Solar-pumped laser power transmission, a way to dramatically decrease launch costs?

I like this idea, Relatively small mirrors would power
the lasers, not huge solar cell arrays. The lasers would
transmit their beams to other satellites that convert it to, and
beam it down, as microwaves. No need for mile-size
collectors in orbit.

Proceedings of the ASCE Earth&Space 2006 Conference
April 2006

Space Power Grid- Evolutionary Approach To Space Solar Power


"At a higher level, a direct solar-pumped laser could be used to
convert solar energy on the LEO satellites, and transmit the laser
beams to other satellites where the demand for power is greater
(e.g., satellites over the dark side of earth). Recently, development
of such lasers has reached a stage where efficiency of up to 38%
has been shown. These satellites would receive incoming
laser energy using their high-efficiency narrow-band photovoltaic
cells, convert it to microwave, and beam it to Earth. This
architecture has two advantages: the beaming to Earth
could be done at optimal microwave frequencies for maximum
transmission through the atmosphere, without requiring excessive
transmitter size. The laser beams would propagate with very
high efficiency, and require only small collectors. Thus the mass
and overall cost per unit power of the system with this architecture
may be substantially lower than the lower-risk option
presented before."

http://www.adl.gatech.edu/archives/adlp06040601.pdf



And it should be noted, the SPS start up company, Space Energy Inc,
maybe one of the more legitimate commercial attempts at SPS, has
as one of it's technical advisors this guy, and his /current/ specialty
might be a clue of things to come.....


Dr. Richard Dickinson

Space Energy Inc technical advisors

"Mr. Dickinson is one of the world's foremost experts on Wireless
Power Transmission (WPT). President of OFF EARTH-WPT,
Mr. Dickinson was Group Supervisor of the High-Power Transmitter
Group at Goldstone and was NASA's microwave power transmission
specialist on the Solar Power Satellite Reference System team....

......he is currently involved in studying and designing the solar pumped
laser-power beaming phased array for interstellar missions."
http://www.spaceenergy.com/s/TechnicalAdvisors.htm




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