Space Development Steering Committee, October 2021
“We have a technology ahead of us that can save the planet” says founder of the Space Development Steering Committee, Howard Bloom,
· “It can totally end the man-made contribution to global warming from energy production.
· “It can end the use of fossil fuels for energy and transportation.
· “And, according to my late partner in energy advocacy, India’s eleventh president Dr. APJ Kalam,” says Bloom, “it can lift two billion people out of poverty.”
Explains Bloom, “It’s harvesting solar energy in space and transmitting it to earth using the same harmless radio waves your phone uses. It’s called space solar power.”
“The Chinese plan to own the space solar power industry by 2035,” warns Bloom. “He who owns space solar power will own the 21st century. We have to get there first.”
But the real news is this. The UK Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) has just received a positive report (Space based solar power: de-risking the pathway to net zero) from the independent Frazer-Nash Consultancy suggesting that with space solar power Britain can achieve its climate change goals of zero greenhouse gas emissions and, provide “perhaps 15% of UK electricity by 2042.”
In 1941 Isaac Asimov first proposed space solar power in a science fiction story. In the last 20 years, SSP has been studied in China and in the West. In fact, the Chinese have built their first factory to make the modules for space solar power satellites.
The West, on the other hand, has found space solar power too expensive. However that is rapidly changing.
In August 2021 the Innovation Frontier Project, part of the Progressive Policy Institute put out its first pro-space solar power report. That project was Daniel Oberhaus’ Space Solar Power: An Extraterrestrial Energy Resource for the U.S. The Progressive Policy Institute report says: “space-based solar power (SSP) megaprojects” are “relatively low-cost, scalable, renewable, and always-on power sources.“ What’s more, says the report, SSP “has the potential to rapidly accelerate decarbonization on Earth.”
In other words, space solar power can help end man-made global warming.
Then in August 2021, the Beyond Earth Institute published “Catching the Sun: A National Strategy for Space Solar Power,” and a draft SSP Presidential Policy Directive. Says the executive summary: “Space Solar Power can fulfill the promise of clean, safe, renewable, affordable energy reliably delivered where and when it is needed.”
Topping that, In September of 2021, came The UK Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy saying that with space solar power, Britain can meet its net-zero climate change goals and provide up to 15% of UK electricity by 2042 [AG1].
Meanwhile economies of scale are lowering the cost of space solar power satellites, SpaceX’s Starlink satellite constellation manufacturing operation, according to space solar power expert and NASA veteran John Mankins, has reduced the cost of satellites by a factor of a hundred. The most advanced SSP satellite designs consist of perhaps a million modules of as few as 16 types so on average there might be 60,000 modules of the same type. These modules can be mass-produced [AG2]. Lowering costs dramatically.
And launch costs, which for decades have been about $20,000 per kilogram, are going down dramatically. Today the SpaceX Falcon Heavy has brought that $20,000 per kilogram down to $1,400. That’s better but not good enough. SpaceX is working on a monster launcher, the Starship, that is expected to drive costs down to mere hundreds of dollars per kilogram — two orders of magnitude less than in the shuttle era. This is a game changer.
But do we have the technology it takes to harvest solar power in space? Or is this mere science fiction?
Space solar power is within our grasp. Bloom points out that, “We’ve been using space solar power for 60 years. The first commercial satellite, Telstar, went up in 1962. It looked like a beach ball encrusted with medallions. Those medallions were photovoltaic panels that gathered energy from the sun and transmitted it via electromagnetic waves to earth.” In other words, we’ve been using space solar power for more than half a century. And it’s the backbone of a $400 billion dollar satellite communications industry.
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