Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/mac/TEXT/SPACEDIG/V16_2/V16NO277.TXT

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Date: Sat,  6 Mar 93 05:00:08
From: Space Digest maintainer <[e-mail]>
Reply-To: [e-mail]
Subject: Space Digest V16 #277
To: Space Digest Readers
Precedence: bulk


Space Digest                Sat,  6 Mar 93       Volume 16 : Issue 277

Today's Topics:
              Alternative space station design (2 msgs)
               Alternative space station power (2 msgs)
            Any Launches Scheduled for the Week Mar. 20-27
                     Galileo Earth-Moon Animation
             Hot Bubble , Geminga, and Intersellar Travel
                        Japan's space program
                      NASP (was Re: Canadian SS
    Reliable Source says Freedom Dead, Freedom II to be developed
           SSF Resupply (Was Re: Nobody cares about Fred?)
                    Wireless Power notes (2 of 3)
                    Wireless Power notes (3 of 3)

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Date: Fri, 5 Mar 1993 03:25:14 GMT
From: tomas o munoz 283-4072 <[e-mail]>
Subject: Alternative space station design
Newsgroups: sci.space

I think the original post here regarded potential redesigns
for freedom since freedom is "dead".

Let me start off by saying that it would be extremely
irresponsible to throw away the work that has already been done
on freedom and start up a new program from the drawing room.

My proposal would be to keep the current MTC configuration and
add 2-3 more flights to give freedom a port side pv arrays and
port side propulsion modules.  This proposal would:

1] cut money since the final configuration would only use the
   MTC configuration rather than a full PMC configuration, cutting
   both development and operations costs,

2] use alot of the work that has already been performed.  Remember,
   we are undergoing CDR for MTC right now and during the summer.
   This means that the design will be ~90% complete - it will work.

3] allow for future growth in order to satisfy the internationals,
   or just for growth's sake, and

4] keep the program pretty much on schedule with a completion date
   around 1998 rather than around 2000.

--
Tom Munoz
==================================================================
Thought for the day: "One million microfiche = one fish"
 ___________      ___     ____    ____
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    |  | |   |  | |  | | |    \/    | |
    |  | |   |  | |  | | |  |\  /|  | |
    |  | |   |  |_|  |/  |  | \/ |  | |
    |__|/     \_____/    |__|/   |__|/ [e-mail]
==================================================================

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 5 Mar 1993 05:55:28 GMT
From: Hugh Emberson <[e-mail]>
Subject: Alternative space station design
Newsgroups: sci.space

>>>>> "NLF" == Dr. Norman J. LaFave <[e-mail]> writes:

NLF> In article <[e-mail]> Hugh Emberson,
NLF> [e-mail] writes:
> [... me advocating lots of solar cells ...]

NLF> This still doesn't solve your plume contamination problem or your
NLF> cell degradation problem.

I was under the impression that the plume problem was due to loads on
the arrays.

Does "plume contamination" mean that the array gets covered with
exhaust products and this lowers its efficientcy, or does it get eaten
by the exhaust products.  I guess the stuff that comes out of a
hydrazine thruster is pretty nasty.

> [... me advocating "flying" solar array on a string ...]

NLF> If you're going to use a tether, why not avoid the increased
NLF> reboost from the solar array and generate electricity with the
NLF> tether itself. I have been toying with this idea too (damn I'm
NLF> sorry the TSS mission didn't work better).

"Tether" was a bad choice of word, try "rope" or "cable".

If there is going to be a Fred Junior then tethers could be considered
too. You'll still get drag if you use a tether to generate
electricity, TANSTAAFL.  TSS should be reflown soon.

The solar thermal idea would generate drag too.  Those panels will
have to be big, but they will probably fly nearly edge on, so it might
not be so bad.  Any ideas how big the thermal panels would have to be?

Hugh






--
Hugh Emberson -- CS Postgrad
[e-mail]

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 5 Mar 1993 05:31:38 GMT
From: Henry Spencer <[e-mail]>
Subject: Alternative space station power
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Hugh Emberson) writes:
>>... Point one conductor at the sun
>>(the other one is then in shadow) and run a thermocouple between the
>>conducting plates. [...]
>
>HS> I doubt it very much.  Have you *looked* at thermocouple
>HS> efficiencies?  They are, roughly speaking, terrible...
>
>Someone once told me about this solid state heat pump that worked
>using some quantum magic, "Peltier effect" I think.  You pass a
>current through it and it moves heat from one side to the other.
>Does anyone know if you can run one of these things backwards?  Stick
>something hot on one side and something cold on the other and get
>electricity out.

Yes, you can, but "Peltier effect" is a fancy term for "thermocouple
run backwards", so we're not talking about anything new.
--
C++ is the best example of second-system| Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
effect since OS/360.                    |  [e-mail]  utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 5 Mar 1993 06:05:41 GMT
From: Hugh Emberson <[e-mail]>
Subject: Alternative space station power
Newsgroups: sci.space

>>>>> "HS" == Henry Spencer <[e-mail]> writes:

HS> In article <[e-mail]> Dr. Norman J. LaFave <[e-mail]> writes:
>This was an attempt at a lower cost solar dynamic system. Imagine a
>plate built as a three-layered sandwich---two heat conductors with a
>good thermal insulator between them. Point one conductor at the sun
>(the other one is then in shadow) and run a thermocouple between the
>conducting plates. [...]

HS> I doubt it very much.  Have you *looked* at thermocouple
HS> efficiencies?  They are, roughly speaking, terrible... even by
HS> photovoltaic standards.  Why do you think they haven't replaced
HS> photovoltaics already?  There are plenty of commercial satellite
HS> builders who would kill for better power systems.

Someone once told me about this solid state heat pump that worked
using some quantum magic, "Peltier effect" I think.  You pass a
current through it and it moves heat from one side to the other.

Does anyone know if you can run one of these things backwards?  Stick
something hot on one side and something cold on the other and get
electricity out.

Hugh

--
Hugh Emberson -- CS Postgrad
[e-mail]

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 4 Mar 1993 20:17:33 GMT
From: Leo Holmberg <[e-mail]>
Subject: Any Launches Scheduled for the Week Mar. 20-27
Newsgroups: sci.space

A colleague of mine will be in central Florida during the week of
March 20-27. Are there any scheduled launches from Cape Canaveral
during this week? Delta, Titans, Shuttles, etc.

------------------------------

Date: 5 Mar 1993 04:16 UT
From: Ron Baalke <[e-mail]>
Subject: Galileo Earth-Moon Animation
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro,alt.sci.planetary

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Hunter Scales) writes...
>    This is one of the most amazing and moving things I have seen
>    in a long time!  Could you possibly provide us with more information
>    on the sequence that than given above?  For instance, what was
>    the distance from the spacecraft to the earth when the sequence
>    starts, what was the velocity/acceleration of the spacecraft
>    during the sequence.  A diagram of the earth-moon configuraton
>    would also be helpful.  I cant tell if the moon is between the
>    earth and the spacecraft or on the other side.  Thanks so
>    much for sharing this with us.

Galileo was about 3.9 million miles from the Earth when the images were taken.
The moon is on the other side of the Earth.  There is a nice diagram of
Galileo's flight path on page 21 of the April issue of Sky & Telescope
magazine.
     ___    _____     ___
    /_ /|  /____/ \  /_ /|     Ron Baalke         | [e-mail]
    | | | |  __ \ /| | | |     Jet Propulsion Lab |
 ___| | | | |__) |/  | | |__   M/S 525-3684 Telos | It's kind of fun to do
/___| | | |  ___/    | |/__ /| Pasadena, CA 91109 | the impossible.
|_____|/  |_|/       |_____|/                     | Walt Disney

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 4 Mar 1993 19:45:33 GMT
From: Dave Stephenson <[e-mail]>
Subject: Hot Bubble , Geminga, and Intersellar Travel
Newsgroups: sci.space

The recent discovery of a pulsar, supernova reminant at the same location
of the Geminga Gamma ray source raises an interesting SETI question.
The Supernova coused a hot bubble of low density gass in our neighourhood.
Fermi's Paradox "Where is every one" supposes that if interstellar travel
is a physical possibility, there has been plenty of time for a more
advacne race to reach this earth from elsewhere in the galaxy. If
Interstellar travel depends on a supply of interstellar hydrogen on route
the Earth is presently nicely placed to be off the trade routes. Right
in the middle of an interstellar desert in fact. So untill our local
bubble fills in we are on our own! Any thoughts?

--
Dave Stephenson
Geodetic Survey of Canada
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
Internet: [e-mail]

------------------------------

Date: 4 Mar 93 20:56:07 GMT
From: Josh Hopkins <[e-mail]>
Subject: Japan's space program
Newsgroups: sci.space

[e-mail] (fred j mccall 575-3539) writes:

>In <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Josh Hopkins) writes:

>>Folks, If you don't know, don't speculate.  Henry will explain eventually :-)

>Why not, as long as it is *plainly marked* as speculation rather than
>claims of knowledge?

If you don't know the answer and it's likely that someone else does, then
speculation rarely adds to the conversation.  Given the way many people use
language and memory, it can easily detract from the conversation.  Speculation
is great for brain storming and I've seen some great ideas come out of it.
However, this was a library question (i.e. there's a fairly simple, correct
answer available if you know where to look) so speculation just wastes
bandwidth and confuses people.

--
Josh Hopkins                                          [e-mail]

    You only live once.  But if you live it right, once is enough.
            In memoria, WDH

------------------------------

Date: 4 Mar 93 22:48:04 GMT
From: Henry Spencer <[e-mail]>
Subject: NASP (was Re: Canadian SS
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Thomas Clarke) writes:
>And I had such high hopes.  The theoretical Isp's of air breathing
>engines are so nice.

Only at low speeds; at high hypersonic speeds, they deteriorate badly.
Accelerating air that is already moving very fast is hard, especially
when you're trying to do it by heating air that is already very hot.

I'm not sure exactly which issues Mary was referring to, but for near-
orbital speeds, air-breathing engines are not nearly as attractive --
on close inspection -- as you might think.  Their supposed advantages
are greatly exaggerated.
--
C++ is the best example of second-system| Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
effect since OS/360.                    |  [e-mail]  utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 4 Mar 93 22:35:00 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Reliable Source says Freedom Dead, Freedom II to be developed
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Allen W. Sherzer) writes...
>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:
>
>>ANY Space Electrical power system has a single
>>fault failure mode. It is called the battery.
>
>Dennis, batteries are not in and of themselves able to cause single fault
>failures. It depends on the system they are connected to.
>

Tell that to the many satellites that have failed due to battery problems. IUS
is one of the super expensive programs that you love to complain about that
worked because Boeing went the extra step and put in fully redundent computers
and power system.  I would not have done that, looking at the statistical
data that show that most missions would have made it. Boeing did and the
TDRSS mission was saved due to that expensive preventive measure.  What mission
has failed due to batteries? The most recent failure due to battery problem is
the CRRES mission. Haven't seen this on Usenet? Well there are more things
happening out there than are reported on sci.space.


>>Many batteries have exploded in
>>space, the most recent of which was on the last shuttle mission, where the
>>primary battery on the IUS blew up. BUT even with this explosive event, the
>>secondary systems took the TDRSS to its proper orbit.
>
>Perfect example. Since the battery exploded and yet the mission was a
>suscess it follows that the battery wasn't a single point failure.
>

Sorry Allen, the Boeing IUS design is an exception to the rule in this manner.
It has full system redundancy and is a very expensive system. Remember the
loss of data from the OSC TOS stage? Well if that had been a battery you could
have kissed the mission goodby. Expense in a system does not always mean
waste and incompetence.

>A single point failure is one which will cause a system to fail if it
>happens. A lot of effort goes into eliminating them in the engineering
>of aerospace systems so there tend to be very few.
>

You make a lot of hay on this group pushing your SSTO ideas but forget the
plethora of single point failures that are possible in the system.  This
engineering is extremely expensive to maybe your SSTO system would be
a lot more expensive if the redundancy that is typical of an expensive
NASA mission were incorporated in your system.


>Before calling people stupid Dennis you should reflect on the biblical
>quote about the mote in your neighbors eye.
>
>   Allen
>

the quote is why do you wish to remove the mote in your brothers eye when
you refuse to remove the beam in your own eye. Yes Allen this is a wonderful
statement that accurately reflects what you and I should do.

By the way I did not call her stupid, just the attitude. There is a vast
difference. I don't even call you stupid, just unwilling to look at any view
other than your own.

(That is called stubborn) :-)

Dennis, University of Alabama in Huntsville

------------------------------

Date: 4 Mar 93 21:02:58 GMT
From: Henry Spencer <[e-mail]>
Subject: SSF Resupply (Was Re: Nobody cares about Fred?)
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Gary Coffman) writes:
>... At some point we must
>say "enough" and go on to another system, but going *backwards* to
>forty year old ICBM technology is not an answer...

To decide what is/isn't an answer, you must first define the question.

If you want well-proven, reliable, economical launches with off-the-shelf
(or nearly so) hardware, then forty-year-old ICBM technology *is* the
answer, because nobody has yet developed a satisfactory replacement.
(The shuttle does not qualify.)  There is still lots of room to improve
launch operations and such; the Russians build and launch such technology
far more cheaply than we do, even after you adjust salaries to Western
standards -- they simply do it far more quickly with far fewer people.
Major improvements are possible without drastic changes of technology.

On the other hand, if you want new approaches with much more long-term
promise, then experimenting with concepts like DC-Y is indeed the way
to proceed.  The important thing is not to confuse this with the desire
for operational launchers.  Trying to turn a novel concept into an
operational launcher on the first attempt is a serious mistake, as we
discovered with the shuttle.

Personally, I think it makes a lot of sense to put major new applications
of the old technology on hold for a few years while we mount a serious
effort to find out whether we can do better soon.  "Serious effort" means
more than just one project!  If we're trying this seriously, *all* of
the SSTO competitors should have been funded as far as orbital tests,
not just one of them.  (Note, though, that when I say "orbital tests",
I don't necessarily mean full-scale prototypes of operational vehicles.)
For that matter, if the NASP people could have been convinced to get
their heads out of the clouds, it would have made sense to fund them
for a subscale test vehicle too.

However, if it turns out that those approaches need considerably more
work -- I tend to believe the folks who say they don't, but I'd be
happier with flight tests to prove it -- then we should recognize the
need to apply some of that 40-year-old technology to getting reliable
freight service established in the near term, while we get the bugs
out of its replacement(s).
--
C++ is the best example of second-system| Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
effect since OS/360.                    |  [e-mail]  utzoo!henry

------------------------------

Date: 4 Mar 93 09:28:38 GMT
From: Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey <[e-mail]>
Subject: Wireless Power notes (2 of 3)
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.energy

Dr. Gay Canough ([e-mail]) has asked me to
post these notes to sci.space for her.  Please respond to her, not to
me, if you have questions.

                                       Bill Higgins
=============
Notes on the First Annual Wireless Power Transmission
Conference, held in San Antonio, TX Feb 23-25, 1993
[Part 2 of 3]

Feb 24

Morning

Environmental impact of WPT

Dr. David Erwin, USAF chaired the session

Peter Glaser first did a summary of the NASA/DOE Concept
evaluation and development program environmental section. He
pointed out that 60% of the budget of this study was devoted
to environmental questions. Some points he made were

* 23 mW/sq.cm, the proposed maximum microwave beam intensity
for today's WPTs, is one quarter the flux density of generic
sunlight

* 0.05 mW/sq.cm is a typical exposure in a city with
commercial FM radio stations.

* study of bio effects of radio waves from cellular phones
(840 to 880 MHz) will enhance the "effects" database.

Dr. C. Taylor then reviewed the various questions involved
in studying bio effects of microwaves and some of the past
work. He displayed formulae for calculating propagation and
absorption of microwaves for materials of given dielectric
constants. He pointed out that in the rage of 1 to 3 GHz,
microwave radiation is absorbed [in human tissue]
completely. He stressed that quantitative work on electrical
interference in computers needs to be done. During the
question and answer period, I asked him if the tales of
people hearing a click near strong radar were documented.
The effect is indeed real and documented[see book by James
Lin entitled Microwave Auditory Effect]. The click is heard
only in a pulsed beam, where microwaves momentarily heat the
inner ear and the bones expand rapidly enough to put out
their own sound, which is audible. Is it harmful? Don't
know.

The next speaker was Dr. Martin Meltz. He has done research
on the bio effects of ionizing radiation for 15 years and on
the bio effects of microwaves for the last five years. His
specific work is on mutagenesis in cells. Mutagenesis means
that the genetic code of a cell is altered and could pass a
defect to its cell-offspring. It is well known that ionizing
radiation causes this, but so far he has found no evidence
that microwaves cause it. He has also found NO OTHER papers
claiming to see mutagenesis due to microwaves. He cautioned
us that when reading papers on the effects of microwaves,
the paper must provide certain information to allow
definitive conclusions to be made. For example, the
temperature of the sample, specimen or animal must be given,
to determine if stress is caused by microwaves, or simply by
over-heating. All variables must be reported. For example,
the exact frequency of the microwaves, the power, is the
beam pulsed or continuous, how long was the exposure,
temperature as a function of time, etc. He has also looked
for chromosome aberrations due to microwaves and found none.
He is now taking his work further to investigate the
possibility that microwaves might enhance the effects of
some other known mutagenic agent, for example will x-rays
plus microwaves produce more defects than x-rays alone? You
can see that there are thousands of these "interaction
questions" (also called co-promotion) that could be
investigated. He pointed out that no matter what frequency,
intensity, etc. you study, someone will "accuse" you of not
studying some other frequency, intensity, organism,
interaction, etc. When you have a stack of results showing
non-effect, the only way out of this dilemma is to ask
people how much money are they willing to spend to study
other stuff? And when is the pile of non-effects tall enough
to quit worrying? He said all these things in a very honest
tone which suggested to me that he has no particular "side"
to adhere to, he just wants to know. He made another good
point that should be spread around... Just because something
has an effect, does not necessarily mean it is a hazard.
Everything that you interact with has some effect upon you,
but not everything is a hazard.

Dr. R. Lovely has been doing work on the effects of low
frequency fields (such as from power lines) on primates. His
philosophy is that studies should be done on these animals
because they are the closest relatives to humans. They are
also similar in size to humans and are fairly intelligent.
The only effect he has seen so far is that the animals'
behavior pattern will change for a day after an intense
field is turned on in their living area. They then go back
to normal. The analysis of this is that they notice
something different, but then get used to it and ignore it
(but so far, there is no evidence that the field harms
them). He found that not all field intensities produce the
same effects. He also pointed out that there are other
effects which were observed on rats, but not primates. He is
currently looking into how to study the difference between
short and long term exposure. Many electric appliances put
out short, intense fields. Are these a problem? One of the
difficulties in this research is that there is no known
mechanism for low frequency fields to damage cells; the
energy of those fields is so low. This doesn't mean a
mechanism doesn't exist, but it has yet to be discovered.

David Erwin from Armstrong lab at Brooks air force base went
over some of the studies done by the US military on
microwave effects. Since military personnel work with radar
and other microwave devices, there is a database to work
with and the military has a vested interest in the health of
their people. His lab has developed a way to measure the
temperature of an object at all points on the object under
microwave irradiation. They have found a chemical which
fluoresces. This is very useful in measuring non-uniform
heating (which is ** most ** heating) by microwaves. He
suggested we consult a book (available from his lab) called
Radio frequency radiation bio-effects handbook.

[to be continued]

Gay Canough
e-mail(Internet):  [e-mail]
         (GEnie)   :  G.CANOUGH
phone/fax= 607 785 6499    voice mail = 800 673 8265
radio call sign:   KB2OXA

'Snail Mail:
ETM, Inc.
PO Box 67
Endicott, NY 13761

------------------------------

Date: 4 Mar 93 09:31:11 GMT
From: Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey <[e-mail]>
Subject: Wireless Power notes (3 of 3)
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.energy

Dr. Gay Canough ([e-mail]) has asked me to
post these notes to sci.space for her.  Please respond to her, not to
me, if you have questions.

                                       Bill Higgins
=============
Notes on the First Annual Wireless Power Transmission
Conference, held in San Antonio, TX Feb 23-25, 1993
[Part 3 of 3]


Afternoon

There were panel discussions in the afternoon. The first one
was on WPT and business. Tom Anyos of the Electric Power
Research Institute (EPRI) elaborated on how risk-averse US
power companies are. He went over an example of a robot that
was developed to clean sludge out of nuclear reactors. This
robot has been fully tested and is for sale for $1M. It has
been around for 13 years. Using the robot would save a power
company $10M per year. Nevertheless, no US power companies
have purchased it. Utilities simply won't buy new stuff
unless they are forced to.

[As Gregg Maryniak aptly put it later, "The only risk power
companies are willing to take is that maybe tomorrow, water
will not flow downhill"]

Other examples were cited by the panelists of cases where
new technologies took years to get into the mainstream.
Another prime cause of delay is when a prominent scientist
declares something is "impossible or useless. Or if other
negative advertising (even if not true) is circulated.

Brad Schupp pointed out that in spite of the snail-like pace
of industry in some areas, there are other areas, such as
transportation, where the consumers are a driving force for
change. [ed. comment: I don't recall if he gave a specific
example here, but one would be the demand for cars with high
gas mileage, which auto manufacturers did produce in
response to the demand]

David Gerhardt of the Texas Capital Network, told of a
successful development of desktop manufacturing, a new high
tech process that involves making a prototype part by laser
sintering.

The next panel discussion was on environmental impact, with
the same speakers we had earlier. There was a lot of lively
discussion. Some of the ideas and comments were:

* Need well written, nicely illustrated material on what is
known and not known about the effects of microwaves

* Need the more recent work summarized [a lot of the
information still cited is from the 70's]

* it is hard to do much with a null result, we need a dose
metric (i.e. a mechanism)- co-promotion needs more work done

* we must talk about risks, relative risks and benefits at
the same time. Risks alone are not particularly meaningful

* most of the information presented was on bio-effects, when
interference to electronics is probably a larger problem

* the US congress has just passed a bill allowing $65 M to
be spent on the study of low frequency fields.

* the public cycle is faster than the scientific cycle, i.e.
it takes a long time for scientists to converge on "the
answer", but policy makers and concerned citizens want more,
sooner. Keeping an up-to-date bibliography could help with
this.

* need to "advertise" WPT

* advertising may not be such a swell idea. We need to
address the much deeper problem of scientific illiteracy in
the USA. Beware of the us-them relationship with "the
public". We are all the public.

* should demos be done to educate everyone?

* don't forget about bio-effects on animals and plants. Keep
a list of who is doing research on microwave effects, and
what they are working on

* the majority of people who need to be educated on a given
topic are neither for nor against it. They just have no
information. Concentrate on that group and don't waste time
on those whose minds are already made up.

Some actions we could take were identified, including market
research, public opinion research and creation of a
microwave effects working group. The first task of the
working group is to get some professional environmentalists
and power company people to next year's conference. [ed.
comment: there were at least 2 people in the discussion who
classified themselves as environmentalists]

Today was very educational to me. I felt the WPT-SPS
community is starting to really take the environmental
questions seriously, an important step!

Feb 25

Morning

More panel discussions: The first was on International
activity. Comments made by the panelists:

* For international co-operation: need frequency allocations
for WPT, tech transfer rules, compatible engineering,
critical mass of players so that the market is large enough
to do something like beam power from space.

* any international partnerships should be balanced. That
is, both sides benefit equally

* Russians are in dire need of business training. In doing
projects with Russians, be aware that they work on a
personal (who-knows-whom) level. You have to be very
specific with them about schedules and costs, since they are
not used to calculating costs.

* it generally takes 40 years to transition to new
technology in power generation and transport. WPT should be
researched.

* Guy Pignolet offered to merge the WPT conference with the
SPS 94 conference in Paris next year.

* At the next IAF there will be a document created on global
guidelines for WPT

* Working groups at IAF have been effective. We could have
one on WPT.

* Think globally, Act locally: UNESCO is putting together a
"solar summit" in July on energy.  Reunion island (small
island belonging to France; the island is in the South
Pacific) is looking into installing a WPT system

* about $1B has been spent on fusion

The next panel was on commercialization of WPT. Comments:

* Are there people in the coal, oil, nuclear business who
might support WPT as a means to get into that business in
the future?

* We need a "champion" of the WPT-SPS cause (someone with
clout)

* the WPT-SPS community must be focused on a specific plan
in order to get start up funds.

* microwave powered airplanes for communications,
surveillance and remote sensing are a near-term commercial
opportunity

* Andrew Meulenberg from COMSAT said that industry is very
cautious. New ventures are mostly acquisitions. COMSAT would
buy power (in space) today if it were available. Companies
are not planning for more than 3 years in advance.
Satellites have battery problems and even though new
batteries are being developed, it will a long time before
satellite manufacturers will take the chance and use those
new types. Satellite owners would pay $0.5M for half hour of
one sun light when they really need it! They would pay $10M
per year for power if the batteries on their satellite were
dead and $1M/year for a power boost if batteries were
partially dead. Must have a demo!

* There have to be real commercial applications

* A technology demo is not the same as a system demo (i.e.
just because the magnetron and rectenna works, does not mean
the whole system will work)

* It was pointed out that the US government is a large
consumer of energy and could an early customer.

* WPT community should put together an integrated 4 year
plan broken down into 1 year steps.

* 1 million high tech jobs will be lost in the next 40 years
in the USA. This would mean a $400 billion dollar loss to
the economy

The conference ended at noon, with a talk by Jim Beggs and
one by Joe Allen. The one note I made on these, was Joe
Allen's comment that the cost of doing things in space has
to do with management NOT hardware. Think on that one...


Beam Ho!

--- Gay



Gay Canough
e-mail(Internet):  [e-mail]
         (GEnie)   :  G.CANOUGH
phone/fax= 607 785 6499    voice mail = 800 673 8265
radio call sign:   KB2OXA

'Snail Mail:
ETM, Inc.
PO Box 67
Endicott, NY 13761

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End of Space Digest Volume 16 : Issue 277
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