[ExI] Power satellites

John K Clark jonkc at bellsouth.net
Fri Apr 24 14:10:41 UTC 2009


<painlord2k at libero.it>

> Brad Edwards report to NIAC put development costs to 2 billions in 10
> years. Building costs 10-20 billions in 3-4 years. Depend on the legal
> framework, mainly.

And you believe that moonshine?! I think that could be the very worst
financial estimate in the entire long history of bad financial estimates.
The International Space Station ended up over budget, of course, it ended up
costing about 100 billion dollars; and it was tiny, in low earth orbit, and
people have been making similar things for decades. A Power Satellite would
be HUGE, it would be in a far more difficult and expensive orbit to reach,
and nobody has the slightest bit of experience in building anything even
remotely similar to it.

And this man thinks he can build it for 10 to 20% of the cost of the Space
Station. I'd like to contact this Mr. Brad Edwards and sell him some swamp
land, or a half interest on a perpetual motion machine.

> Mr. Gates and a couple of friends could finance the
> development without problems.

That would be a great idea provided Mr. Gates ever got tired of being the
richest man in the world.

 John K Clark






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