made [2], The vehicles for economic operation of the system are large by current standards but will be needed for such large-scale operations as constructing solar power satellites. An artist's concept, guided by engineering input, is shown in Fig. 10. Such a vehicle could transport 50000 kilograms representing a payload faction of 51% to GEO and return to LEO in 35 days with four Earth based beams and in 140 days with one Earth beam. A fleet of such vehicles, going in convoy, could move very large amounts of material at low cost. In addition, express trips to GEO with minimum payload could be made in a matter of ten days with four beams. An Orbiting Industrial Park System The President's Commission on Space referred to Orbiting Industrial Parks in their published report. Such ‘industrial parks' will be very much dependent upon large amounts of low-cost electric energy. However, they will quite likely be in low Earth orbit and not concerned with the geography beneath them. Hence, the industrial parks could be constructed in the equatorial plane and jointly use and buy electric energy
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