[ExI] Power satellites

[John K Clark]

"Keith Henson" <hkeithhenson at gmail.com>

> Rockets, laser propulsion or space elevators, none of
> them violate physics.

Did you think I didn't know that? Mr. Edwards claimed to be making a
financial estimate on the cost of a power satellite, but he assumed the
existence of a space elevator, something that in fact does not exist; that
means the numbers he got on the cost were completely meaningless, they're
not even good guesses, it's just blather.

As for laser propulsion, it's an interesting idea and for all I know it may
turn out to work great, but it's a unproven technology. Up to now it hasn't
even come close to putting a peanut into low earth orbit. You propose using
it to put a supertanker sized object into geosynchronous orbit and claim
you've already thought of everything that could go wrong so you know how
much it will cost. I don't buy it, much smaller and more conventional
projects have gone 1000% over budget.

> Bankers loaned money, several times as much as would be
> needed for a full scale power sat project, to people who
> could not pay it back.

You can't know that, in the power satellite business we don't even know what
we don't know so nobody can pin a cost number on it. About the only thing we
could say with any confidence is that it would be the most expensive object
ever made by the human race.

 John K Clark