international, political, and commercial relationships as significantly as aeroplanes, electronics, computers and communications shaped the global economy of the 20th century. On Earth, an industrial infrastructure is taken for granted. The founders of new enterprises are concerned with business planning and financial affairs, but not with the existence of a transportation system to bring in raw materials and to ship products from their manufacturing facilities. Nor are they concerned with the required production equipment, the power to operate it, heat or air conditioning, light to create an atmosphere conducive to achieving high productivity by the work force, and all the other amenities and support systems taken for granted on Earth. The industrial infrastructure for space is beginning to evolve with the development of permanently manned space stations and free-flying platforms that are envisaged as evolving into ‘industrial parks' in orbit, equipped with suitable laboratories, production facilities, housing, hangars and supporting services, such as food and fuel supplies, storage, and power-generating plants. The space infrastructure will support a broad spectrum of activities to meet the requirements of scientific investigations, technology demonstration and development, and commercial endeavours. It will enable space operations to be carried out in Earth orbits, on the Moon, planets and asteroids. Growth of the space infrastructure will make it possible to engage in large-scale projects, such as the construction of solar power satellites [1] (SPS) with the appropriate mix of space crews, remotely controlled robots, and automated equipment. Space facilities that may be mannable or permanently manned in high-Earth orbits will most likely require the use of extraterrestrial resources, such as shielding materials and oxygen that can be derived from lunar materials during successive stages of the evolution of the space infrastructure and serve as a node for an integrated transportation system. Solar Space Power Development Phases A key requirement in the evolution of a space industrial infrastructure is the supply of power needed by the various facilities. Just as the industrial revolution was based on the availability of coal to fire boilers to generate steam, so solar energy can be the source of the power for industrial enterprises conducted in space. Extension of the analogy from a terrestrial to a space industrial infrastructure indicates that there will be a role for power generation in space similar to the generation of power on Earth. The opportunities to develop solar space power extend over a time frame into the middle of the next century. They include power generation for the space shuttle, free-flying platforms in low- and high-Earth orbits, mannable and manned-space stations in low- and high-Earth orbits, and the construction and assembly associated with projects such as SPSs, development of facilities in cis-lunar space at Lagrangian libration points, and resource recovery on the Moon and other solar system bodies. Space Shuttle A wide range of space shuttle missions, including Spacelab, are primarily devoted to activities associated with materials processing and science experiments. The on-board power available for these activities is about 3.5 kW, and it has to be shared among the various experiments. As several of the experiments move into the pilot plant and
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