* Multiple, low-Earth orbit space stations and transportation nodes. • Space-based industrial processing facilities. • Lunar bases for He3 extraction. • Electric transfer vehicles. • Asteroid mining. * Geosynchronously orbiting antenna platforms, • Arrays of large Earth observation platforms, • etc., etc. It might, however, be an enormous “leap-of-faith” to attempt to justify the development of Powersats based on this future of wide-scale space industrialisation, particularly in light of today’s relatively humble space activities. Under present circumstances, there is little evidence that such a future is going to emerge in the next few decades. This is fundamentally because of the current methods of accessing space. Specifically, the high cost and limited number of opportunities to transport payloads to and from space each year simply precludes the wide-scale utilisation and exploration of space, much in the same w'ay the industrial revolution on Earth would have been precluded without the development of railway and canal transportation infrastructures. The development of Powersats is unlikely to provide sufficient stimulus to encourage enough new mission options to justify their high cost. An economically-driven Powersat strategy dependent on new users emerging is unlikely to be sufficient to warrant the high cost of developing Powersats in the first place. With regard to serendipity benefits or spinoffs, this is another area where economic advantages could be obtained. Powersats might enable the development of light-weight/high-efficiency/high-power laser systems that could find uses in some terrestrial manufacturing applications. Likewise, light- weight/high-efficiency power transfer and storage systems could similarly find
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTU5NjU0Mg==