Pentagon Urges Space-Based Solar Power

eldavojohn writes "The Pentagon issued a report indicating that space-based solar power 'has the potential to help the United States stave off climate change and avoid future conflicts over oil by harnessing the Sun's power to provide an essentially inexhaustible supply of clean energy.' The report, from the Pentagon's National Security Space Office, calls for funding the development of space-based solar power culminating in 'a platform in geosynchronous orbit bigger than the international space station and capable of beaming 5-10 megawatts of power to a receiving station on the ground.' The Pentagon's interest in such an effort stems from the need to acquire energy on the battlefield, which today often comes at a painful premium."

Comments

And

[Trikenstein]

I bet it'd make a great Death Ray(tm)

A Win Win situation

Actually, this could save money...

[tjstork]

I know this may sound crazy, but the achilles heel of the US military is its fuel. Forget about the obvious guzzlers - like gas turbine warships and fighter jets, just look at the US Army, where its lightest and most fuel efficient fighting vehicle is a frigging Hummer. And then radios and combat centers and all of the communications, artillery and other infrastructure require generators, and hence even more fuel. I think the US Army blows through more fuel today in a month then the whole Army did during all of World War II. It's really a staggering problem... you have to have a lot of infrastructure to move all that fuel around, and all that infrastructure comes at a heavy, heavy price.

If you could have some sort of space based system beaming massive amounts of energy down to the ground, you could theoretically have a mobile receiving station, you could think about electric powered transport to replace things like Hummers, power all the command and control electronics, and probably also do electromagnetic artillery rather than conventional artillery. I imagine you'd have to have some seriously powerful batteries to move a tank with an electric motor, but, you even still, the weight savings in all the other stuff could at least help keep your MBTs moving. Perhaps you could, domestically, produce tank and jet fuel with coal to liquids, and still ship -that- via normal transport, in the interim. Or, you rethink your army so that you basically have a lighter force but with genuinely awesome artillery to back it up... if all you had to do was transport kinetic slugs, and not heavy shells, you could throw a lot more destructive power at an enemy.

Re:Could be a tremendously capable tool, but....

[exploder]

Bingo.

Re:Direct Report Link

[complete loony]

Don't warn us, warn the server admins ;)