the launch site, and degradation to the atmosphere and ionosphere can occur due to the residues from boost and orbit transfer propellants, and parts and fragments ejected from the lower propulsion stages. In addition, unused propellant run-off could possibly create environmental problems. a. Material Extraction and Manufacturing Some limited comparisons have been made of possible health effects due to the estimated maximum of 166 tons of SO emissions resulting x from the manufacture of a 0.1 GW solar satellite receiver plant (Ref. A7) with the corresponding effects of equivalent coal-fired and nuclear (light water reactor) plants. Total effective man-days lost per year, for example, 2 2 are estimated to be (23-129) x 10 for coal, (2-14) x 10 for nuclear, and 2 (0.5-1.6) x 10 for the energy satellite plant (Ref. A7) . (For rough estimates for a 1 GW plant, these figures can be multiplied by 10.) The implication is that the extraction and manufacturing processes required to establish the satellite system's central plant are significantly less polluting than the processes of extraction, manufacturing and operation of available coal and nuclear alternatives. Information is not available on such other alternatives, known to be less polluting, as oil or gas-fired plants, e.g., with fuels derived from processing coal, oil shale, etc. Nevertheless, it appears that any major pollution concerns for the satellite energy systems can only derive from their flight operations. b. Transport The three phases of flight operation of the satellite systems, in which pollution can arise from propulsion residues, are boost, orbit transfer and on-orbit stationkeeping and attitude control. During the many anticipated launches, about 80 to 100 HLLV launches per SPS, major noise pollution in the neighborhood of the launch facility can occur. Studies are not available of this factor, but the launch site's required size may need to be increased to assure acceptable noise levels in its neighborhood. Similarly, sonic booms in the HLLV recovery area may be a noise problem. During flight from launch through operation in the LEO parking orbit,
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTU5NjU0Mg==