Technology is cool...

http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technology/lunar_power_000712.html

> Scientists Look to Moonbeams for Earth Energy
>
> By Leonard David
> Senior Space Writer
> posted: 07:01 am ET 13 July 2000
>
> WASHINGTON -- A solution to world energy woes and rising gasoline
> prices might require looking off Earth at our nearest celestial
> neighbor -- the moon.
>
> Power-beaming satellites have been advocated for numbers of years
> as a way for energy-hungry Earthlings to develop new sources of
> power to meet needs in the 21st century.
>
> At the moon, Earth already has a heavenly equivalent to a wall
> plug, says David Criswell, director of the Institute for Space
> Systems Operations at the University of Houston in Texas.
>
> "There's no need to build the moon," Criswell told SPACE.com. By
> mid 21st century, enough lunar solar power can be imported
> Earthward to supply the world's population of 10 billion people
> to meet all basic human needs, he said.
>
> Solar farms
>
> For the last two decades, Criswell has been on a lunar crusade of
> sorts.  Starting in the 1970s, he and engineering colleague,
> Robert Waldron, promoted the idea of turning lunar soils and
> rocks into useful products.
>
> Thanks to the Apollo program, moonwalking astronauts were the
> first prospectors of another world. Hundreds of pounds of lunar
> samples have been studied, showing great potential for
> manufacturing.
>
> The moon: Earth's future power hub?
>
> There are no "magic" resources or technologies needed, Criswell
> said. Any handful of lunar dust and rocks will do. That lunar
> material contains quantities of silicon oxygen and metals, such
> as iron and aluminum, he said.
>
> Lunar dust can be used directly as thermal, electrical and
> radiation shields. Also, the dust can be converted into glass,
> fiberglass and ceramics, not to mention solar cells, electric
> wiring, microcircuitry and other items.
>
> "Solar-cell technology here on Earth is done in vacuum or
> near-vacuum conditions. And those conditions are certainly
> available on the moon, at almost no cost," Criswell said.
>
> On-the-spot beaming
>
> Criswell envisions that large fields of made-on-the-moon solar
> cells can energize sets of microwave transmitters. These
> transmitters would be in synch to deliver microwave power to
> receivers on Earth.
>
> In order to provide inexpensive electric energy to Earth, most of
> the lunar-situated hardware must be manufactured on the spot,
> Criswell said. Some high-technology items would be ferried to the
> moon from Earth, he said.
>
> Pairs of solar farms would be planted in the lunar highlands, on
> the east and west limbs of the moon, near the equator.
>
> As part of the Lunar Solar Power System, beams of microwaves from
> the moon are directed to receiving antennas on Earth called
> "rectennas". They operate when they are in view of the moon.
> Simple reflectors or active re-transmitters in Earth orbit can
> redirect energy beams to ground rectennas at times when they are
> not in sight of the moon.
>
> Solar sails circling the moon would be required to reflect
> sunlight down to the lunar sites, especially when the moon is in
> eclipse of Earth, and when the site is no longer in sunlight.
>
> "The more sunlight that can be directed to the site, then the
> more energy output for Earth," Criswell said.
>
> Not only Earth could benefit from moon beaming.
>
> In full operation, re-targeted lunar-based transmitters could
> supply power out past Jupiter, Criswell said.
>
> Step-by-step plans
>
> How soon can a Lunar Solar Power System plan be started?
>
> "This is like having a baby. You can have it in 100 years or 10
> years," Criswell said. "It can be done in 10-year increments," he
> said.

I see. Like having a baby. Riiiight.

There's a new one for my quotes file:

   "This is like having a baby. You can have it in 100 years or
   10 years. It can be done in 10-year increments."
       -- David Criswell, rocket scientist

(poor guy probably got misquoted by the journalist)

> A first step would be 10 years of planning -- sketching out
> business plans and carrying out hardware demonstrations here on
> Earth. Building up the technical community to run such a lunar
> power base is key, Criswell said.
>
> To demonstrate the idea's practicality, sets of lunar-landing
> robots can be dispatched to the moon. Once there, they would
> unfurl solar arrays, then operate in tandem to transmit a
> collective low-energy beam back to Earth.
>
> "This type of activity could be started very quickly," Criswell
> said. Follow-on stages would mean sending equipment to the moon,
> showing how products can be made of lunar soil and rock.
>
> Eventually, the moon would be dotted with factories, robot
> tractors and repair shops -- all part of building up the Lunar
> Solar Power System, Criswell said.
>
> Given the closeness of the moon, one-way radio signals from Earth
> take only 1.3 seconds to cross space. On-duty robots, controlled
> from Earth could do the building, operation and maintenance of
> lunar power-beaming sites, Criswell said. "You will need some
> people, but how many, I'm not sure at this point," he said.
>
> The price tag for bringing the moon on line, and churning out
> power for Earth is about $150 billion, roughly twice the cost of
> the Apollo program in today's dollars, Criswell said. Capable of
> churning out more and more power over the years, by 2015, 1,000
> gigawatts of power could be pumped to Earth from the moon, he
> said.
>
> "Everybody's grandchildren right now would be energy prosperous
> by 2050," he said. "If you don't have access to cheap energy,
> that's one of the things like not having enough air."
>
> Weaning the Earth off our current carbon-based energy system is a
> must, Criswell said. "Otherwise we're going to stay in a
> precarious situation. If you want a prosperous world, there just
> are no other options," he added.
>
> Robots need supervision
>
> Not everyone is ready to hook up to Criswell's lunar power
> supply, however.
>
> "My own feeling is that he may well be right, but the idea is
> downstream," said Bryan Erb, president of the Sunsat Energy
> Council, based in Houston, Texas. The group backs a
> first-things-first approach, namely the building of satellite
> power stations in Earth orbit.
>
> "It takes a big investment to get back to the moon," Erb said. "I
> just don't see a graceful migration path to get to a lunar power
> system without a massive up-front investment," he said.
>
> Erb said he views the Criswell proposal as a "vast undertaking"
> that would be very costly. "If you could overcome that hurdle,
> then there's a lot of promise in his idea of using the moon," he
> said.
>
> Taking a wait-and-see attitude is Paul Werbos, program director
> for control networks and computational intelligence at the
> National Science Foundation. He recently co-sponsored with NASA a
> workshop that looked over the Criswell plan, among other
> space-research issues.
>
> "We don't have a definite verdict, but I am much more optimistic
> than before," Werbos said. "The opportunity is so great, we
> should not lose the opportunity."
>
> Werbos said that a critical aspect of Criswell's idea is use of
> tele-autonomy, that is, how to coordinate human beings on Earth
> with on-the-job robots stationed on the moon.
>
> "That's the key concept in my mind in order to build any kind of
> large-scale space power system -- on the Earth or on the moon,"
> he said. "How do you get robots smart enough to do their job
> under a kind of loose supervision arrangement?"


--
Gerald Oskoboiny <[email protected]>
http://impressive.net/people/gerald/