They alternative to invoking a revolution in both launch rates and prices in order to make space solar power feasible is the original intent of the concept: people living in space producing something to trade with Earth. This necessarily means developing an industrial base in space using extraterrestrial resources to build both the solar power satellites and the habitats in which the settlers will live.
Unlike waiting around for a cheaper and more frequent launch industry to develop, while speculating wildly about what economic function could possible drive that development, the settlement of Earth orbit is something that could happen right now.
“People living in space producing something to trade with Earth”
Manufacturing doesn’t tend to happen in high cost-of-living areas on earth – those are mostly either knowledge industry (urban) or resource extraction (remote rural). What could they possibly produce that would be worth the shipping, let alone their living expenses?
It doesn’t cost much to ship photons.
But it does to build the SBSP systems to produce them. However again, the idea you will need large number of humans living in space is rooted in an outdated view of construction and manufacturing technology.
When SBSP systems are built they will make extensive use of lunar and/or NEO resources. Most of the work will be done telebotically from Earth, fully leveraging advances in robotics and 3D printing technology, both on the Moon and in orbit. The number of human workers on site will be limited because of the expense and workers will likely just be in orbit or one the lunar surface for 6-9 month periods, living in habitats much like the ones Bigelow’s Aerospace are proposing. Private ventures always seek to maximize the spread between costs and profits while minimizing time to market, something you are not going to be able to do that by spending years building a massive O’Neill habitat in an L5 orbit first. Instead, as with comsats and remote sites on Earth, the focus will be on minimizing cost by minimizing the number hours human workers are physically needed onsite.
The people aren’t living in space to manufacture solar power satellites. They’re manufacturing solar power satellites so they can live in space!
“It doesn’t cost much to ship photons.”
That depends upon how many you ship.
The USAF is finally getting some laser comms up in space,
it will take a lot more money to go from comm bandwidth to power.
Since the major available resources anywhere above the atmosphere are hard vacuum and sunlight, and materials from CC asteroids can be brought to EML-1 cheaply, that seems a logical site for your industry, Trent. The nearest available asteroids *may* be Earth’s temporary satellites, which by current modeling have an average captured life of about 10 months, and an average total mass of about 300mtons. The good thing about that capture time is that it means, on average 300mtons gets captured every 10 months, even if it gets used up. It’s a “renewable resource”! That amount sounds small, till you look at the meta-materials to be made from that 300mTons, …meta-materials requiring energy and hard vacuum to produce.
There are at least 2 other groups, at MIT and Lawrence Livermore Lab making similar meta-materials with different processes. Not only are the structures *very* light for their strength, the properties can be “tuned” by changing their structure. My immediate suggestion is obvious (to me, at least), …move the next generation of spacecraft construction into Space. With the meta-materials available, mass ratios should climb through the roof. Not only that, …if the meta-materials’ structures are sealed, it seems not impossible that single-stage-to-orbit is obtained enpassant, while a low mass return flight would find the vehicle floating between 2-3,000m altitude, till brought to ground by helicopter rotors, accumulation of liquified air or just frozen water vapor for ballast, or simply dropping a cable and winching down. Some combination of all 3 may work best. This should do much to relieve passenger fears about relying on rockets for landing.
From that point, the next step might be custom-building cloud castles to drop onto customers from heaven.
It is true that getting an economical return is vital. That doesn’t exclude using just that need to move lower cost launch forwards as well.
SBSP, so silly.
Terrestrial Solar is happening at accelerating growth rates now.
SBSP is still just art and concept stuff.
5 years from now, i’ll bet 80% of daytime electricity will be coming from terrestrial Solar PV.
That’s because you understand nothing about technology or economics. Or even basic math.
Well how many watts of power have been beamed down from space this year?
How many will be beamed down next year? How many will be beamed down in 5 years?
Stupid and irrelevant questions all.
Irrelevant only to people who don’t care about Reality.
I’ll make a prediction, that there are no more watts of space based power
beamed down in 5 years as there are today.
No one is predicting that there will be any power beamed down from space five years from now, you imbecile.
Ok So you don’t predict any movement in SBSP in the next 5 years.
How much Electricity is being produced by renewables in california this year?
Next year, what do you think that number will be?
How much daytime Electricity do you think will be being produced in California in 5 years?
How much daytime Electricity do you think will be being produced in California in 5 years?
It doesn’t matter what I think about that, or even what you think about it (to the limited degree you ever actually think about anything). It has nothing to do with SBSP.
They alternative to invoking a revolution in both launch rates and prices in order to make space solar power feasible is the original intent of the concept: people living in space producing something to trade with Earth. This necessarily means developing an industrial base in space using extraterrestrial resources to build both the solar power satellites and the habitats in which the settlers will live.
Unlike waiting around for a cheaper and more frequent launch industry to develop, while speculating wildly about what economic function could possible drive that development, the settlement of Earth orbit is something that could happen right now.
“People living in space producing something to trade with Earth”
Manufacturing doesn’t tend to happen in high cost-of-living areas on earth – those are mostly either knowledge industry (urban) or resource extraction (remote rural). What could they possibly produce that would be worth the shipping, let alone their living expenses?
It doesn’t cost much to ship photons.
But it does to build the SBSP systems to produce them. However again, the idea you will need large number of humans living in space is rooted in an outdated view of construction and manufacturing technology.
When SBSP systems are built they will make extensive use of lunar and/or NEO resources. Most of the work will be done telebotically from Earth, fully leveraging advances in robotics and 3D printing technology, both on the Moon and in orbit. The number of human workers on site will be limited because of the expense and workers will likely just be in orbit or one the lunar surface for 6-9 month periods, living in habitats much like the ones Bigelow’s Aerospace are proposing. Private ventures always seek to maximize the spread between costs and profits while minimizing time to market, something you are not going to be able to do that by spending years building a massive O’Neill habitat in an L5 orbit first. Instead, as with comsats and remote sites on Earth, the focus will be on minimizing cost by minimizing the number hours human workers are physically needed onsite.
The people aren’t living in space to manufacture solar power satellites. They’re manufacturing solar power satellites so they can live in space!
“It doesn’t cost much to ship photons.”
That depends upon how many you ship.
The USAF is finally getting some laser comms up in space,
it will take a lot more money to go from comm bandwidth to power.
Since the major available resources anywhere above the atmosphere are hard vacuum and sunlight, and materials from CC asteroids can be brought to EML-1 cheaply, that seems a logical site for your industry, Trent. The nearest available asteroids *may* be Earth’s temporary satellites, which by current modeling have an average captured life of about 10 months, and an average total mass of about 300mtons. The good thing about that capture time is that it means, on average 300mtons gets captured every 10 months, even if it gets used up. It’s a “renewable resource”! That amount sounds small, till you look at the meta-materials to be made from that 300mTons, …meta-materials requiring energy and hard vacuum to produce.
http://www.jrgreer.caltech.edu/home.php
There are at least 2 other groups, at MIT and Lawrence Livermore Lab making similar meta-materials with different processes. Not only are the structures *very* light for their strength, the properties can be “tuned” by changing their structure. My immediate suggestion is obvious (to me, at least), …move the next generation of spacecraft construction into Space. With the meta-materials available, mass ratios should climb through the roof. Not only that, …if the meta-materials’ structures are sealed, it seems not impossible that single-stage-to-orbit is obtained enpassant, while a low mass return flight would find the vehicle floating between 2-3,000m altitude, till brought to ground by helicopter rotors, accumulation of liquified air or just frozen water vapor for ballast, or simply dropping a cable and winching down. Some combination of all 3 may work best. This should do much to relieve passenger fears about relying on rockets for landing.
From that point, the next step might be custom-building cloud castles to drop onto customers from heaven.
It is true that getting an economical return is vital. That doesn’t exclude using just that need to move lower cost launch forwards as well.
SBSP, so silly.
Terrestrial Solar is happening at accelerating growth rates now.
SBSP is still just art and concept stuff.
5 years from now, i’ll bet 80% of daytime electricity will be coming from terrestrial Solar PV.
That’s because you understand nothing about technology or economics. Or even basic math.
Well how many watts of power have been beamed down from space this year?
How many will be beamed down next year? How many will be beamed down in 5 years?
Stupid and irrelevant questions all.
Irrelevant only to people who don’t care about Reality.
I’ll make a prediction, that there are no more watts of space based power
beamed down in 5 years as there are today.
No one is predicting that there will be any power beamed down from space five years from now, you imbecile.
Ok So you don’t predict any movement in SBSP in the next 5 years.
How much Electricity is being produced by renewables in california this year?
Next year, what do you think that number will be?
How much daytime Electricity do you think will be being produced in California in 5 years?
How much daytime Electricity do you think will be being produced in California in 5 years?
It doesn’t matter what I think about that, or even what you think about it (to the limited degree you ever actually think about anything). It has nothing to do with SBSP.