Volunteerism vs. Rewards for Space Settlement (Was R

> Another research is needed to reduce energy
> compsumption of all our appliances and equipments back
> to cars from the existing 20mpg SUVs etc to the
> existing VW Lupo 60mpg to the future over 100mpg cars
> if we will still be using traditional engines
> aviation industry can do it why auto industry can't?

You're talking about orders and orders and orders of magnitude difference,
here, between a milliwatt calculator and a car. Here's some napkin
calculations:

One horsepower is about 745 watts.

In order to run a car on modern roads, you're going to need at least 40
horsepower. This works out to about 30 kilowatts. If you use the car a half
hour a day (impossible in most American cities, but let's be generous) that
means you'll need about 15 kWh of power for bare minimum transportation needs.

Since generating 1kWh in an hour takes about five square meters of solar
collector, during an eight-hour collecting day, you're going to need a roughly
ten meter square solar collector. The panel will cost you something like ten
thousand dollars, and even covering every square meter of the car's surface,
it won't be big enough.

Now if you get your power off the lines, instead, taking advantage of
economies of scale, you'll spend less money, the power will be more reliable,
and you won't be rendered immobile if there's a hailstorm.