Space-based solar power is not a thing

Casey Handmer · 20 Aug 2019 · caseyhandmer.wordpress.com ↗

3 korrents from this piece

Casey Handmer did not write this page.

Every claim below was made in this piece, quoted word for word and numbered in the order the piece makes them, so you can read it there rather than take our word for it. The sentence above each quote is our reading of the claim, not their wording. Each quote was checked against a stored copy of the page at build time; where the two differ, the quote is the fact.

Our reading
Space-based solar power will never supply electricity to Earth, because it is thousands of times too expensive.

Their wordsMy view is that space-based solar power is impossibly expensive and will never be used on Earth.

Interesting
Our reading
Even at Starship's promised prices, the cost of launching a power station dwarfs everything else about it.

Their wordsEven if all of Elon Musk’s wildest Starship dreams come true, transport costs will dominate the total capex of any space-based solar system, by many orders of magnitude.

Interesting
Our reading
Selling information rather than matter or power to Earth is the only space business that has ever paid.

Their wordsCommunications satellites remain the killer app for the commercial space industry.

Interesting