NASA's New Goal, Asteroid by 2025, Mars by 2035....Huh!

"Val Kraut" wrote in message
...

"
A Space Solar Power project would be held to
standards more like that of a civilian contract
where such questions need to be answered first.
That's not the case with men on the Moon, asteroids
or Mars.



That's exactly the history of SSP.

Thanks for replying, I never tire of this subject.

The history of SSP is that almost /no money/ has been spent
on research, a total of around $25 million dollars has been
spent on research since the 70's. That's gas money.
Why do you think that is?

Why does the pipe-dream of fusion get so much, while SSP
gets nothing, when the technology for SSP is simple and
already exists? Space Energy Inc claims SSP already is
cost-competitive to a similar output nuclear power plant.


In the late 1960s and early 1970s, there was a major serious effort to
make this happen based on cheap shuttle access to space. It was held to
civilian standards of making a profit. The price of oil went down - and it
was cancelled.


The SERT program was cancelled by President George W Bush
with his very first budget. Bush is very tight with Lockheed and the
oil industry. His decision had nothing at all to do with costs or
technology or anything else outside of pure political ...cronyism.

Hell, George Bush and Cheney were so in bed with Lockheed
that as Texas governor he tried to turn the Texas welfare system
over to Lockheed. It didn't pass the laugh test, but he tried anyways.
And Cheney's wife was given a seat on the Board of Directors
of Lockheed. I wonder why? Ya think it had anything to do
with her skills with aircraft or big business?

Or to say thank you, keep the gravy coming?

My first Internet hobby was politics, and it's easy to see the
political fix has been in for SSP for a very long time.

Just after I came to the space ng's, when the return
to the Moon was still up in the air, I started ranting
about SSP as loudly as I could. And exactly /three weeks/
to the day after I started, NASA took down their
long-standing and comprehensive web page about SSP.
Which I had been quoting extensively.

SSP was almost entirely swept from the NASA
web sites that day like a good old fashioned
Stalinist Purge. That told me clearly NASA saw SSP
as a competitor to The Vision.


Just holding it to a standard doesn't mean it won't over run or be overcome
by events. The reality is military "necessity" feeds over runs. Civilian
"standards" feeds program cancellations. You start building SSP, OPEC drops
the price of oil and it's all over.


And if oil prices dropped as a result of SSP, why would that
be a bad thing? That's the whole idea of a new energy source.
And the point seems to be lost with SSP that it doesn't have
to directly compete with conventional power sources due
to the ease with which it travels on the ground.

Just as AC power transmission was a sea-change improvement
over short-range DC, SSP is the same kind of advance in supplying
electricity to distant, difficult or specialty needs. No other
green source of energy can provide continuous baseload
power to any place on Earth no matter how rural, rugged
or far from the equator. Terrestrial solar can't provide
continuous or baseload power.

SSP has plenty of niches all to itself.

Disaster areas where quick access to energy is needed such
as in Japan. Military activities in far-flung places. And even
to power larger satellites, just to name a few.

And the idea with NASA's SERT program was to build
just the one full size demonstrator to show it's ability to make
money, so the civilian sector can take it from there.

It's just that someone has to be first.


Jonathan


Space Energy Inc
http://spaceenergy.com/

NASA'S SPACE SOLAR POWER
(SERT) PROGRAM
http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=10202&page=1

Space-Based Solar Power
As an Opportunity for Strategic Security
National Security Space Office
http://www.nss.org/settlement/ssp/li...release-01.pdf







s



Val Kraut

Thanks for replying, I never tire of this subject.

The history of SSP is that almost /no money/ has been spent
on research, a total of around $25 million dollars has been
spent on research since the 70's. That's gas money.
Why do you think that is?

Actually I think more was spent - this was a hot topic at Grumman in
conjunction with Arthur D. Little. Prototype beam builders were designed,
fabricated and tested. This was probably book kept as large space structures
not SSP, and some of the antenna work transitioned to space based radar with
the air force.

Why does the pipe-dream of fusion get so much, while SSP
gets nothing, when the technology for SSP is simple and
already exists? Space Energy Inc claims SSP already is
cost-competitive to a similar output nuclear power plant.

Fusion has a different place in the world - it belongs to Department of
Energy. Unfortunately SSP ends up the ******* son of DOE, NASA and others
with military applications - an unfortunately ugly child wanted by none.
Fusion is a real science fiction topic - but somehow I sense that thers's a
abnormal urge to do something constructive with nuclear technology. There
was talk of an Energy ARPA at one time which may have adopted the orphan

The SERT program was cancelled by President George W Bush
with his very first budget. Bush is very tight with Lockheed and the
oil industry. His decision had nothing at all to do with costs or
technology or anything else outside of pure political ...cronyism.

I don't understand the Lockheed connection - SPP would buy a lot of
boosters

SSP was almost entirely swept from the NASA
web sites that day like a good old fashioned
Stalinist Purge. That told me clearly NASA saw SSP
as a competitor to The Vision.


I think they may also have seen it as not all NASA as I stated above.


SSP has plenty of niches all to itself.

Disaster areas where quick access to energy is needed such
as in Japan. Military activities in far-flung places. And even
to power larger satellites, just to name a few.

and places like micronesia where some predicted it would already be in place
by now.

And the idea with NASA's SERT program was to build
just the one full size demonstrator to show it's ability to make
money, so the civilian sector can take it from there.


Just a military or remote site like micronesia would be a start that it's
real - and some act like it's happening. Maybe the real problem is assuming
NASA would be the lead instead of just providing boosters.

On Nov 9, 5:55*pm, "Jonathan" wrote:

Why does the pipe-dream of fusion get so much, while SSP
gets nothing, when the technology for SSP is simple and
already exists?

Why does fusion power seem like a pipe-dream? Because it requires
technology we don't have. So developing that technology would mean a
big advance in what we can do.

Yes, space solar power doesn't require fundamental new _technologies_.
What it requires is quite simple: putting a lot of mass into Earth
orbit. That is at least perceived as a *huge* cost - one that could
only be made manageable by the *gigantic* investment of setting up L-5
colonies so that the power satellites could be made from materials in
space (i.e., asteroids).

So we research fusion power to ensure that the Russians/Europeans/
Chinese don't get too far ahead of us - but we don't embark on that
kind of development of space because we're not prepared for that kind
of investment.

Now, if space solar power doesn't have to involve an investment that
would make a manned mission to Mars seem small in comparison, that
fact will have to be made more widely known.

John Savard

"Quadibloc" wrote in message
...
On Nov 9, 5:55 pm, "Jonathan" wrote:

Why does the pipe-dream of fusion get so much, while SSP
gets nothing, when the technology for SSP is simple and
already exists?

Why does fusion power seem like a pipe-dream?


Thanks for replying.


Because it requires
technology we don't have. So developing that technology
would mean a big advance in what we can do.

It requires the ability to ...keep... the 'sun' inside a box.
That's the technical and literal definition of a pipe-dream.

By a conservative time-line it's thirty of forty years
until they demonstrate commercial viability.
And once they do, someday, by comparison conventional
nuclear power plants will seem dirt cheap, simple to build, far
less hazardous and with fewer waste issues.

And even if they over come all that, when will the third-world
get their fusion power plants?


Yes, space solar power doesn't require fundamental new _technologies_.

Even modest advances in technology could reduce the cost of a
SSP power plant dramatically. For instance, SSP could take the
form of small mirrors which directly generate laser power transmission.
A few collectors could be in a high orbit, or even on the Moon, and
beam the energy to orbital satellites for microwave transmission
to the ground. No need for mile-sized solar panels.


What it requires is quite simple: putting a lot of mass into Earth
orbit.

Right, the modern equivalent of bulk government-paid cargo
finally allowing low-cost to orbit to become a reality.
Much like the US Mail helped jump start the aviation industry.


That is at least perceived as a *huge* cost - one that could
only be made manageable by the *gigantic* investment of setting up L-5
colonies so that the power satellites could be made from materials in
space (i.e., asteroids).

That's not a realistic view at all. Right now very professional estimates
claim it would take roughly five years to launch a commercially viable
gigawatt class satellite with total launch, construction and lifetime costs
about the same as a similar output nuclear power plant.

Space Energy Inc
Sales Presentation on SSP
http://spaceenergy.com/i/flash/ted_presentation

Space Energy Inc Advisors
(scroll down for tech advisors)
http://spaceenergy.com/About/Advisors.htm


SSP is already viable even given the current high launch costs
and current price of oil and gas. Not to mention that SSP doesn't
have to compete with conventional sources of electricity due
it's ability to be easily and cheaply delivered anywhere no matter
how rural, rugged or far from the equator

The sea-change of AC power transmission was it's ability to
travel so much better than DC. Well, SSP can travel where
large power plants can't, and is every bit the advance over AC
for that reason alone. Not even counting it's clean and
completely endless abundance.

Not to mention SSP would be a power plant with
essentially ZERO operating costs. No constant train
of oil and gas to pay for ....day after day. Whose prices
might quadruple overnight just from geo-political problems.
As they did during Iraq.

Not to mention...

No green energy source, not even terrestrial solar, can
provide....continuous baseload power...directly to an
existing grid. ONLY SSP can do that.

And once the satellite is up, the tiny costs and ease of
laying down a chicken wire fence (rectenna) to collect
the energy means the /entire world/ can become part
of ...'The Grid'. And leave the stone-age behind.

And again not to mention, once the first SSP satellite shows it can
make a profit. Then...like magic...an entirely bottomless pit
of money becomes available from the commercial sector.
$15 billion dollar loans for a new power plant are a /weekly/
occurrence in the two trillion dollar per year energy industry.

The second largest industry on Earth, behind only food.
The huge costs of space activities need to be attached
to an equally large market.


So we research fusion power to ensure that the Russians/Europeans/
Chinese don't get too far ahead of us

The very current plan is that the Russians, China, Japan
the EU and the US are combining their funds to build
a new fusion plant. It'll cost $15 billion or so, take
15 years or so, and the goal is to build a fusion plant
that can produce 500 mw for 1000 seconds.
Or just over 16 minutes. That's nice.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITER


- but we don't embark on that
kind of development of space because we're not prepared for that kind
of investment.


The first scale demonstrator is estimated to cost about the same
amount of money it took to make for first one of these.....
http://disney.go.com/pirates/

Somehow I think that's not so much to ask considering the
potential.


Now, if space solar power doesn't have to involve an investment that
would make a manned mission to Mars seem small in comparison, that
fact will have to be made more widely known.


Right! Read for yourself. As technology rolls along
and fossil fuels become more expensive, the viability
of SSP has been quickly increasing. It's just now becoming
practical enough for a serious commercial start-up
(check the bios of their technical advisors)
to run with the idea as hard as they can.

Space Energy Inc Advisors
(scroll down for tech advisors)
http://spaceenergy.com/About/Advisors.htm


And it just so happens NASA seems to need a new goal.
How convenient! We're talking about a historical
opportunity that would be a crying shame to see
****ed away.


Space Energy Inc home
http://spaceenergy.com/


John Savard


Jonathan


s

On 12/11/2011 11:05 AM, Jonathan wrote:


I think the best term for that article is trial balloon. They want to
see the reaction, so I think it's important to react when those
things come up.

That's probably the most intelligent thing you've said since you've been
on these groups.