The REAL obstacle to SPSS

On 8/26/05, Wallach, Mark mwallach@... wrote: There is no reason why international cooperation can't be negotiated to permit something of such obvious benefit to the entire planet.

IS the bonus obvious? It may be obvious to US, but is it obvious to, say, Saudi Arabia, or China, or any number of other countries that would not benefit directly from the increased power generation, but would feel that they are under threat of orbital microwave bombardment?

Space is probably the one theater where such cooperation has been the rule, rather than the exception.

Only because we have (mostly) refrained from putting actual weapons up there.

Once the economics are there, I think it is important that the technology be ready to go; with the price of oil starting to skyrocket as the Chinese industrial machine begins to drink deeply, that may be sooner than we expect. The technology will come when the economics are there, that's how that ALWAYS goes. No effort is required on that front, I think.