[ExI] SpaceX Super Heavy and Space Solar

[Keith Henson]

On Sun, Oct 20, 2024 at 1:28 PM Kelly Anderson via extropy-chat
<extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>
> Has anyone run the numbers on whether space based solar makes sense yet if the Super Heavy keeps some of its economic promises?

Yes.

100 tons is 100,000 kg. If a flight gets down to even $10 million,
that's $100/kg to LEO, double that to GEO with electric propulsion.
6.5 kg/kW is a reasonable number, so $1300/kW for transport, $900/kW
for parts and labor, plus $200/kW for the rectenna.  That adds up to
$2400/kW.  Divide by 80,000 to get 3 cents per kWh.

Looks good from energy return time, takes about 66 days to pay back
the fuel energy used to lift it to orbit.

The problem is that it takes 500 flights to build one.  A reasonable
construction rate of 50 a year would take 20 years to replace 1/3rd of
current consumption. I don't know if the atmospheric damage of 25,000
flights per year would be acceptable, but NOAA could answer that
question if asked.

The money through this program is $600 B/year.

Keith

> -Kelly
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