[ExI] SpaceX Super Heavy and Space Solar

[Keith Henson]

On Sun, Oct 20, 2024 at 4:12 PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat
<extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>
> On Sun, Oct 20, 2024 at 5:00 PM Keith Henson via extropy-chat <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>>
snip
>>
>> The money through this program is $600 B/year.
>
>
> Needing that much money up front,

Probably $60 B is enough.  The cost after the R&D can't go over $12 B each

> before the program is generating revenue, makes it economically infeasible.  No one with the requisite finances will believe that heavily in the revenue until after a small scale prototype is demonstrating,

You can't scale a power satellite down for beans.  It is a feature of
microwave optics (diffraction).

> even at significantly lower economic efficiency ($0.10-0.50 per kWh, perhaps).

That would just kill the idea.

> You may see such a prototype as "wasteful" or "wasted", and in the long run it would become obsolete.  It is a necessary expendable, in a sense, to get the program started.
>
> In that light, what are the numbers for a prototype that could be built with just one Super Heavy?  The $/kWh will be worse, but you have an absolute maximum to LEO of 100 tons.

The physics and economics just don't work.  It is not the least bit
realistic, but consider if you could build one of the same physical
size at no cost.  The rectenna is going to cost the same, a billion
bucks.  Now we get 1/500 of the power for 1/12th the cost.  If you
could do this (you can't) the cost of power would be about 500/12 x 3
cents or $1.25/kWh.  All this would show is that there is no market.

The only way I can now see it being done is for a government to back
it.  If heat was killing a million people per year, that *might* be
enough motivation  Or maybe not.

Keith
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