Space Solar Power- An Option for the Future

Abstract

In the movie "Apollo 13" the engineers had a discussion on how
to get the astronauts home safely. A number of suggestions were made
and they began to debate the options. One engineer stopped the conver-
sation, and said: "Power is everything."
None of the options was possible without power.
Our energy resources are indeed finite, on a much larger scale of
course, but they must be managed. Today, more than 40% of the earth's
five billion people are not connected to electric power grids. Although
the United States' more than 250 million citizens, along with other in-
dustrialized nations , are the largest consumers of electricity, our
consumption grows by only 1.4% per year. The rest of the world is in-
creasing consumption by 2.5% per year.
The US Department of Energy has estimated that by the year 2015,
the consumption of electricity in developing countries (80% of the
world's population) will equal that of industrialized nations. Building
more power plants that burn nonrenewable fuels has environmental
impacts and nuclear energy receives significant oppos ition from the
general public. No one energy source will satisfy this demand, so I
would like to introduce to you an option that to the best of my knowl-
edge has not been discussed in this or any AEE publication, that is Space
Solar Power (SSP).