Mr. Taylor. I think we are confident that we are in the ball park. The thing that has to be done is to develop a substantial transportation system that can deliver to space substantial quantities of parts and assemblies at a reasonable rate. And we have tried, using our experience on the Saturn V program and the Apollo TIE, to project our cost on those forward to the amount of weight that has to be put in orbit. And from that we believe that we are in the right concept, assuming that the cost can be 20 to 30 mills per kilowatt.hour delivered. Senator Ford. What technological breakthroughs do we need to construct a Powersat? Mr. Taylor. We do not think that there is any technological breakthrough that is required. We believe that we need to grow the current technology. Now, let me give you an example of that. There is a turbine generator being built in Germany along the same kind of concept that we are talking about, that would be used on Earth to generate electricity. The weight of the generator, the weight of the turbine and generator that we use on the satellite here, will be about one-fourth of the weight of that that is currently in place. Now, what we have to do is, using the technology that we have developed in the airplane and aerospace business, to develop a lightweight unit. And this is not uncommon for us to do, taking a stationary unit and making it lightweight for airplane use or for spacecraft use. And so we do not see this as a technological breakthrough, but one of evolution of growth of the current technology. We still use the same cycle in the turbine engine, we use the same principles in the alternator—it is a matter of getting the weight down. So that is how I am trying to illustrate how we projected our cost on that basis. Senator Ford. You have stated that Boeing's cost target is 20 to .30 mills per kilowatt-hour for Powersat. Mr. Taylor. Yes, sir. Senator Ford. Has Boeing looked at what other nations—such as Japan—would be willing to pay for energy in the first decade of the next century? Mr. Taylor. Glenn, would you like to answer that? Dr. Keister. We haven't looked at world economics. What we have used is primarily the economic criteria that are present in the United States. But we do feel that, as Mr. Taylor indicated, we are gradually going to be transitioning from fossil fuels and depletable fuels to a non- depletable source. And if you look at the nondepletable sources that are available, the only ones that are available are the Sun or fusion power. The Powersat offers a technical—a system that is technically feasible to use the sun, whereas fusion power we have not achieved technical feasibility. And so we feel that if we do the systems studies, if we invest in the technology and evolve this kind of a system, that by the end of this century or the first decade of the next century the system—we will achieve an economic balance between the cost of depletable fuels and the nondepletable solar power. Senator Ford. Of course, what brought that question to mind was that the Arab countries ship petroleum power to this country and
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