... OIL has Doubled in One Year! $120 bbl While NASA Dreams of Moon Rocks!

On May 14, 7:15 pm, Totorkon wrote:
On May 14, 5:58 pm, Whata Fool wrote:



Totorkon wrote:
On May 13, 4:20?pm, Pat Flannery wrote:
Pat Flannery wrote:

The downlink microwave transmitters don't have to move as the SOS
crosses the sky,

The downlink microwave transmitters don't have to move as the _SPS_
crosses the sky,
Building a SOS would be a Titanic undertaking. ;-)

Pat

The face of the SPS would always be orthagonal to the sun, it would
rotate 360 deg in 365.25 days. The transmitter would rotate 360 deg
every 24hrs. Still much simpler than the 'retargeting' every ten
miniutes or so that would be required in low orbit.

How about taking this thread to a science fiction newsgroup,
there isn't enough money in the whole world to put up 500 megawatt
system at 22,300 miles.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

If the shuttle were considered part of the payload, the program has
already delivered more than 10000 tons to orbit, the lower mass
estimate for a 5Gw SPS.

At $2000/Kg to leo, that mass could be delivered for $20B, a fifth the
price of the electricity it would generate over a 20yr lifetime.

Reducing the weight of solar arrays and the cost of launch should be
the primary goals of NASA. Power a new age of lunar and
interplanetary exploration with the sun and power satellites won't be
just sf anymore.

Lots of things off-world are technically doable, though per energy
unit delivered to the end-user, as such we're talking of perhaps 100
fold more spendy and at least ten fold more R&D setup time required
than existing terrestrial alternatives that'll more than do the trick
as is.
.. - Brad Guth

h (Rand Simberg) wrote:

On Wed, 14 May 2008 19:58:39 -0500, in a place far, far away, Whata
Fool made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such a
way as to indicate that:

Totorkon wrote:

On May 13, 4:20?pm, Pat Flannery wrote:
Pat Flannery wrote:

The downlink microwave transmitters don't have to move as the SOS
crosses the sky,

The downlink microwave transmitters don't have to move as the _SPS_
crosses the sky,
Building a SOS would be a Titanic undertaking. ;-)

Pat

The face of the SPS would always be orthagonal to the sun, it would
rotate 360 deg in 365.25 days. The transmitter would rotate 360 deg
every 24hrs. Still much simpler than the 'retargeting' every ten
miniutes or so that would be required in low orbit.


How about taking this thread to a science fiction newsgroup,
there isn't enough money in the whole world to put up 500 megawatt
system at 22,300 miles.

Well, you certainly live up to your screen name.

And anybody that thinks putting a power station in space would
be economical is dumber than dirt.

Post a link showing where just one megawatt has been transmitted
through air or space.

Totorkon wrote:

On May 14, 5:58?pm, Whata Fool wrote:
Totorkon ?wrote:
On May 13, 4:20?pm, Pat Flannery wrote:
Pat Flannery wrote:

The downlink microwave transmitters don't have to move as the SOS
crosses the sky,

The downlink microwave transmitters don't have to move as the _SPS_
crosses the sky,
Building a SOS would be a Titanic undertaking. ;-)

Pat

The face of the SPS would always be orthagonal to the sun, it would
rotate 360 deg in 365.25 days. ?The transmitter would rotate 360 deg
every 24hrs. ?Still much simpler than the 'retargeting' every ten
miniutes or so that would be required in low orbit.

? ? ? ? How about taking this thread to a science fiction newsgroup,
there isn't enough money in the whole world to put up 500 megawatt
system at 22,300 miles.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

If the shuttle were considered part of the payload, the program has
already delivered more than 10000 tons to orbit, the lower mass
estimate for a 5Gw SPS.

Ah, get serious, 5Gw would require 25 million square feet of
good solar cells, that is a square mile.

The shuttle can't even go to GEO, a square mile structure will
not stay in LEO, and a structure to hold the array in shape would weigh
10 times that much.

At $2000/Kg to leo, that mass could be delivered for $20B, a fifth the
price of the electricity it would generate over a 20yr lifetime.

For $20 Billion, there could be Gigawatt power plants all across
the sun belt, supplying power when it is needed for the two peak times
from Florida to California.

Reducing the weight of solar arrays and the cost of launch should be
the primary goals of NASA. Power a new age of lunar and
interplanetary exploration with the sun and power satellites won't be
just sf anymore.

NASA has a lot more important things to do than delve in science
fiction projects, the Saturn V was so close to being science fiction,
it approached the limits of material strengths.

Get over the obsession with space nonsense and apply appropriate
technology where it is feasible and economical.
Just getting the US part of supplying the after 2010 will be about
all NASA can manage along with the planned planetary missions.


And before a Space Power System could be ready for orbit,
decentralized, insitu solar PV will be widespread and economical,
can you extrapolate the production growth of 50 percent per year?

Pat Flannery wrote:

Whata Fool wrote:
(Andrew Robert Breen) wrote:
Why are you discussing an impossible system that needs microwave
energy transfer technology that has never been tested, and with the
parking of the Space Shuttles, access to space will be pitifully
inadequate to do much of anything?

Transfer megawatt power a hundred miles through air successfully,
then it still would not be viable, by the time it could be built, cells
and batteries will be so improved, the economics will never be there.

Sorry, no six figure job for you, spaceman.


As far as shooting microwaves down from GEO to the Earth's surface...
did you ever those dish thingies that people have on their houses to get
satellite TV? It's simply a matter of scaling the antenna size and
downlink microwave power up.

Do it, demonstrate that megawatt power can be received and converted
to 60 hertz power.

That should have been the first objective of any hairbrained scheme.

Now, rather than being three feet across, the antenna is three _miles_
across. :-)

And how big would the transmitter antenna be?

Gosh, if the receiving antenna on the ground was covered with solar
cells, it would provide the same power when needed.

WE DON'T NEED 24 HOUR SOLAR POWER, there is an excess of generating
capacity at night.

And despite that early 80's artwork that showed Shuttles near the
orbital assembly point for the SPS, it would need huge new launch
vehicles to accomplish. REALLY big rockets like this Boeing design from
back when the idea first came up:
http://bp0.blogger.com/_b1AE8x4eLKI/...0/ssto75b2.jpg
Oh, I like this SOB already:
http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger2/.../jupiter31.jpg
http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger2/.../jupiter32.jpg
http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger2/...JupiterIII.jpg
Could the crawler transporter even move something of that weight?
Here's some goodies on it:
http://www.teamvisioninc.com/service...timization.htm
The downloadable 104 MB pdf from that webpage is perfect for a vehicle
of this size.
It ranks right up there with the Soviet UR-900:
http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/ur900.htm
We're back into the grand ol' days of the Nova booster with the Jupiter
III.... where any booster that lifts off with less total energy being
generated per second than a volcanic eruption or small nuclear weapon
detonation is considered a sissy way of doing things. :-)

Pat

Wrong newsgroup.

On May 15, 10:33*pm, Whata Fool wrote:
Totorkon *wrote:
On May 14, 5:58?pm, Whata Fool wrote:
Totorkon ?wrote:
On May 13, 4:20?pm, Pat Flannery wrote:
Pat Flannery wrote:

The downlink microwave transmitters don't have to move as the SOS
crosses the sky,

The downlink microwave transmitters don't have to move as the _SPS_
crosses the sky,
Building a SOS would be a Titanic undertaking. ;-)

Pat

The face of the SPS would always be orthagonal to the sun, it would
rotate 360 deg in 365.25 days. ?The transmitter would rotate 360 deg
every 24hrs. ?Still much simpler than the 'retargeting' every ten
miniutes or so that would be required in low orbit.

? ? ? ? How about taking this thread to a science fiction newsgroup,
there isn't enough money in the whole world to put up 500 megawatt
system at 22,300 miles.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

If the shuttle were considered part of the payload, the program has
already delivered more than 10000 tons to orbit, the lower mass
estimate for a 5Gw SPS.

* * * Ah, get serious, 5Gw would require 25 million square feet of
good solar cells, that is a square mile.

* * * The shuttle can't even go to GEO, a square mile structure will
not stay in LEO, and a structure to hold the array in shape would weigh
10 times that much.

At $2000/Kg to leo, that mass could be delivered for $20B, a fifth the
price of the electricity it would generate over a 20yr lifetime.

* * * For $20 Billion, there could be Gigawatt power plants all across
the sun belt, supplying power when it is needed for the two peak times
from Florida to California.

Reducing the weight of solar arrays and the cost of launch should be
the primary goals of NASA. *Power a new age of lunar and
interplanetary exploration with the sun and power satellites won't be
just sf anymore.

* * *NASA has a lot more important things to do than delve in science
fiction projects, the Saturn V was so close to being science fiction,
it approached the limits of material strengths.

* * *Get over the obsession with space nonsense and apply appropriate
technology where it is feasible and economical.
* * *Just getting the US part of supplying the after 2010 will be about
all NASA can manage along with the planned planetary missions.

* * *And before a Space Power System could be ready for orbit,
decentralized, insitu solar PV will be widespread and economical,
can you extrapolate the production growth of 50 percent per year?- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Solar PV costs about $4000 per installed peak Kw. If there were no
other costs, a power satellite would pay for itself in about four
years. Without a heliostat, the losses due to night, angle of the sun
and weather increase the payback time to around 15 years for an
earthbound collector.

Of course there are those other costs that make an earthbound system a
far better bet-investment. The factors that make SPSs sf rather than
a system that may, or may not, prove uneconomical are our relative
ignorance of very large microgravity structures, ultralight PVs,
deterioration from radiation and high volume sales of orbital delivery
services.

Aligning nasa's mission with the goal of reducing the cost to orbit
and using Mw arrays to power electric drives to get to geo, L points,
the moon, planets and asteroids would serve to fill in the numbers of
the hard equasions that determine if space solar power should be
considered uneconomic fantasy or solid investment.

On Fri, 16 May 2008 00:18:23 -0500, in a place far, far away, Whata
Fool made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such a
way as to indicate that:

(Rand Simberg) wrote:

On Wed, 14 May 2008 19:58:39 -0500, in a place far, far away, Whata
Fool made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such a
way as to indicate that:

Totorkon wrote:

On May 13, 4:20?pm, Pat Flannery wrote:
Pat Flannery wrote:

The downlink microwave transmitters don't have to move as the SOS
crosses the sky,

The downlink microwave transmitters don't have to move as the _SPS_
crosses the sky,
Building a SOS would be a Titanic undertaking. ;-)

Pat

The face of the SPS would always be orthagonal to the sun, it would
rotate 360 deg in 365.25 days. The transmitter would rotate 360 deg
every 24hrs. Still much simpler than the 'retargeting' every ten
miniutes or so that would be required in low orbit.


How about taking this thread to a science fiction newsgroup,
there isn't enough money in the whole world to put up 500 megawatt
system at 22,300 miles.

Well, you certainly live up to your screen name.

And anybody that thinks putting a power station in space would
be economical is dumber than dirt.

Post a link showing where just one megawatt has been transmitted
through air or space.

Why?

Are you one of those people who believe that nothing can ever be done
for the first time?

On Fri, 16 May 2008 00:33:58 -0500, in a place far, far away, Whata
Fool made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such a
way as to indicate that:

Totorkon wrote:

On May 14, 5:58?pm, Whata Fool wrote:
Totorkon ?wrote:
On May 13, 4:20?pm, Pat Flannery wrote:
Pat Flannery wrote:

The downlink microwave transmitters don't have to move as the SOS
crosses the sky,

The downlink microwave transmitters don't have to move as the _SPS_
crosses the sky,
Building a SOS would be a Titanic undertaking. ;-)

Pat

The face of the SPS would always be orthagonal to the sun, it would
rotate 360 deg in 365.25 days. ?The transmitter would rotate 360 deg
every 24hrs. ?Still much simpler than the 'retargeting' every ten
miniutes or so that would be required in low orbit.

? ? ? ? How about taking this thread to a science fiction newsgroup,
there isn't enough money in the whole world to put up 500 megawatt
system at 22,300 miles.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

If the shuttle were considered part of the payload, the program has
already delivered more than 10000 tons to orbit, the lower mass
estimate for a 5Gw SPS.

Ah, get serious, 5Gw would require 25 million square feet of
good solar cells, that is a square mile.

The shuttle can't even go to GEO, a square mile structure will
not stay in LEO, and a structure to hold the array in shape would weigh
10 times that much.\

It's idiotic to fantasize that a Shuttle would be used to deliver
power satellites.

On Fri, 16 May 2008 00:42:03 -0500, in a place far, far away, Whata
Fool made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such a
way as to indicate that:

Pat Flannery wrote:

Whata Fool wrote:
(Andrew Robert Breen) wrote:
Why are you discussing an impossible system that needs microwave
energy transfer technology that has never been tested, and with the
parking of the Space Shuttles, access to space will be pitifully
inadequate to do much of anything?

Transfer megawatt power a hundred miles through air successfully,
then it still would not be viable, by the time it could be built, cells
and batteries will be so improved, the economics will never be there.

Sorry, no six figure job for you, spaceman.


As far as shooting microwaves down from GEO to the Earth's surface...
did you ever those dish thingies that people have on their houses to get
satellite TV? It's simply a matter of scaling the antenna size and
downlink microwave power up.

Do it, demonstrate that megawatt power can be received and converted
to 60 hertz power.

What does this even mean? Do you understand the meanings of the words
"megawatt" and "hertz" [sic]? Any amount of power can be "converted"
to 60 Hz (if need be). This isn't a technical challenge at all.

Pat Flannery wrote:



Whata Fool wrote:

How about taking this thread to a science fiction newsgroup,
there isn't enough money in the whole world to put up 500 megawatt
system at 22,300 miles.


Oh, there's enough money to do it; but it would require a Apollo Program
sized proportional investment from all the countries of the world over a
decade or two to make it happen.
It's a lot more likely that alternative forms of energy production will
be implemented by individual countries (and companies) than something of
this huge cost and overwhelming scope.
You'd hate to throw trillions of dollars at it, and suddenly have a
breakthrough in fusion make it obsolete just before it's finished.
In a lot of ways, SPS is a pretty "brute force" and unsophisticated way
of generating electrical power when you come right down to it, despite
the scale of the project. Advancing technology could make the whole
concept look privative inside a decade or two.
You really want to get power from sun, just fire a giant ionizing laser
up into the ionosphere* - you'll get more electrical power than you can
shake a stick at - although the ozone created by having a huge, 24/7
lightning bolt slamming down from space to the Earth's surface is
somewhat worrying from a ecological point of view.
Probably would be noisy also.

* Like CERN's plans to whip up quantum black holes in its supercollider
this summer, this sounds a bit iffy from a safety point of view, and
maybe a experiment you don't _really_ want to try...in case there's a
slight error in your understanding of physics, and something funny...you
know..."funny" happens.
So if Geneva falls into a alternate dimension and its inhabitants are
ripped limb-from-limb by Cthulhu, don't say you weren't warned.
This also goes for the Van Allen Belts catching fire, like in "Voyage To
The Bottom Of The Sea", from the giant ionosphere laser, so don't think
you can lay that one at my feet if you try it. :-)

Pat

Oh, darn, AGW and now quantum black holes,

Run for your life,

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/15/science/15risk.html


But it would solve a few of my problems.

On Thu, 15 May 2008 23:02:37 -0700 (PDT), Totorkon
wrote:

Solar PV costs about $4000 per installed peak Kw.

Wind costs about a grand per Kw. Most wind generators produce one to
two megawatts and cost one to two million bucks. Five percent of the
juice in Iowa comes from wind generators and they are building more as
fast as they can. The only downside to wind is that it kills birds.
They are not very noisy or particularly ugly.

Casady