Energy%20Security

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Designing a Sustainable Energy Transformation

Alternative Energy NOW Conference January 23,
2009 Lake Buena Vista, Florida
Darel Preble chair, Space Solar Power
Workshop www.sspi.gatech.edu
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• Peaking Fossil Fuels
• Robert Hirsch finds the most current and
  authoritative researches predict peak global oil
  production will occur between 2008 and 2018,
  Robelius dissertation.
• "The Oil Crunch" report commissioned by 8
  private UK companies projects a global oil peak
  production around 2012. - www.guardian.co.uk/env
  ironment/2008/oct/29/fossil-fuels-oil
  www.peakoil.net/GiantOilFields.html
• www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/03/0
  70330100802.htm

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Peaking Fossil Fuels (2)
Latest IEA World Energy Outlook has updated this
global petroleum decline rate from 3.7 to 6.7
! http//www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/dec/15/
oil-peak-energy-iea
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• Americas energy security and global
  environment are at risk.
• The U.S. is doing NOTHING on the massive energy
  scale required.    

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• Soaring oil prices exposed unwise credit and
  energy policies, and triggering global recession.
  As oil prices peaked, the SP/Case-Shiller
  home-price index declined 25 from its summer
  2006 peak to Oct 2008 and shows no sign of
  bottom.

Financial Forecast for 2009 by Gail Tverberg
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• Peaking Coal
• The most current and authoritative research
  predicts peak global coal production by 2025. -
  "Peak coal by 2025 say researchers", initiated by
  a German member of Parliament. Authors Dr.
  Werner Zittel and Jörg Schindler
• www.energywatchgroup.org/files/Coalreport.pd
  f and www.energybulletin.net/28287.html

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• Oil Prices are tied to many materials
• April 9, 2008 - Japan's three biggest steel
  makers -- Nippon Steel, JFE Holdings's JFE Steel
  and Sumitomo Metal Industries -- all accepted
  Australian miner BHP Billiton Ltd.'s offer to
  supply coking coal at 300 per ton for fiscal
  2008, up from 98 last year.
• Chubu Electric Power agreed to pay Swiss
  mining firm Xstrata 125 per metric ton of
  Australian thermal coal this fiscal year, more
  than double the 55 per ton paid last year.
  Earlier this year a 65 increase in iron-ore
  prices was absorbed. - http//online.wsj.com/artic
  le/SB120773119565901329.html

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The Natural Gas Peaking Disaster

• The U.S. has the highest natural gas prices in
  the world.
• Why?

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High natural gas prices are a particular
hardship for the U.S. chemical industry, the
nations largest industrial consumer of natural
gas. U.S. natural gas prices are the highest in
the world. We have lost more than 50 billion in
business to overseas competition. More than
90,000 good-paying jobs in our industry have
disappeared, as well as collateral jobs in
associated businesses. Unless immediate action
is taken, the continued viability of a great
American industry is in jeopardy.

• - Tom Reilly, President, American Chemistry
  Council, letter to President Bush November 19,
  2004 http//accnewsmedia.com/docs/2100/2073.pdf

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USGS assessment of Mexicos oil gas reserves
(billion barrels oil equivalent) (EIA estimates)
1998 2003
Oil 49 12
Natural Gas 35 6
Total 84 18

• Source "A Case Study on Peak Energy - The U. Ss
  Natural Gas Disaster http//www.simmonsco-intl.c
  om/files/ASPO2004.pdf

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• The supply gap for the US natural gas market
  alone could reach 10 Trillion Cubic feet/year by
  20201. (In Btu equivalent terms, this is
  nearly twice the amount of oil the U.S. currently
  imports from the Middle East.) Globally the oil
  supply gap of 2020 has been projected to be 15
  million barrels per day2. On the massive
  TeraWatt scale required, only SSP can provide the
  clean reliable baseload energy the world
  requires. No other alternative energy technology
  succeeds
• 1 Playing with Fire - Part II,
  http//www.energypulse.net/centers/article/article
  _display.cfm?a_id1397
• 2 Is There A Painless Way To Fill The Oil
  Supply Gap?, by Dr Michael R. Smith,
  http//www.energyfiles.com/oilsupplygap.html

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• David Rutledge, chair of Caltechs Division
  of Engineering and Applied Science, applied
  Hubberts projection techniques to combined
  fossil fuel reserve equivalents.
• Rutledges projection is for peak world oil,
  gas, and coal production by 2019!!
• - Hubbert's Peak, The Coal Question, and
  Climate Change, by David Rutledge, chair of
  Caltechs Division of Engineering and Applied
  Science.  Slides, workbook and video are all at
   http//rutledge.caltech.edu/
• As EIA forecasts to 2030 shows, we continue
  doing NOTHING on the scale required!  

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Coal Exports SoaringIn 2007, the U. S. exported
almost 60 million tons of coal. In the first nine
months of 2008 coal producers exported more coal
than all of 2007, Estimates for 2009 are 100
million tons. With dollar devaluation, the
"United States is on sale right now," said James
River CEO Peter Socha.- Energy Risk - New Coal
Economics, By Lee Buchsbaum, December 29, 2008,
 http//www.riskcenter.com/story.php?id17592
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US Energy Companies Declining in Global Clout and
Production Control

• Gazprom working on Gas Monopoly
• April 9, 2008 - While Russia's Gazprom regularly
  disrupts gas supplies to its neighbors, it is
  working hard to partner with gas suppliers in
  Libya, Algeria, Egypt and Nigeria the top four
  gas producing countries in Africa.
• It is clearly motivated by the desire to acquire
  a monopoly or near-monopoly of gas supplies to
  Western Europe and perhaps the US.
• -The de-flattening of the world, By Martin
  Hutchinson,
• http//www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/JD09D
  j02.html
• http//www.sundayobserver.lk/2008/03/30/wld02
  .asp
• http//www.zawya.com/marketing.cfm?zpp/Story.cf
  m/sid20080403_25798_258?cc

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• Climate change
• 'We have only four years left to act on climate
  change
• America must lead.
• "cap-and-trade" must be scrapped - just "weak
  tea" - doesnt work. James Hansen, January 18,
  2009
• http//www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/jan/18/
  obama-climate-change

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But what are our power alternatives?
  Clean? Safe? Reliable? Reliable? Baseload?
Fossil Fuel No Yes Imminent Peaks Imminent Peaks Yes
Nuclear No Yes Costs, Fuel, Politics Costs, Fuel, Politics Yes
Wind Power Yes Yes No, intermittent No, intermittent No
Geothermal Yes Yes No, Limited availability No, Limited availability Yes
Ground Solar Yes Yes No, intermittent No, intermittent No
Hydro Yes Yes No drought complex scheduling No drought complex scheduling No drought complex scheduling
Bio-fuels Yes Yes Very limited quantities competes with food production. Poor EROEI Very limited quantities competes with food production. Poor EROEI Very limited quantities competes with food production. Poor EROEI
SSP Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
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Conservation nice, but not enough

• Carpooling
• New LED and compact fluorescent lighting
• Energy efficient appliances
• Cooking with Microwave ovens, inductive heating,
  etc., over conventional ovens
• Adding insulation to walls and ceiling, Double
  glaze windows Bermed houses
• Decoupled energy rate structures
• Jevons paradox

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Electrifying our transportation
systemHybrid/electric cars trucksLight rail
subwaysElectric trains - with Super batteries
e.g. Cuis nanowire batterySuper capacitors
e.g. EEstor
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Most states, led by Californias aggressive and
failing Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS), have
legislated a renewable energy transformation.
Californias RPS was initiated in 2002. Their
goal is 20 RPS by 2010.
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Loss of wind causes Texas power grid emergency
Reuters - Feb 27, 2008 - A drop in wind
generation triggered an electric emergency that
caused the Texas grid operator to cut service to
some large customers, Electric Reliability
Council of Texas (ERCOT) said. The grid operator
went directly to the second stage of an emergency
plan at 641 PM CST. ERCOT said the grid's
frequency dropped suddenly when wind production
fell from more than 1,700 megawatts, before the
event, to 300 MW when the emergency was
declared.http//www.reuters.com/article/domesticN
ews/idUSN2749522920080228?feedTypeRSSrpc22
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Solar panels a 'loser,' professor says
Installing them amounts to 'THROWING MONEY AWAY'
Feb. 21, 2008 - Installing solar panels on
homes is an economic "loser" with the costs far
outweighing the financial benefit, said a
respected University of California-Berkeley
business professor. Using photovoltaic panels to
generate electricity is not competitive with
fossil fuels and costs more than other renewable
fuels, said Severin Borenstein, who also directs
the UC Energy Institute. A typical PV system
costs between 86,000 and 91,000 to install,
while the value of its power over its lifetime
ranges from 19,000 to 51,000. Even using
favorable criteria, the cost would still be 80
percent more than the value of the electricity
produced. http//www.bizjournals.com/eastbay/stor
ies/2008/02/18/daily43.html
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• "We are in the beginning stages of major changes
  to agricultural markets caused by rapidly
  expanding production of bio-fuels.
• Credit Suisse Group, in Corn Is Booming as
  Ethanol Heats Up, http//online.wsj.com/article/S
  B116260858542413472.html
• To reach Bushs 20 percent ethanol goal, corn
  production must grow to 167 percent of its 2005
  levels, and every kernel must go into ethanol.
   Corn is the major feed/ingredient for chickens,
  pigs, cattle milk, cheese, eggs, hamburger,
  Coke, Pepsi, Jack Daniels, etc., ...
• (By weight, a McDonalds hamburger is 52
  corn.)

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BioFuels
For biodiesel production, you want a high lipid
fraction. All evidence to date shows that the
high lipid contents desired, can only be achieved
in physiological stress, notably nitrogen
starvation. GreenFuel uses flue gases - which
are rich in CO2. Nitrogen starvation is, however,
out of the question, since flue gases are also
rich in NOx. Krasnov has shown that GreenFuels
method will not be economically feasible.
Fundamental thermodynamic constraints make it
impossible for the approach to be commercially
viable for fuel prices below 800/bbl, even with
flawless technological implementation. -
GreenFuel Technologies A Case Study for
Industrial Photosynthetic Energy Capture
http//www.nanostring.net/Algae/CaseStudy.pdf
In May 2008, GreenFuel Technologies closed a
13.9M venture capital round led by Access
Private Equity, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, and
Polaris Venture Partners.
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GreenFuel
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Biofuels (2)

• Global yields of most biofuels crops have
  been overestimated by 100 to 150 percent or more.
  Many countries need to reset their expectations
  of agricultural biofuels to a more realistic
  level.
• - Resetting global expectations from
  agricultural biofuels - Matt Johnston et al 2009
  Environ. Res. Lett. 4 014004 (9pp)   doi
  10.1088/1748-9326/4/1/014004 and
  http//www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/01/09011
  4124115.htm

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Biofuels (3)

• The four best (kg/hectare) biodiesel crops only
  grow in the tropics. If all the world's
  vegetable oil were converted to biodiesel, it
  would provide about 8 of world consumption of
  diesel. Some countries have targets of 10
  biodiesel, thus the reason why some groups are
  convinced these targets will lead to starvation.
• - The Myth of Biofuels by David
  Fridley of Lawrence Berkeley Labs, June 2007.
  http//www.odac-info.org/bulletin/bulletin.htmmyt
  h_of_biofuels

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Biofuels (4)

• We think that the market share of bio-fuels
  in 2030 will only be 7 of global fuel
  production. To reach 7 , one will need an
  agricultural area equal to Australia, plus Korea,
  Japan and New Zealand.
• - International Energy Agency chief economist
  www.energybulletin.net/32242.html

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Advantages of Space Solar Power

• Peaking units, like windmills or ground solar
  are intermittent, providing power for 25-30 of a
  day on average. SSP is baseload available 99
  of the year from GeoSynchronous Orbit. Baseload
  nuclear or coal plants, are actually available
  only 90 of the year. It ignores clouds, night,
  wind and dirt.
• SPS requires no fuel zero pollution and has
  no operations personnel it is an antenna with
  farms underneath. (rectenna is the proper term).
  SSP is the cleanest source of virtually unlimited
  baseload energy.

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Advantages of Space Solar Power

• SSP takes advantage of our historic investment in
  aerospace and other technical expertise to
  increase STEM jobs. SSP technology is
  near-term-available with multiple attractive
  approaches and would create millions of inspiring
  and important jobs.
• SSP would revitalize America by taking advantage
  of a multitude of space-development-related
  technologies that are vitally relevant to our
  current problems, including
• space transportation telerobotics
  communications
• wireless power transfer photovoltaics
  lunar settlement
• environmental science engineering
  energy competition

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Advantages of Space Solar Power

• Unlike oil, gas, ethanol, bio-fuel, and coal, SSP
  emits no CO2. It is an antenna (or rectenna)!
  Rising CO2 drives climate change, compounding our
  massive environmental problems
• Slowly declining global nutrition, since most
  plants, such as rice and wheat, are critically
  dependent on CO2 levels.
• Weather changes from drought to hurricanes that
  we are barely beginning to understand.

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Advantages of Space Solar Power

• Drought Competition for Water - Today's average
  coal-fired power plant withdraws 25,000 gallons
  of river water to provide an average household
  with 1,000 kilowatt-hours a month 31,000
  gallons if nuclear-fired. Natural gas plants use
  less water than coal. Output water must be
  carefully monitored, especially in summer, to
  avoid fish kills from dangerously higher water
  temperatures.  Newer "closed loop" power systems
  that rely on cooling towers use less water, but
  "consume" much more - over 70 percent of the
  water withdrawn.
• - "Energy Risk Sinking Water and
  Rising Tensions", December 7, 2007, by Ken
  Silverstein, EnergyBiz Insider, Editor-in-Chief,
  http//www.riskcenter.com/story.php?id15710

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Advantages of Space Solar Power

• SSP would reduce competition for other scarce
  resources besides water. The most advanced space
  photovoltaic material now generates 16.8 Kw/kg !
• Liquid fuels can be made from SSP power, such as
  anhydrous ammonia which can be moved through the
  same pipelines as gasoline. It is 111 octane. We
  have been making liquid ammonia for 50 years for
  farming. It also fueled the X-15 rocket plane!

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• Advantages of Space Solar Power
• Valuable farm land, forest and wetlands is not
  wasted. Ground solar takes 100 times as much land
  usage to provide the same power as baseload SSP!!
  

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Advantages of Space Solar Power

1. Unlike bio-ethanol or bio-diesel, SSP does not
   compete for increasingly valuable
   natural-gas-derived fertilizer. Corn can continue
   to be a major export instead of a fuel to burn,
   while raising the prices of other foods from milk
   and eggs to cheese, hamburgers and Jack Daniels.
2. Unlike nuclear power plants, SSP will not produce
   hazardous waste, invite nuclear weapons
   proliferate, or provide targets for terrorists.

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Advantages of Space Solar Power

1. Unlike coal and nuclear fuels, SSP does not
   require environmentally problematic mining
   operations.
2. SSP can provide true energy independence for the
   nations that develop it, eliminating a major
   source of national competition for limited
   Earth-based energy resources and dependence on
   unstable or hostile foreign oil providers.

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Advantages of Space Solar Power

• SSP can be easily exported anywhere in the
  world. Contracting local utilities can provide
  its energy to local needs from household
  appliances in rural India to desalination of sea
  water in Australia.
• Only local utilities can provide the massive
  customer load SSP naturally delivers with
  currently available technology. They would build
  and own the rectenna, which would be part of
  their transmission grid, partners with Sunsat
  Corp.

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Advantages of Space Solar Power

• Only SSP can provide a market large enough to
  develop the low-cost space transportation system
  required to enable an SSP business case. This
  low-cost space transport will open the solar
  system to Earths economic reach and even
  settlement, but only Sunsat Corp. can and must
  incentivize the low cost orbital space
  transportation market it requires to close its
  business case.

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Advantages of Space Solar Power

• Sunsat Corp should have no financial stake in
  lunar settlement, but may enable it by being a
  major customer for products manufactured on the
  Moon. It is twenty times more energy efficient to
  bring products from the Moon than Earth. Asteroid
  miners are already building business cases for
  cis-lunar mining based on lower launch costs.
• Asteroid protection becomes more vital to not
  only protect Earth, but also a large assortment
  of huge satellites. For more information see
  http//www.b612foundation.org

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Advantages of Space Solar Power

• Eventually Sunsat Corp could provide much of its
  own fuel, through electromagnetic launch which
  even now could be developed as a first stage. See
  www.ga.com/atg/EMS/emals.php

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So How do we build SSP? No company(s) or
agency(s), however, is prepared to assume the
immense financial risk of initiating construction
of an SSPS. There are simply too many
engineering, financial, regulatory and managerial
risks for any group we have been able to identify
to undertake SSP today. But this road has been
well traveled by America before ...
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There is a tried and true vehicle, that could
initiate SSP construction today. A private
Congressionally chartered corporation has all
the requisite advantages. Comsat Corp.,
chartered in 1962, opened space for communication
satellites - when we knew little about space,
rockets or space communications. Communications
satellites are now a 100 Billion industry per
year. The Sunsat Act would accomplish the same
task, creating a space solar power industry of
much greater size.
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Trans-Continental Railroad Cape Horn at The
Head of The Great American Canon, - Frank
Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, April 27, 1878
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Congress chartered Comsat Corp.in 1962 to build
communications satellites. Comsat Corp. opened
space to the diverse 100 Billion per year
communications satellite business of today.
Congress should charter a new corporation, Sunsat
Corp. to build power satellites. Draft
legislation for Sunsat, very much like Comsat,
would have all the requisite advantages. We
recommend that congress charter Sunsat Corp.
The electric power industry is the most capital
intensive business in the world. This is why
utilities are generally regulated monopolies
because ownership of major power plants is really
a public trust. Sunsat also needs to be organized
the same way.
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• This legislation would provide a launch
  subsidy to new private or public/ private
  businesses, such as SunSat Corp, which are
  contracting for space transportation. This
  subsidy would be in the form of stock transfers
  and loan guarantees.
• Sunsat Corp. is aiming for 42,000 flights per
  year, nominally. Prices would quickly fall below
  current levels once subsidies established such a
  market volume.

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The Path of Space Solar Power

• If we move soon, we can alleviate much of the
  disastrous impact that other attempts to
  substitute for SSP will have, such as raising the
  cost of food and starving millions worldwide.
  Many economical alternatives can contribute -
  beginning with electrifying our transportation
  systems, such as hybrid-electric cars, as Japan
  and France are doing . The technologies and
  infrastructure required to make SSP feasible
  include
• Low-cost, environmentally-friendly launch
  vehicles. Current launch vehicles are too
  expensive, and at high launch rates may pose
  atmospheric pollution problems of their own. Only
  SSP enables and requires these.

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The Path of Space Solar Power - 2

• Large scale in-orbit construction and operations.
  The physics requires that solar power satellites
  must be huge, gathering massive utility-scale
  quantities of energy.
• World photovoltaic (PV) production would be
  greatly expanded into space, where it began in
  1958 with our Vanguard I spacecraft. Currently
  just 0.03 of worldwide electricity is generated
  from photovoltaic power. 2006 world PV production
  was 2.1 GW
• All other necessary technologies are similarly
  reasonably near-term and have multiple attractive
  approaches. However, much work (STEM jobs) that
  we understand well is needed to bring them to
  practical fruition

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• SSP would revitalize America by showing that
  a multitude of space-development-related-education
  al-fields, from telerobotics to wireless power
  transfer and environmental sciences, are vitally
  relevant to these great problems.
• Reduced launch costs, the key enabler, will
  provide unprecedented access to space and space
  operations beginning with clean, baseload,
  sustainable SSP - reliable power delivery and
  global energy security at greatly reduced
  environmental impact. Only SSP can support this
  vastly expanded space launch market.
• Choosing to charter an SSP corporation would
  be a small step for man, a giant leap for
  mankind.

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COTS Program

• NASA plans to retire the shuttle by 2010
  and has selected two companies to supply
  commercial cargo resupply services to the
  International Space Station
• - eight flights valued at about 1.9 billion
  from Orbital Sciences and 12 flights valued at
  about 1.6 billion from SpaceX

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Prices drop as flight rate increases Red dots are
Elon Musk, SpaceX, 1300/lb and Roger Angels
20/lb (Sandia electromagnetic launch)
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The FAAs 2007 Commercial Space Transportation
Forecast shows a declining launch market no
change is forecast in high launch costs
necessary for SSP. SSP must incentivize the
orbital market fleet it needs to close the
business case. SSP is the only market capable of
doing this. The FAA shows it wont happen with
business as usual assumptions, we need Sunsat
Act.
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• Continuing - since space transportation is
  expensive we want to find high performance
  photovoltaic cells to increase the power output
  for the same weight carried to orbit.
• Space qualified thin-film solar cells in the
  pipeline today can provide 4550 Watts/Kg. These
  are adequate specifications to begin SSP design
  and/or construction now.
• We anticipate tripling that performance within
  3-5 years, using current laboratory PV cells.

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Source Ken Zweibel, NREL
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Photo courtesy NASA, and ManTech-SRS Technologies
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SkyWorker an autonomous robot to build
multi-kilometer size space structures
Credit Red Whitaker, CMU Robotics,
http//www.frc.ri.cmu.edu/projects/skyworker/temp
/skyworker2.mpg
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ASTRO Captures NextSat On July 23, 2007, for the
first time ever, a satellite autonomously
rendezvoused with and captured another orbiting
satellite, pioneering future robotic work in
space . ASTRO (Autonomous Space Transport Robotic

• Operations), part of Boeings Orbital Express
  system, successfully demonstrated advanced
  on-orbit satellite refueling and reconfiguration
  capabilities with NextSat. ASTRO, the robotic,
  on-orbit spacecraft mechanic, successfully
  captured NextSat. Orbital Express is a DARPA
  program which has validated on-orbit satellite
  servicing technologies.

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Sunsat Act Draft legislation available at
www.sspi.gatech.edu/sunsat-how.pdf Learn more
at www.sspi.gatech.edu Email darel.preble_at_comcas
t.net And many other SSP resources such as
www.nss.org/settlement/ssp/sspvideo.htm
FOR MORE INFO...