Sea Dragon & BDBs

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, Dawn McKnight mcknight@c...> wrote:
> Thanks to John for this information.
>
> It reminds me of one of the silly schemes I sometimes ponder, for
> when I have Bill Gates' money...
>
> As I understand it, only national entities, or those they
designate,
> are allowed to launch to space.

This shows how thoroughly hoodwinked the general public has become.
Government agencies would _like_ people to think that only they are
allowed to launch into space, or that it is simply too expensive for
private individuals or corporations. This is simply not true. If
it were, then all the Xprize contenders would be engaging in an
exercise in futility.

>
> As it happens, there's a nation which is closer to the equator
than
> Cape Canaveral, where you could buy up land right cheap... because
> the country, Tuvalu, is sinking.

Tuvalu doesn't really need the space program; the country is
becoming rich from the internet (the country code is .tv)

>
> As I see it, it wouldn't cost more than a few million to buy up a
> significant interest in Tuvalu, and get designated as the Tuvalese
> Space Agency. Then you build stilt structures, and greenhouses.
It
> would be a good place to test solar power satellites because,
should
> the beam happen to wander off the rectena, you've got thousands of
> miles of empty ocean before it damages anything.

Rectennae are safe; the beam is a low intensity microwave, and any
land underneath the rectenna can be used as farmland. Birds,
animals and people would be quite safe directly in the path of the
beam. It is not like it is an Xray death beam.

ed