I think its better to build solar reflectors - artificial
extremely lightweight thin skinned moons in low earth orbit. When one
wants shade one can turn them to reflect light back into space .

I think its better to build solar reflectors - artificial
extremely lightweight thin skinned moons in low earth orbit. When one
wants shade one can turn them to reflect light back into space .

excerpt
http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/metro/stories/MYSA052306.1B.lunar.power.12150b33.html

Solar energy harvested on the moon would be sent back to Earth

Web Posted: 05/23/2006 12:00 AM CDT
Cindy Tumiel
San Antonio Express-News

As the price of oil hovers at $70 a barrel, a Texas scientist claims
to have a surefire way to deflate the escalating cost of energy and
ease the political vise-grip that oil-producing nations hold on the
rest of the world.

I think its better to build solar reflectors - artificial
extremely lightweight thin skinned moons in low earth orbit. When one
wants shade one can turn them to reflect light back into space .

excerpt
http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/metro/stories/MYSA052306.1B.lunar.power.12150b33.html

Solar energy harvested on the moon would be sent back to Earth

Web Posted: 05/23/2006 12:00 AM CDT
Cindy Tumiel
San Antonio Express-News

As the price of oil hovers at $70 a barrel, a Texas scientist claims
to have a surefire way to deflate the escalating cost of energy and
ease the political vise-grip that oil-producing nations hold on the
rest of the world.


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David Criswell, a professor at the University of Houston, says there
is a source of power out there bountiful enough to light every
household on Earth for the next 4 billion years, end worries about
greenhouse gas emissions and set OPEC on its ear.

There is a catch, though. You have to fly to the moon to get it.

Energy from the sun is 30 percent stronger on the moon because it has
no atmosphere to shield it or kick up weather events that interfere
with the solar rays hitting it with full force.

So while some earthbound thinkers are trying to turn wind, corn,
household waste and cow dung into consumable energy, a small group of
far-reaching physicists and engineers has already spent years testing
the theories and working on the practicalities of tapping into solar
power that abounds in outer space.

Some say the moon is the perfect place to set up shop, but others
think humans don't need to go nearly that far. Their idea is to float
satellites full of solar collectors in an orbit where the devices
would face the sun 24 hours a day, capture the energy and transmit it
back to Earth.

Criswell's vision calls for establishing lunar mining camps populated
with human prospectors who would work six-month shifts building and
operating the gear that harvests solar power and sends it streaming
240,000 miles back to Earth.

They would fly to the moon with the equipment they need and use raw
materials already on the moon to build thin sheets of silicon-based
solar collectors and microwave converters. Receivers on Earth would
catch the microwaves, turn them into electricity and feed the energy
into the global power grid.

Harvesting a small part of the solar energy that strikes the moon
would solve environmental problems caused by coal-burning power plants
and provide enough power to bring a reasonable level of prosperity to
10 billion people, the projected population of Earth in 2050, Criswell
said.

"You get rid of having to search for the fuel, you get rid of the ash,
you don't have to buy the land or build the power station, and you
don't have to maintain it, at least for another 4 billion years,"
Criswell said.

Not everyone has embraced his ideas, though; he meets skeptics as he
travels to alternative energy conferences and professional meetings
with his slide presentations and published studies.

"I think they are scared of it," said Criswell, a former NASA engineer
who helped examine moon rocks brought back to Earth by Apollo
astronauts. "I think it is too far out there for some people."

But the Houston scientist is hardly out there alone.

Neville Marzwell of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory envisions the day
when motorists will have their own saucer-sized receivers on the top
of their electric-powered cars, drawing fuel directly from an orbiting
solar satellite as they drive along the freeway.

Las Vegas may have its own dedicated solar cells in outer space,
beaming down power to light up the millions of flashing bulbs outside
the casinos and wedding chapels.

Marzwell worked on one of the earliest studies in 1979 that examined
the idea and concluded that it was safe and technologically feasible.
The only thing in the way was money.

"Congress asked, 'What is the cost?' and the cost was out of this
world," said Marzwell, now manager of advanced concepts and technology
innovations at JPL. "And at that time, oil was $12 a barrel, so it was
just insane to do it."

Money is still an issue, Marzwell said. But as fuel prices rise and
political woes ripple through oil-producing nations, business
executives in countries that rely on imported oil are dusting off
these old studies and using the Internet to find Marzwell's phone
number.

"I am being flooded with phone calls from companies, begging, 'We can
make a lot of money now. Why don't we revive this project?'" he said.
"Calls are coming from China, India and Chile."

Still, big ideas come with a big price tag.

"This is something that has been studied for 40 years, and the only
reason it hasn't happened yet is money," said Gregg Maryniak, a space
scientist who has spent much of his career advising companies about
commercial applications of space.

"Do you know what it costs to put something into orbit around the
Earth? It costs $10,000 a pound," said Maryniak, now director of the
McDonnell Planetarium in St. Louis.

"If people are unwilling to pay for clean power, it won't happen for a
while because it will take awhile before this gets competitively
cheap, compared to fossil fuel," he said. "We have lots of coal, but
if we use it, we die."

Criswell estimated that it would take a $500 billion investment over a
decade or more to get a moon-based operation going. But that is a
fraction of what it will cost to build and fuel enough coal- or
gas-fired power plants to support the burgeoning world population 50
years down the road.

Marzwell's plan is to start small, with one solar satellite serving
selected targets on Earth.

I think its better to build solar reflectors - artificial
extremely lightweight thin skinned moons in low earth orbit. When one
wants shade one can turn them to reflect light back into space .

excerpt
http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/metro/stories/MYSA052306.1B.lunar.power.12150b33.html

Solar energy harvested on the moon would be sent back to Earth

Web Posted: 05/23/2006 12:00 AM CDT
Cindy Tumiel
San Antonio Express-News

As the price of oil hovers at $70 a barrel, a Texas scientist claims
to have a surefire way to deflate the escalating cost of energy and
ease the political vise-grip that oil-producing nations hold on the
rest of the world. <

Solar energy harvested on the moon would be sent back to Earth