[ExI] Low hanging fruit

[Keith Henson]

Once you bite the bullet and decide that in the context of $50 B worth
of Skylons for a power satellite project, another $20-30 B for beamed
energy seems downright reasonable.

There are two approaches that seem to make sense splicing into the 30
ton near LEO and 20 ton (60 t/hr) at GEO end of the pipeline.

First is to power a hydrogen burner similar to Skylon on up to LEO
with a combination of ground power and laser coming down from GEO.

The other is a much smaller vehicle air dropped from 10 km and powered
into LEO by ground based beamed energy.

I worked up a preliminary spread sheet for the first if anyone wants to see it.

Keith