SOLAR POWER FROM SPACE (again)

[Beowulf]

There's an idea of using holographic film to concentrate the sunlight. It allows better sun tracking than the plastic lens or mirror ideas, which reduces complexity. In addition, there's the possibility of directing sunlight that doesn't meet the minimum frequency threshold away from the cell, reducing heating.

[Hawkwings]

As an alternative to hauling every ton of power satellite equipment up into geosynchronous orbit atop heavy lift vehicles, what about launching a much smaller mass of semi-autonomous mining/construction systems to extract metals from near-Earth asteroids and assemble the power satellites out in space?

You'd have to mine, refine, manufacture, and assemble in space, starting with raw materials and ending with a quite precise finished product. Not impossible, but certainly very hard, much harder than simply launching everything.

[Stormin]

<snip>

You'd have to mine, refine, manufacture, and assemble in space, starting with raw materials and ending with a quite precise finished product. Not impossible, but certainly very hard, much harder than simply launching everything.

And there isn't any equipment up there to do ANY of that so all that would have to be sent up too after being designed built tested etc. It would cost a lot more and take years/decades longer to do than simply sending up finished product or components ready for assembly.

[Sea Skimmer]

How about you we just forget about geosynchronous orbit and build more then one microwave downlink station on the earth. That’s bound to be far cheaper then the massive added rocket fuel costs, though it would mean you have to sell the power to several nations.

[Beowulf]

How about you we just forget about geosynchronous orbit and build more then one microwave downlink station on the earth. That’s bound to be far cheaper then the massive added rocket fuel costs, though it would mean you have to sell the power to several nations.

Rocket fuel is cheap (or at least, it's the least expensive part of a rocket launch). This is one of the large launch items that can plausibly drive down costs for the business as a whole, due to the higher flight rate required.

[Molyneux]

One thing that worries me about this kind of thing is, would it be possible to harden satellites of this type against, say, solar flares - and if not, what would be the consequences/cost of replacement?