INDUSTRY Lunar soils contain 20 percent silicon for solar cells, and about 20 percent metals. Much of the rest, surprisingly enough, is oxygen. The moon's second advantage is it has no atmosphere. The combination of the moon's weak gravitational grip and its vacuum environment makes it practical to locate electric mass accelerators on its surface which would be capable of lofting a steady stream of small payloads to a precise collection point high in space. Such machines, called "mass-drivers," were tested nearly a decade ago under the sponsorship of our small, quiet, nonprofit foundation, the Space Studies Institute (SSI). Mass-drivers were shown to obey their computer design programs within one percent -no new science there-just straightforward engineering. Since then SSI has sponsored laboratory research on making useful products from ores similar to lunar soils. CAN SPS TECHNOLOGY DELIVER? As people concerned about our environment and about the world we leave to our children, we should question proposed solutions to major physical problems. As fossil fuels, nuclear energy, ground-based solar, and .other conventional sources of energy all fail to make sense in the world of 2050, will SPS technology deliver? First of all, there is plenty of energy in space. Even in a narrow band 25,000 miles above the equator, where a satellite can maintain a fixed orbit, plenty of solar energy streams by constantly to supply far more than enough energy for the Earth of 2050. What of the conversion on Earth? It was demonstrated years ago. The antennas convert the radio waves with an efficiency so high that less than 100 watts of waste heat goes into the environment for every 1,000 watts that goes into power lines. For coal or nuclear the numbers are: 1,500 watts waste, 2,500 watts total; for ground-based solar they are-several thousand watts waste CNASA/f.STOCK INC. TRILOGY JANUARY/FEBRUARY 1992
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