FLASH! - New Report says plants love SPS, why not environmentalists

We have wind turbines killing birds.

We have the ground underneath solar arrays dying from lack of
sunlight.

Yet environmentalists are crazy in love with these destructive
technologies.

With SPS we actually have a technology that is benign to the
environment, and actually beneficial when compared to the damage
caused by wind turbines and solar PV arrays.

Space Power Beaming: Nice to Mother Nature's Plants
http://www.space.com/astronotes/astronotes.html

"If the Earth is ever on the receiving end of power-beaming
satellites, the weak microwaves from such a space-based energy
generator are not harmful to green plants.

In a NASA-funded experiment, alfalfa plants were bathed in low-
levels of microwave energy for weeks on end. The result: No ill
effects according to researchers at NASA's Ames Research Center,
near San Francisco, California.

The lab tests were the start of a series of experiments to see if
power-beaming satellites that convert the Sun's solar energy into
microwave power, then beam that energy to Earth, would damage plant
life.

Putting into Earth orbit a constellation of Satellite Power System
(SPS) spacecraft to help meet Earth's future energy needs has been
studied for decades. There is no formal program at NASA to build and
loft such a system.

NASA's Office of Space Flight Advanced Concepts funded the microwave
study.

"A tray of growing plants was illuminated with microwaves while
control plants were grown behind a microwave-opaque shield. Test
plants and the control plants were subjected to the same environment
otherwise," said NASA Ames scientist Jay Skiles, who designed the
experiment.

Another experiment will be to grow cereal plants, including wheat
and oats, to determine the effect of microwaves on the kinds of
plants that humankind depend on for food, Skiles said.

Skiles said plans are being designed to test whether or not
microwaves provide a competitive advantage for some kinds of plants
when several different species are growing in the same area. In
another experiment, he is planning to examine the genes of one plant
species to learn the effects of weak microwaves on that plant.
Additional experiments to test effects of climate change, watering
and other conditions also may be conducted."

TangoMan