At a press conference this morning at the National Press club in Washington, the Space Solar Alliance for Future Energy (SSAFE) announced a milestone demonstration of the critical technology enabling SBSP: long-distance, solar-powered wireless power transmission. The demonstration project, led by NASA veteran John C. Mankins, demonstrated microwave power transmission between two Hawaiian islands 148 kilometers apart, more than the distance from the surface of Earth to the boundary of space. Although SBSP satellites would ultimately operate at much higher altitudes in the geosynchronous orbit (35,786 km AMSL), Mankins has successfully demonstrated the feasibility of long-distance energy transmission in principle.
Those of you who haven’t “cut the cord” to television (as I did about 5-6 years ago) may be interested to watch a special episode of Discovery Project Earth entitled “Orbital Powerplant) that will debut tonight at 10 pm with reruns on September 13 at 2am and noon.
This video provides more background on SBSP (until recently known as “Space Solar Power”):
http://www.youtube.com/v/YiU9MibyBJ0 My good friend Col. “Coyote” Smith has begun exploring some of the basic regulatory issues surrounding SBSP satellites, and the National Space Society has collected a wealth of materials on SBSP here. Those feeling particularly adventurous may way to check out the other space-related episode in the Discovery Project Earth series “Space Sunshield” (shown 1 hr before each of the timeslots mentioned above) about the idea developed by NASA Ames Research Center Director Pete Worden to address global climate change:
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