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#21
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How many 'excuses' for manned space flight has NASA offered?
On Nov 28, 7:42*am, bob haller wrote:
a constelation of low earth orbiting solar power plants could cover the entire planet as they go round and round. lets say solar plants replace coal and other fossil fuels for electric power, and coal to gasoline plants are built.. just the announcement would drive down the price of oil Won't that be massively wasteful. If they are geostationary or even high orbit getting the power down would be much easier to use far fewer power sats. Don't get me wrong I'd love to replace the use of most oil on earth and most nuclear as well except in deep space and were processing on earth is needed to get it into space. I'd love fusion as well but that is always 30 years in the future. How far in the future is a space solar power system? 50 years? |
#22
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How many 'excuses' for manned space flight has NASA offered?
wrote in message ... How far in the future is a space solar power system? 50 years? So many people assume Space Solar Power would take many decades like fusion. But I think most would be surprised just how quickly it could happen. President George W Bush canceled the SERT program in his first budget in 2002. The SERT program was planning on building several increasingly larger SSP satellites. Here's the schedule they were planning on, and presented to Congress.... Laying the Foundation for Space Solar Power (SERT) http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=10202&page=1 TABLE 2-1 NASA's SERT Program NASA Model System Category MSC 1 ~100 kW Free flyer LEO-to-Earth power beaming research platform Solar power plug in space Cryogenic propellant depot "Mega-commsat" demonstrator (2006-2007) MSC 1.5 ~1 MW GEO-to-Earth solar power satellite (SPS) demonstrator Lunar exploration SPS platform (2011-2012) MSC 3 ~10 MW Free flyer GEO-based SPS demonstration platforms for wireless power transmission, solar power generation, power management and distribution, and solar electric propulsion (2016-2017) MSC 4 ~1 GW Commercial space full-scale solar power satellite (2021+) Model System Category http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=10202&page=13 Now that's with the government and a dozen committees doing all of it. This start-up private corporation below claims 6 years to build a full scale gigawatt class satellite for around $17 billion dollars. That's the same /price/ and /time/ it would take to build a new nuclear power plant of similar output. SSP is already practical. It's no pipe-dream, but a matter of someone floating a power-plant sized loan for the ...first one. Space Energy Inc http://www.spaceenergy.com/s/Default.htm And I'd suggest taking the time to look over the technical consultants of this start-up corp making those claims. The best and brightest in this technology. Space Energy Inc Technical Consultants http://www.spaceenergy.com/s/TechnicalAdvisors.htm Somehow I doubt a Texas /Oilman/ like George Bush canceled the Space /Solar/ Power program out of cost and benefit analysis concerns. Lockheed wanted the Moon, and Bush/Cheney/Lockheed have been in bed together for years like few others. Lockheed even gave Lynn Cheney a seat on the board. And Bush tried to turn the Texas welfare system over to Lockheed. When Bush/Cheney came into town, Big Aero got to write their own ticket just like Big Oil wrote energy policy. Jonathan s |
#23
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How many 'excuses' for manned space flight has NASA offered?
"bob haller" wrote in message ... a constelation of low earth orbiting solar power plants could cover the entire planet as they go round and round. lets say solar plants replace coal and other fossil fuels for electric power, and coal to gasoline plants are built.. just the announcement would drive down the price of oil That's probably the best reason of all. Why did the price of oil quadruple in just months during Iraq? That's the classic sign of a 'thin' market. Which is a market that doesn't know how it's going to replace a disruption in supply. The market knows it'll take many years. A credible SSP program by the US would go a long way towards calming the markets by demonstrating a new clean and endlessly abundant source is waiting in the wings. I can't emphasize this point enough, everyone saw what happened to the stock market with the Big Crash three years ago, and the havoc it's causing. You should know the oil market can panic in just the same way. And it would be the Industrial Age that collapses and comes to a sudden halt. That's when the wars over oil will truly begin. For instance in Japan now. An existing SSP satellite could deliver gigawatt flows to the disaster area in weeks or months. All it takes in laying down nothing more than a large chicken wire fence as a receiving rectenna and hooking it up to a grid. While new conventional power plants take five and ten years to build. There's no existing power source, conventional or green, that can provide continuous baseload power into a grid to ANY place on Earth and in weeks. SSP is ...wireless...green...power transmission, two of the Holy Grails of energy. The third is an bottomless supply of green...energy. Which SSP also promises. The fact SSP can travel so well means it doesn't have to compete with conventional sources, it'll have plenty of market niches all too itself. Jonathan s |
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How many 'excuses' for manned space flight has NASA offered?
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#25
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How many 'excuses' for manned space flight has NASA offered?
On 24/11/2011 12:23, Jonathan wrote:
When will NASA propose a goal that sticks? When they are given a long term budget? |
#26
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How many 'excuses' for manned space flight has NASA offered?
"CWatters" wrote in message o.uk... On 24/11/2011 12:23, Jonathan wrote: When will NASA propose a goal that sticks? When they are given a long term budget? Which comes first? Weak goals get similar budgets. |
#27
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How many 'excuses' for manned space flight has NASA offered?
On Dec 1, 7:45*pm, "Jonathan" wrote:
"CWatters" wrote in message o.uk... On 24/11/2011 12:23, Jonathan wrote: When will NASA propose a goal that sticks? When they are given a long term budget? Which comes first? Weak goals get similar budgets. It isn't NASA's business to set goals. The politicians give NASA the goals *as well as* the budget. So if no one has said that the United States is "committed, before this decade is out, to send a" person to Mars, and return him or her "safely to Earth", it isn't a NASA administrator who didn't say it. As it happened, G. W. Bush sort of hinted at sending a man to Mars, and Obama hasn't really gone right out and contradicted this, even if he intends to use a different booster. But nobody really cares enough about this to vote for an Apollo-style budget. (As if that would be enough.) NASA has its failings, such as not using limited resources more effectively by concentrating more on robotic missions and less on the ISS boondoggle. But the absence of a clear goal for manned exploration is a failing at the level of those who actually decide about spending the money. John Savard |
#28
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How many 'excuses' for manned space flight has NASA offered?
"Quadibloc" wrote in message ... It isn't NASA's business to set goals. The politicians give NASA the goals *as well as* the budget. That's the way it's been. But the duty of any government agency is to provide the expertize and advice for setting the best goal possible. The politicians and Big Aero have co-opted that responsibility for too long. And NASA has been complacent in merely doing what they're told. NASA needs to grow a backbone and insist on a goal that makes sense. Is tracking asteroids really the stuff of a signature goal? So if no one has said that the United States is "committed, before this decade is out, to send a" person to Mars, and return him or her "safely to Earth", it isn't a NASA administrator who didn't say it. As it happened, G. W. Bush sort of hinted at sending a man to Mars, and Obama hasn't really gone right out and contradicted this, even if he intends to use a different booster. But nobody really cares enough about this to vote for an Apollo-style budget. (As if that would be enough.) If a goal is so long-term that future administrations have to fund it, then it's not likely to happen. A politician isn't going to stick his neck out for someone else's program unless it's a crucial matter. NASA has its failings, such as not using limited resources more effectively by concentrating more on robotic missions and less on the ISS boondoggle. But the absence of a clear goal for manned exploration is a failing at the level of those who actually decide about spending the money. The problem has been in trying to contrive some goal to justify a manned program. NASA should be about paving the way, not the end it itself. And soon enough commercial launchers will be man rated. What could NASA be paving the way for that has the greatest potential to benefit the future? How about this program.... NASA'S SPACE SOLAR POWER (SERT) PROGRAM http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=10202&page=1 Paving the way for more start-ups like this...? Makes sense to me. Space Energy Inc http://spaceenergy.com/ Jonathan John Savard s |
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