies would never allow it, because then no one would buy oil." Of course that ignores the fact petroleum has many uses besides energy production. But I argued from a different tack. I asked him to imagine that we were having a conversation back in the 1950's. In a spectacular display of prescience, I tell him that in the future, home movies will not be made on film, but on videotape, in handy cassettes. Unlike film, one can re-record. No waiting for development. There will be machines which we'll hook up to our TV sets to watch our home movies, and the old projector and movie screen will collect dust in our closets. I then told him his reaction would be, "It'll never happen. All the companies which make home movie film will suppress this new technology, because then no one would buy home movie film anymore and they'd go out of business". But what is our present-day reality? We walk into Wal-Mart, and find shelf after shelf of VHS cassettes with names on them like Polaroid and Kodak. Companies can change what they do to remain at the forefront of technological change. Indeed, those who fail to do so perish. Xenophile (who realizes that there must be something wrong with this
argument... after all, when's the last time you saw Mobil build a
powersat?) The reason may be nothing other than the "giggle factor". Maybe government money spent to fund a proof-of-concept prototype might be money well-spent.