Senator Ford. I believe that you made the statement that each Powersat would stretch about 9 miles across space—so what problem would be caused with a string of power satellites twinkling in the night sky? Mr. Taylor. I would say it might be a pretty sight to see. Senator Ford. What would the astronomers call that? Mr. Taylor. They would probably have to call it Powersat. [Laughter]. This shows 30 of the satellites in line, each one being 9 miles—that is why they would be visible as a new star. Senator Ford. If you had a couple this way, you would have your arrow—telling them where to go, couldn't you? Would there be any brightness in the sky? Would it make any changes in what we would do here, as far as night and day? You know, would you have a 20-hour day—20 hours of light and 4 hours of darkness or something? Mr. Nansen. No. If you had synchronous orbit, they would just appear as a star and the light that you would be seeing would be just the light reflected from things like the beams and the gaps between the mirrors. The mirrors themselves would not be reflecting back to Earth— they are concentrated in the cavity. It would be about the brightness of a typical star. It would have no effect. Senator Ford. It wouldn't blind an astronomer trying to look at stars in the same area of the sky? You get the point of my question, I think—that is one of the questions that has been posed to the committee. Mr. Nansen. They would be, during the low Earth orbit assembly of the individual modules, when they are out about 270-nautical-mile altitude during assembly, they would be quite visible to the naked eye. During that period, they would appear about the size of the Moon as they came over. Senator Ford. Do we have any other reasons to justify building a heavy-lift rocket? In other words are there other reasons to develop the heavy-lift rocket? Mr. Taylor. Well, as Senator Goldwater was discussing, if you were to decide to have, let's say, a factory in space for the manufacture of any articles that could be better manufactured in space, you would then need to have a heavy-lift Space Shuttle to get that kind of equipment up there. So this program would complement that—or to help it—depending on which came first, of course. Senator Ford. I asked Dr. Glaser a question about his patent. But what really matters is whether companies interested in the solar power satellite are deterred by t e patent. That's the issue—does Dr. Glaser's patent cover any part of the Powersat design Mr. Taylor. I am not familiar with whether it does or not. Senator Ford. Is Boeing concerned about his patent at all? Mr. Taylor. No. Senator Ford. Is Boeing confident and a e you confident that it is just a matter of time before Powersat will become economically attractive?
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