Lets start with the SPS first. It isn't 1 large solid block of warship like the SDF-1. After the SPS then we can start work on the SDF-1. It isn't that huge though, I think Russia's only Super Carrier is around the SDF-1's size.

Al, we could do it you know! All we need is some materials and a space shuttle!!! Hell, if we got some friends to help it would take no time at all!

Think about it; the ISS (international space station) will be the size of two football fields upon completion next year. Assembly of the station began in 1998. In other words, building an ISS takes 8 years. And you know how many people are in space at a time working on it? Two. Three if you're lucky.

Now imagine if you had 200 people in space on the job. Man, building the SDF-1 would be a piece of cake!!!

Oh and Eric the satelite will mostly be collapsible. It will mainly consist of long retractable girders and solar panels which fold out like sails. The largest solid part would be the transmitter but even this would be compact and pretty small. Probally as large as one of those space modules on Mir or the international space station. Just get everything into space and put it together. Once completed just let the sails expand and you are done. Basically instead of having 15 miles of solar panels on the ground it is 15 miles of solar panels in the sky. The girders can also be relativly thin thanks to the virtue of it being in space. No gravitational stress, even if there was it would be negligible. I think the hardest part is getting the money, technologically it is not really beyond our reach.

Calm down Tay! You can't save the world in 1 day. Maybe in 1000 days. Remeber what you said about starting small and building up to the master plan. Same deal. Call me if you need a mechanical engineer to help make your SPS.

That's exactly what I'm saying man. The project is perfectly feasible, almost everyone agrees with that; but all the same everyone just wants their quick-fix. We're living in a quick-fix world and that's a BIG problem. From the 30s right through to the early 80s, people were interested in these sorts of things. If nobody gave a shit about going to the moon back then, we wouldn't have had a space race to begin with. But starting in the mid-80s and right up until now we've seen a generation that is entirely apathetic to almost anything except quick and easy personal gain, and that's a really poisonous mindframe to be in. If this kind of thinking doesn't let up, we will really be fucked.

I've just been really concerned about this lately. Maybe it's all the sci-fi I'm reading, but that doesn't make it any less of a reality; it just makes it more tangible to me.

I'm not being pessimistic about it either. I've always been an optimist. One way or another I think the human race will do alright. But at the same time, I don't let optimism cloud my vision. It's just become very immediately obvious to me that if we don't start changing our mindsets now, then things will get very, VERY bad and will stay that way for a long time until people decide to get off their asses and make it better again. And I'd rather that we just skipped that whole really bad part and got straight to the making it better part. This isn't anything new; we all know it. But that knowledge doesn't seem to make us any less apathetic, and that's the whole tragedy of the situation.

Hey Guys,

So, I'm not sure what sort of Birthday shenanigans will be going with other people, but it would be awesome if you guys wanted to come out Friday night. I'm teaming up with Scotty, and we want to have people come to Scholars Pub around 9:00pm, and we'll probably stay there and just hang out all night. With the new smoking bylaws, it should be a great time because you wont smell like smoke when you come home.

So yeah, easy, breezy, japanesey, hope to you guys on Friday.

Oh, and is there anything going on Saturday like Tony was saying? If so, I'll probably come out then as well.

the middle one.

Studies done in the early 1970s envisioned structures of up to 15 miles long, larger than Manhattan Island, designed to send ten gigawatts of electrical power to Earth. Ten gigawatts would provide all the electrical power needed by the state of Connecticut or New York City.

While the idea of building such a huge structure in space might sound farfetched, there are no fundamental technical reasons why an SPS couldn't be built. The necessary contributing technologies are all well known. There are no "showstoppers," although the program would represent a mammoth development effort, comparable to the Apollo lunar-landing project of the 1960s.

yo Tay, i dunno about you but 15 miles seems pretty friggin' big. i don't know if that estimate is considerably smaller now, but even if it's 5 miles long, that's still pretty big (hell the SDF 1 was like 2 miles long and it destroyed a Zentradi armada) like what's the biggest thing we have orbiting in space right now? the author of the article premised the idea of constructing this satellite on the sucesses of the MIR. i guess that's all well and good, but construction of the MIR and the Space Station took a pretty long time - time that no one seems interested in investing in. i think people are much more interested in faster returns. that will most likely mean grownlevel technologies. and more over, getting Saudi Oil.

"dood, don't worry about it!"

UNFLAPPABLE

yes, it would be an asynchronous orbit that would leave it in direct sunlight 99% of the time.

You guys should've read that article I posted; it answers all of your questions.

Mainly, the funding question; Ben Bova suggests that funding for an SPS system could be accomplished not through the use of federal grants, but rather federal loans . This is how the hoover dam was funded, and it paid itself off entirely by selling the power it generated in 50 years. Furthermore, the operating cost of a dam as massive as that is quite high whereas once an SPS is built, maintenance is minimal in comparison. A single SPS could potentially power all of New York City... something as capable as that probably wouldn't take very long to pay for itself.

As for the accidental straying of laser beams and microwaves... the lasers and microwaves in question would be so diffuse that even if this happened, they would be harmless. Birds and planes would be able to fly right through the microwaves without harm. Cattle and crops can even be safely placed under the microwave recievers.