Mark, what would you consider a sufficient
demonistrator project? Obviously a working 10 GW SPS in
geosyncronous orbit would qualify, but would a 1 KW model in
LEO? Admittedly, this small of a model wouldn't
provide much power, and it wouldn't be 24 x 7, but it
would demonstrate the technology. (Or would it? Could a
rectenna farm be constructed for a microwave beam that
weak?)

Bill,<br><br>: The only question remains how
would you have a<br>: contest like that if you can't
get the resources<br>: into space cheaply?<br><br>You
have pointed out the real contest objective. ;) The
idea is that the contest pays for results<br>on orbit.
It would be up to the contestants to<br>figure the
cheapest way to get their SPS<br>demonstator components
launched and assembled in<br>orbit. After all they would
not want to spend<br>unecessary resources on
transport because it comes<br>out of their budget, and
eventually profit. The<br>beauty of this prize paradigm is
that it forces<br>researchers to think like
businessman rather than<br>just like scientists with only
paper studies to<br>protect. No risk, no reward. No
demonstrators,<br>no SPS deployment.<br><br>Mark Reiff

Sorry! I hadn't noticed the date. At any rate, I
would agree with you. An SPS prize would be a useful
contest indeed. The only question remains how would you
have a contest like that if you can<br>t get the
resources into space cheaply?<br><br>It's getting me to
thinking though. You mentioned that Evergreen Solar was
going public soon. I wonder if it wouldn't be possible
to use a derivation of their technology to make
solar cells in orbit? If so, assembled panels wouldn't
need to be produced and shipped into space. Instead, a
solar powered silicon furnace could be sent into orbit
along with supplies. Supplies could be replenished by
Progress vehicles or somesuch. Cell efficiency wouldn't be
so important because the evergreen silicon ribbon
uses a fraction of the silicon that other cells use,
so the power/weight ratio wouldn't be all that
different.<br><br>Like I said, it gets one thinking.

Bill,<br><br>Note that Mankins' testimony is from
3 years ago.<br>From what I have heard and what is
in his<br>testimony it looks like they actually came
up with<br>some good SPS ideas that are at least
feasible in<br>the near term. I still think that much
better<br>could be done if an SPS Demonstrator Prize
were<br>established to bring out the engineering and<br>business
creativity of the commercial sector.<br>What could it hurt
to have a dozen different SPS<br>demonstrator
satellites flying, competing for<br>efficiency and maximum
power load capacity. The<br>winner gets a contract to
build a full up SPS, and<br>the others get to recoup
most of their investment<br>by selling their power to
the US power grid.<br><br>Mark Reiff

Mark, what do you make of it?  I am prone to be a bit suspicious of Mr. Mankins'
intentions, just because of his employer.

FYI,<br><br>"Congress Gets an Update on Solar
Power<br>Satellites"<br>SpaceRef<br><a
href=http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewnews.html?id=210
target=new>http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewnews.html?id=210</a><br><br>: The
House Science Committee's Subcommittee
on<br>: Space and Aeronautics held hearings today on
the<br>: Solar Power Satellite (SPS) concept
today.<br><br>: Space and Aeronautics Committee chair Rep.<br>:
Rohrabacher said that further technology<br>: development is
necessary before an economically<br>: viable SPS program
can be contemplated. He felt<br>: that this can
happen and said that a greater<br>: push for these
efforts is needed.<br><br>: Rohrabacher added that "the
economics of SPS<br>: will likely rely upon the development
of cheap<br>: access to space" another reason he
supports SPS<br>: research He added that it may be
possible to use<br>: existing launch systems to do basic
technology<br>: demonstrations in space.<br><br>: In citing the
need for new energy sources,<br>: Rohrabacher said
that oil prices are at one of<br>: the highest points
ever and that they are<br>: reaching new heights.
Rohrabacher said "this<br>: should be a signal to us to be
looking for new<br>: sources of energy..."<br><br>: Ralph
Nansen added that we have enough<br>: technology today
to start serious work on SPS<br>: systems. "We don't
need any breakthroughs. We<br>: need to apply what we
already have here on the<br>: ground."<br><br>Mark Reiff

FYI,<br><br>"Congress Gets an Update on Solar
Power<br>Satellites"<br>SpaceRef<br><a
href=http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewnews.html?id=210
target=new>http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewnews.html?id=210</a><br><br>: The
House Science Committee's Subcommittee
on<br>: Space and Aeronautics held hearings today on
the<br>: Solar Power Satellite (SPS) concept
today.<br><br>: Space and Aeronautics Committee chair Rep.<br>:
Rohrabacher said that further technology<br>: development is
necessary before an economically<br>: viable SPS program
can be contemplated. He felt<br>: that this can
happen and said that a greater<br>: push for these
efforts is needed.<br><br>: Rohrabacher added that "the
economics of SPS<br>: will likely rely upon the development
of cheap<br>: access to space" another reason he
supports SPS<br>: research He added that it may be
possible to use<br>: existing launch systems to do basic
technology<br>: demonstrations in space.<br><br>: In citing the
need for new energy sources,<br>: Rohrabacher said
that oil prices are at one of<br>: the highest points
ever and that they are<br>: reaching new heights.
Rohrabacher said "this<br>: should be a signal to us to be
looking for new<br>: sources of energy..."<br><br>: Ralph
Nansen added that we have enough<br>: technology today
to start serious work on SPS<br>: systems. "We don't
need any breakthroughs. We<br>: need to apply what we
already have here on the<br>: ground."<br><br>Mark Reiff

FYI,<br><br>"Congressional Hearings on 'The
Technical<br>Feasibility of Space Solar
Power'"<br>SpaceRef<br><a
href=http://www.spaceref.com/calendar/calendar.html?pid=591
target=new>http://www.spaceref.com/calendar/calendar.html?pid=591</a><br><br>:
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 7, 2000<br>: HEARING -
SUBCOMMITTEE ON SPACE AND AERONAUTICS<br>: The Technical
Feasibility of Space Solar Power<br><br>: WHEN: 2:00 PM -
4:00 PM<br><br>: WHERE: 2318 Rayburn House Office
Building<br><br>: WITNESSES: <br><br>: - Dr. John Mankins, Manager
of Advanced Concepts<br>: Studies, Office of Space
Flight, National<br>: Aeronautics and Space
Administration <br>: - Mr. Ralph Nansen, President, Solar
Space<br>: Industries, Inc. <br>: - Mr. John Fini, Senior
Associate, Strategic<br>: Insight, Ltd. <br>: - Dr. Jerry
Grey, American Institute of<br>: Aeronautics &
Astronautics <br><br>: Location: <br>: 2318 Rayburn House
Office Building,<br>: Washington, DC, US<br><br>Mark
Reiff

WOW! The TAMU link did the trick. I had no idea
that 54% DC to DC efficiency was achievable. Given a
solar to DC conversion efficiency of about 25%, which
is not too out of line, then a 86 m by 86 m sqare
would produce about a megawatt of DC power on the
ground. Not too shabby, I would say.

Bill,<br><br>I suggest that you take a tour of
the web sites<br>found in the Links section,
especially these<br>sites:<br><br>- Texas A&M University
Center for Wireless Power Transmission<br><br>- SUNSAT
Energy Council<br><br>- Space Studies Institute<br><br>-
Space Future<br><br>I would contact them regarding
references to such<br>studies. Also the Japanese have done
some work in<br>this area.<br><br>Mark Reiff

I know you get about 1+ kw of solar energy/sq.
meter here on earth. I assume in orbit it would be a
bit more. If the solar cells were about 25%
efficient, then a solar panel 2km on a side would generate
about 1 Gw of power. I haven't figured out losses
converting the solar power into microwaves, but if 'really
big' magnetrons were used, the efficiencies wouldn't
be too bad, I would think.<br><br>P.S. I would
really like to see some good data regarding the entire
SPS power
conversion/transmission/reception/reconversion cycle as regards to efficiency.
Any ideas where
this info can be acquired?

FYI,<br><br>"The Weather Man<br>- Choke a tornado
by blasting it with microwaves? Robert Matthews
meets a physicist who's brave<br>enough to try"<br>New
Scientist<br><a href=http://www.newscientist.com/features/features_225113.html
target=new>http://www.newscientist.com/features/features_225113.html</a><br><br>\
: But physicist Ben Eastlund isn't hoping for
a<br>: distinguished career--he's got one already.
As<br>: an expert on electromagnetism, he headed nuclear
<br>:fusion research for the US Atomic Energy<br>: Commission
during the early 1970s, acted as a<br>: consultant to
many multinational companies, and<br>: made a personal
fortune from a plasma processing<br>: technique widely
used in industry. He now runs<br>: his own physics
consultancy in San Diego,<br>: California, and in his spare
time publishes<br>: cutting-edge research in top
astrophysics<br>: journals. Oh, and he also studies weather<br>:
modification.<br><br>: But killer twisters may have met their match
in<br>: Eastlund. And it's a bit of a grudge match:
his<br>: own home in Houston, Texas, has been hit
twice<br>: by tornadoes. That made him eager to find
out<br>: more about these meteorological monsters, and
to<br>: come up with some way of taming them. His<br>:
answer? Blast them with powerful beams of<br>: microwave
radiation, generated by huge solar-<br>: powered satellite
arrays orbiting the Earth. <br><br>: Langmuir proposed
that only a small change in<br>: this energy cycle
might be enough to make the<br>: whole hurricane
unstable.<br><br>: He came to suspect that the cold, rainy<br>:
downdraft represents a crucial flow of energy,<br>: and if
he was right, it would turn out to be the<br>:
tornadoes' Achilles heel. Hit that downdraft<br>: with a
beam of microwaves, and the resulting<br>: heating
might cut off the energy flow that<br>: allows a
tornado to form.<br><br>: By doing it from space, says
Eastlund, with<br>: Solar Power Satellites.<br><br>: The
basic idea is that a network of satellites<br>:
equipped with vast solar panels, tens of<br>: kilometres
across, collect the Sun's light and<br>: convert it into
microwaves for beaming down to<br>: receiving stations on
Earth.<br><br>: According to his calculations, even an SPS
with<br>: relatively small solar panels--a few
kilometres<br>: across, say--could produce a billion watts
or<br>: so: easily enough to give a tornado a decent<br>:
whack.<br><br>I think he needs a new calculator. :)<br><br>:
Working with CAPS tornado modelling expert Ming<br>: Xue,
Eastlund modified the simulation to take<br>: account of
the heat generated by microwaves<br>: striking the
cold, rain-laden downdraft that<br>: lies at the heart
of tornado-spawning storms. <br><br>: The results
were extremely impressive: the<br>: simulation showed
that a blast of microwaves<br>: from an SPS might
indeed choke off tornado<br>: formation.<br><br>: Each
kilometre-sized SPS would then hit the<br>: downdraft with a
tightly focused beam of<br>: microwaves with a frequency
between 10 and 100<br>: gigahertz--a frequency range
absorbed by water<br>: vapour and raindrops--and pack a
punch of about<br>: a billion watts.<br><br>Mark Reiff

FYI,<br><br>"Beamed Energy Research Program for Propulsion and<br>Planetary
Defense"<br>MSFC<br><a href=http://techtran.msfc.nasa.gov/97R&T/pdf/70.pdf
target=new>http://techtran.msfc.nasa.gov/97R&T/pdf/70.pdf</a><br><br>Mark Reiff

Bill wrote:<br>: When I see press releases and
news reports like<br>: this, I often feel that I am
being pandered to,<br>: not informed, and not served by
my press or my<br>: government. I feel I am being
sold a "bill of<br>: goods" to support a federal
budget, that the<br>: real work of getting humanity into
space is just<br>: not happening (at least not by these
guys), and<br>: I guess I resent that.<br><br>As you
should. I agree completely. I posted this<br>article
because it was relivent to emerging space<br>technlogy
and I thought readers would be<br>interested. I
didn't have much time to come up<br>with some good
commentary, like you have<br>generously provided. This is
exactly the type of<br>discussion that I hoped to
generate in this forum.<br>Keep up the good work. I
encourage others to add<br>their 2 cents worth as
well.<br><br>Mark Reiff

I'll try to keep this rant short. <br><br>1.
Solar sails: We should have launched something with a
solar sail years ago. Mars Climate Orbiter crashed
indirectly because of it's asymetrical solar panel
arrangement, which torqued the spacecraft about as it was
flying to Mars due to solar wind/light pressure. Mass
wheels were used to cancel out this torque, but every 8
hours or so, the wheels had to be 'spun down', which
was accomplished by applying asymetrical thrust to
the craft while reducing the RPM of the wheels. This
asymetrical thrust was what caused the math error that caused
the spacecraft to be in the wrong place at the wrong
time, and the rest is history. If solar light/wind
pressure is that significant, then it should have been
exploited for missions years ago.<br><br>2. Lightcraft: As
much as I like the concept, I think the creator of
lightcraft is overly enamored with UFOs and is only partly
interested in providing the masses with a means of getting
into orbit. Why else include maglev loading ramps,
acceleration so extreme on liftoff that the ship instantly
'disappears' out of sight, and requires the crew be suspended
in gel to avoid getting squished. As far as people
moving is concerned, this looks like a pipe
dream.<br><br>3. I saw a presentation of Robert Forward's spinning
tether project at the Lunar Development Conference in
Las Vegas. Much more reusable and worthwhile than
spinning a two part spaceship up to speed and cutting the
string. In this part of the report, I found the tether
speculation much too short-sited.<br><br>4. The notes on the
VASMIR (??) heated plasma rocket program failed to
include the fact that the rocket needs a 31 megawatt
nuclear reactor to become useful in moving people from
earth to mars, etc. That seems to be a pretty big
omission to me.<br><br>The bottom line is this. When I see
press releases and news reports like this, I often feel
that I am being pandered to, not informed, and not
served by my press or my government. I feel I am being
sold a "bill of goods" to support a federal budget,
that the real work of getting humanity into space is
just not happening (at least not by these guys), and I
guess I resent that.<br><br>Best Regards,<br><br>Bill

FWIW,<br><br>"Dreams of Space Fueled by
Wind"<br>Florida Today/Gannett News
Service<br><a
href=http://www.flatoday.com/space/explore/stories/2000b/080900a.htm
target=new>http://www.flatoday.com/space/explore/stories/2000b/080900a.htm</a><b\
r><br>: Solar sails, beamed-energy ''lightcraft''
and<br>: tether-boosted slingshots represent
spacecraft<br>: ideas that are showing signs of someday<br>:
replacing rockets, the devices that have<br>: propelled
probes since the launch of Sputnik in<br>: 1957.
<br><br>: ''What's new about a lot of these ideas is
we're<br>: living off the land,'' says Les Johnson of<br>:
NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in<br>: Huntsville,
Ala.<br><br>Mark Reiff

FYI,<br><br>"N.M. May Get More
Power"<br>Albuquerque
Journal<br><a href=http://www.abqjournal.com:80/news/92305news08-02-00.htm
target=new>http://www.abqjournal.com:80/news/92305news08-02-00.htm</a><br><br>:
Utility giant Duke Energy is considering
Deming<br>: for a $250 million, natural-gas-fired
electric<br>: plant that would generate the equivalent of
half<br>: the power needed for the city of Albuquerque
on<br>: a peak day.<br><br>Anyone who has driven through
Deming knows that it<br>would be a perfect location for
a SPS rectenna<br>farm - a lot of nothing.
<br><br>: The 550-megawatt plant would sell electricity
to<br>: utilities and industries in the Southwest.
It<br>: would be the largest built in New Mexico
since<br>: the mid-1970s, when two units of Public
Service<br>: Company of New Mexico's San Juan plant came
on<br>: line. Houston, Texas-based Duke Energy North<br>:
America — a subsidiary of the Charlotte,<br>: N.C.-based
utility — is planning to build eight<br>: to 10
state-of-the-art, gas-fired power plants<br>: around the country,
and New Mexico is a strong<br>: candidate for one of
them, said Duke spokesman<br>: Richard
Fernandez.<br><br>Maybe someone should approach Duke Energy
about<br>trying an SPS demonstrator along with this build<br>out
of LPG power plants.<br><br>: The company, which has
notified the state Public<br>: Regulation Commission of
its proposal, will<br>: research the market here and
in other states<br>: before deciding which will be
home to the<br>: plants, Fernandez said.<br><br>Maybe
a SPS advocate in New Mexico should contact<br>the
N.M. PUC and suggest a linkage to a SPS
demo<br>project.<br><br>: The plant could go on line as soon as the
summer<br>: of 2002, he said. The ease with which a
plant<br>: can be built and Duke's success at getting<br>:
necessary state approvals will also play into<br>: the
decision, Fernandez said. "Right now, it's<br>: looking
good for New Mexico."<br><br>Well if a power plant can
be approved easily in<br>N.M. then a SPS rectenna
site should be a breeze.<br><br>: The $250 million
plant would be capable of<br>: producing more than
one-third of the power PNM<br>: generates on days when
demand is heavy.<br><br>Well there are the target
price/capacity numbers<br>that SPS would have to at least come
close to.<br><br>: With $29 billion in market
capitalization, Duke<br>: is the 10th-largest power supplier in
the world.<br><br>Mark Reiff

FYI,<br><br>"Solar power firm Evergreen Solar
files $40
mln<br>IPO"<br>Reuters<br><a href=http://biz.yahoo.com/rf/000804/n04197018.html
target=new>http://biz.yahoo.com/rf/000804/n04197018.html</a><br><br>: Evergreen
Solar Inc., which makes solar
power<br>: cells, panels and systems, on Friday filed
with<br>: regulators an initial public offering to seek
as<br>: much as $40 million.<br><br>: Kawasaki Heavy
Industries Ltd. holds 2 million<br>: shares, or an 11.5
percent stake, in the<br>: company, while Swiss
Reinsurance Co. holds<br>: 1.5 million shares, or a 8.5
stake, the filing<br>: shows.<br><br>: It has applied to
trade its shares on Nasdaq<br>: under the symbol "ESLR"
and its underwriters<br>: managing the offering are
Banc of America<br>: Securities LLC, CIBC World
Markets and<br>: FAC/Equities.<br><br>Can a Solar Power
Satellite IPO be far off?<br><br>Mark Reiff

Your best bet is to get on the WWWeb and start
searching. I doubt if you will find anyone selling Solar
Power Satellite kits yet, but even five minutes of
searching will get you plenty of material for home
heating/cooling and electric generation, which is what I assume
you are looking for.

Anyone out there do the solar sale thing. I'm looking for price / brocher type
info. different sizes.Everything needed for total solar.  Bill

<a href=http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/pubs/spectrum/0700/nasa.html
target=new>http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/pubs/spectrum/0700/nasa.html</a><br><br>\
This may have implications with the SPS industry.  Could such tethers be used to
manage the orbits of SPS's?

Let's not forget crossed-field amplifiers as well.

I'm thinking that high power vacuum tubes may
very well make a comeback in SPS applications or high
power transmitters in space. People were working on
cold cathode technologies about ten or twenty years
ago. If these technologies were used in the vacuum of
space, it would be possible to build very high power,
light weight vacuum tubes for transmitting power. I'm
thinking travelling wave tubes and magnetrons.

As I mentioned in another discussion
(<a href=http://clubs.yahoo.com/clubs/artemisprojectoutreach
target=new>http://clubs.yahoo.com/clubs/artemisprojectoutreach</a>), the
advantages to building power satellites on
the moon to beam power to Earth are limited. I could
see an operation similiar to the automated Rover
mentioned in another article you posted... but only to
power up lunar industry.

As I mentioned in another discussion
(<a href=http://clubs.yahoo.com/clubs/artemisprojectoutreach
target=new>http://clubs.yahoo.com/clubs/artemisprojectoutreach</a>), the
advantages to building power satellites on
the moon to beam power to Earth are limited. I could
see an operation similiar to the automated Rover
mentioned in another article you posted... but only to
power up lunar industry.

FYI,<br><br>"Scientists Look to Moonbeams for
Earth Energy"<br>Space.com<br>
<a
href=http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technology/lunar_power_000712.html
target=new>http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technology/lunar_power_000712\
.html</a><br><br>: Power-beaming satellites have been advocated
for<br>: numbers of years as a way for energy-hungry<br>:
Earthlings to develop new sources of power to<br>: meet
needs in the 21st century.<br><br>: At the moon, Earth
already has a heavenly<br>: equivalent to a wall plug,
says David Criswell,<br>: director of the Institute
for Space Systems<br>: Operations at the University
of Houston in<br>: Texas.<br><br>: Any handful of
lunar dust and rocks will do.<br>: That lunar material
contains quantities of<br>: silicon oxygen and metals,
such as iron and<br>: aluminum, he said.<br><br>:
Lunar dust can be used directly as thermal,<br>:
electrical and radiation shields. Also, the dust<br>: can be
converted into glass, fiberglass and<br>: ceramics, not to
mention solar cells, electric<br>: wiring, microcircuitry
and other items.<br><br>: "Solar-cell technology here
on Earth is done in<br>: vacuum or near-vacuum
conditions. And those<br>: conditions are certainly available
on the moon,<br>: at almost no cost," Criswell
said.<br><br>: Criswell envisions that large fields of
made-on-<br>: the-moon solar cells can energize sets of<br>:
microwave transmitters. These transmitters would <br>: be
in synch to deliver microwave power to<br>:
receivers on Earth.<br><br>: In order to provide
inexpensive electric energy<br>: to Earth, most of the
lunar-situated hardware<br>: must be manufactured on the spot,
Criswell said.<br>: Some high-technology items would be
ferried to<br>: the moon from Earth, he said.<br><br>:
Pairs of solar farms would be planted in the<br>: lunar
highlands, on the east and west limbs of<br>: the moon, near
the equator.<br><br>: As part of the Lunar Solar
Power System, beams<br>: of microwaves from the moon
are directed to<br>: receiving antennas on Earth
called "rectennas".<br>: They operate when they are in
view of the moon.<br>: Simple reflectors or active
re-transmitters in<br>: Earth orbit can redirect energy beams to
ground<br>: rectennas at times when they are not in sight of
<br>: the moon.<br><br>: Solar sails circling the moon
would be required<br>: to reflect sunlight down to the
lunar sites,<br>: especially when the moon is in
eclipse of Earth,<br>: and when the site is no longer in
sunlight.<br><br>: In full operation, re-targeted lunar-based<br>:
transmitters could supply power out past<br>: Jupiter,
Criswell said.<br><br>: "My own feeling is that he may
well be right,<br>: but the idea is downstream," said
Bryan Erb,<br>: president of the Sunsat Energy Council,
based in<br>: Houston, Texas. The group backs a
first-things-<br>: first approach, namely the building of
satellite<br>: power stations in Earth orbit.<br><br>Mark Reiff

FYI,<br><br>"Riding Laser Beams to
Space"<br>Space.com<br><br>Find the article link and excerpts at my
Yahoo<br>Space Technology Place forum at:<br><br>: NASA and the
U.S. Air Force are slated to launch<br>:
laser-propelled vehicles, dubbed "Lightcraft",<br>: in
mid-August. The series of tests will take<br>: place at the
White Sands Missile Range in New<br>: Mexico.<br><br>:
Lightcraft fly atop a beam of laser light,<br>: harnessing
the beam’s energy and converting it<br>: into
propulsive thrust.<br><br>: NASA and Air Force studies
indicate that about a <br>: megawatt of laser power could
toss a micro<br>: satellite weighing around a kilogram
into orbit.<br><br>: In the future, he envisions rapid
firing of<br>: nanosatellites by laser, one after
another.<br><br><a href=http://clubs.yahoo.com/clubs/spacetechnologyplace
target=new>http://clubs.yahoo.com/clubs/spacetechnologyplace</a><br><br>Mark
Reiff

FYI,<br><br>"Starter Kit For A Moon Base? No
Atmosphere And<br>Lots Of Silicon..."<br>New
Scientist<br><a href=http://www.newscientist.com:80/news/news_224429.html
target=new>http://www.newscientist.com:80/news/news_224429.html</a><br><br>:
IMAGINE a rover that could make its way
across<br>: the dull, lifeless rocks and dust of the
Moon,<br>: leaving behind it a trail of solar cells
capable<br>: of powering a Moon base. A group of NASA<br>:
researchers thinks it can be done.<br><br>: The Moon has
silicon, metals and other<br>: necessities in its
rocks--and no atmosphere. The<br>: place is one big vacuum,
much better than those<br>: that can be created on
Earth in microchip<br>: manufacturing
machines.<br><br>: A lens at the front of the rover would melt<br>:
regolith--Moon dust--to make a glass base for<br>: the cells.
The vehicle would then move forward<br>: and deposit
a layer of aluminium as an electrode<br>: on the
new base.<br><br>: After laying down the aluminium,
the rover would<br>: move forward again and deposit
the first layer<br>: of silicon, followed by a layer
of dopants--the<br>: trace elements used in making
semiconductors.<br><br>: A second spacecraft would deliver a "robotic<br>:
refinery", to be powered by the solar cells, for<br>:
extracting other substances from Moon rocks.<br><br>Mark
Reiff

FYI,<br><br>"Booming computer firms are running
out of power"<br>London
Telegraph<br><a
href=http://www.telegraph.co.uk/et?ac=000114832908976&rtmo=aq4C4dCJ&atmo=ggggg3J\
K&pg=/et/00/7/11/wpow11.html
target=new>http://www.telegraph.co.uk/et?ac=000114832908976&rtmo=aq4C4dCJ&atmo=g\
gggg3JK&pg=
/et/00/7/11/wpow11.html</a><br><br>: COMPANIES in Silicon Valley, California,
are<br>:
being forced to build private power stations<br>: amid
growing evidence that there is not enough<br>:
electricity in America's grid to drive the<br>: booming high
tech industry.<br><br>: Demand for electricity across
the United States<br>: has grown by 35 per cent in 10
years as people<br>: have taken to using computers.
More than 10 per<br>: cent of the country's total
power is now used to<br>: drive computers and the many
other hand-held<br>: electronic gizmos that are
becoming popular.<br>: The growth of the internet and
e-commerce has<br>: put even greater strain on the power
supply.<br><br>: The unremitting desire for electricity is
most<br>: keenly felt in and around Silicon Valley,
where<br>: an average microchip processing plant uses<br>:
enough power to run 50,000 homes. Fearing that<br>: the
public utility companies will not act fast<br>: enough
to generate more electricity, Oracle, one<br>: of
the largest software manufacturers, has spent<br>:
millions of pounds building its own power<br>:
station.<br><br>: Many others, including Sun Microsystems and<br>:
Microsoft, are submitting proposals to do the<br>: same. Mr
Stahlkopf said: "If they can't get<br>: reliable power from
the utility, then the only<br>: solution is to build
a plant and provide it<br>: themselves." Justin
Bradley, a spokesman for<br>: Oracle, said: "It's very
critical to us to have<br>: reliable power."<br><br>: A
loss of power, even for a short time, can cost<br>:
individual businesses $1 million (£650,000) an<br>: hour and
the industry £65 million a day.<br>: Computers
require an uninterrupted supply to<br>: function
properly. If this is stemmed even for<br>: one-sixtieth of
a second - not enough to make<br>: ordinary lights
flicker - a computer system can<br>: crash.<br><br>: The
power supply in Silicon Valley was recently<br>:
drained to a point where dozens of companies<br>: lost
millions of dollars.<br><br>: The power industry is
building new plants, but<br>: they cannot be completed
fast enough and are<br>: hugely expensive. There are
now plans for a<br>: temporary floating power plant
on a barge to<br>: serve Silicon Valley this summer,
when even more<br>: power is needed to fuel the vast
air-<br>: conditioning systems.<br><br>Sounds like a market
for Solar Power Satellites<br>(SPS).<br><br>Mark
Reiff

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