Re: Solar powered lasers in space

Humanity currently uses energy at a rate of 10 TW power level for
industrial purposes. This is 2,000 stations each 5GW capacity - 3
miles in diameter separated by 72 miles at GEO. With one launch every
other day, the entire system can be erected in 11 years. To achieve
US per capita energy consumption for a population of 9 billion people
requires 22,000 stations each 5 GW capacity, 3 miles in diameter
separated every 6 miles. At a launch rate of 4 per day (across the
whole planet) this requires an additional 14 years.

At the end of the period there are a large fleet of large reusable
space launch vehicles and a well established infrastructure to support
them.

If each vehicle requires 60 days to refurb after launch, then to
sustain a launch every other day requires 30 vehicles. If each
vehicle has 200 launch over its useful life, that's a total of 6,000
launches - only 1/3 of the fleet capacity is use by the time the first
milestone is reache.

If the second generation vehicle requires 20 days to refurb after
launch, and then sustain 4 launches per day, then, a total of 80
vehicles are needed. If each vehicle has a useful life of 1,000
launches, then 80,000 launches may be sustained by the fleet - only
1/4 of the fleet capacity is used by the time the second milestone is
reached.

The recurring income earned by the powersats would be divided among
the owners. If the space vehicle provider arranged to own say 25% of
this revenue stream, then they would have a recurring income with
which to opeate these fleets of vehicles and expand space based
infrastructure.

Today the world spends approximately $2 trillion per year on energy.
The global economy produces $65 trillion per year in wealth with that
energy. 25% of tihs is $500 billion per year. A profit sufficient to
do a large number of space missions.

In the future, with unlimited energy supplies, the world economy is
likely to grow to $715 trillion in 25 years.- a 10% compounded rate of
growth. If the energy intensity is the same then as it is today,
energy expenditures will grow to $22 trillion. 25% of this larger
figure is $5.5 trillion - or nearly half the current GDP of the entire
United States.

Clearly these amounts are sufficient to make humanity a space faring
species and to develop industrially the resources of the solar system.

GEO has the great advantage that the satellite remains stationary
above the receiver stations. The Lagrange points in the Earth-Moon
system, or even across the solar system - are perfect locations for
positioning and communications beacons. L1 is not positively stable,
so it is unlikely to be a good site for space positioning - although
perfect for a repeater satellite. The leading and trailing lagrange
points around the moon are better suited for space positioning and
navigation - and okay for cislunar comsats - and even cislunar
powersats.


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