production operations of SSPS construction would take place within the weather-free, zero-gravity enclosed environment of a space community's assembly volume, which should favor high productivity. Because of the exponential growth of the number of SMFs satellite power could have a strong impact relatively soon. By year 11 from the start of SMF construction, the usable electric energy supplied to the earth by the program 15 6 could exceed the peak capacity of the Alaska pipeline (2 x 10 barrels a day). Two years later the production rate of SSPS plants could exceed the U. S. annual need for new generating capacity. By year 17, the total energy so far provided from the satellites could exceed the estimated capacity15 of the Alaskan North Slope (IO1" barrels). Life-support In the long run it may well be that the people working at the orbital manufacturing facilities may build very comfortable and earthlike habitats. Much of the public interest in this concept may be due to that possibility. In the early days, though, it seems almost certain for economic reasons that the orbital facilities will house a selected, highly-qualified, highly motivated population nearly all of whom will be working, and working hard. They will not be in a utopian paradise or a laboratory for sociological experiments. The orbital facility will be much more like a Texas-tower oil rig, or a construction camp on the Alaska pipeline, or like Virginia City, Nevada, in about the year 1875.
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