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Astrium Hopes To Test Grabbing Solar Energy From Orbit
goldaryn writes "Word from the BBC today is that Europe's biggest space company is seeking partners to help get a satellite-based solar power trial into orbit:
'EADS Astrium says the satellite system would collect the Sun's energy and transmit it to Earth via an infrared laser, to provide electricity. Space solar power has been talked about for more than 30 years as an attractive concept because it would be 'clean, inexhaustible, and available 24 hours a day.' However, there have always been question marks over its cost, efficiency and safety. But Astrium believes the technology is close to proving its maturity.'"
They are completely unsafe. Even a slight failure to focus the beam would destroy a huge area of land, kill thousands of people, and cause millions in damage. This analysis is based on my highly technical computer simulation.
You know what I always think is kind of weird?
People have this view of big-business as being this lumbering creature trying to save a cent everywhere they possibly can. Remove safety here, cut corners there, as long as it works for five minutes after it's sold, it's good enough. And, yes, in some ways this is justified. But on the other hand, this same technique is used everywhere - everywhere - in skyscrapers, in cargo ships, in the ridiculously complicated personal computer that you are using right now to read this.
We know how to manage risk, and we know how to manage safety. We can make things exactly as safe as we want to, assuming we're willing to pay the money.
We live in a world where we combust petrochemicals inside high-precision aluminum devices to fling multi-ton metal boxes around many times faster than we can run. When we get to our destination we purchase mass-produced foodstuffs, many of which have never been inspected by humans. We go to work in megaton cages of steel and concrete, sometimes in areas where the ground itself is known to shake with deadly force, and we sit there eating our food while sitting mere feet from copper cables carrying enough electricity to kill us a hundred times over, protected only by drywall and rubber insulation.
All of these things were provided by the lowest bidder.
And then we go home and complain about the scary new lasers and how people don't make things like they used to, damn them, they'll destroy us all, if only they didn't cut corners.
I dunno. Somehow I'm just not all that worried.
Breaking Into the Industry - A development log about starting a game studio.