Space Solar Power

In a press release emailed yesterday, the National Space Society announced it is teaming with a former president of India on a project to establish space solar power as a viable energy source in the near future. The project will be formally announced at a press conference in Washington, D. C., on Thursday.

Space solar power has been a driver for many in the space advocacy community for decades-- and for good reason. The concept is to capture solar energy with huge satellites in Earth orbit, convert that energy into, say, microwaves, and beam it to the surface, where the microwaves would be captured by rectenna farms. The energy would then be fed into the world's electrical grid, providing humanity with limitless, free, clean, safe power. It's a compelling vision.

The question is whether its a vision that can be turned into reality. Each of the collection satellites in the classic SSP model, for example, would be huge-- perhaps a mile across. We really have no solid idea yet as to how to build and control a space structure that big. Whether smaller satellites with improved technology could do the job is another question. Large or small, a fleet of such powersats would be necessary to power the world, which brings up the question of the required capital outlays. Energy from the Sun may be free, but building a system to harness that energy would not be. Financing such a project could well be beyond the ability of the bond market as it exists today, which would likely mean direct government funding of at least part of the project-- this as many governments are already facing huge debt problems for years to come. The ecological effect of dozens of energy beams constantly slicing through the atmosphere is also unknown.

Still, the basic concept is extremely appealing. It has extraordinary promise. A successful SSP system could be the basis of a stable, wealthy, expanding human civilization indefinitely into the future. If the National Space Society and a former Indian president can indeed put humanity on that road, they will have accomplished a very good thing.