of the industrialized nations for the poor and starving of the developing nations. The cost of the necessary R&D will be paid in order to save the environment. If the price is not paid soon we may miss the opportunity of deciding to control our future and be pushed into a downward spiral by forces beyond our dwindling ability to control. Developmental ethics will play a role in clarifying the values at stake in policy decisions and giving moral reasons for alternative courses of action (Engel, 1990). Moral Questions, Moral Justifications One of the many moral questions which technologists must face in creating solutions is: which solution provides the greatest opportunity for enabling sustainable development and economic justice (Engel, 1990) with the. least environmental impact. Markovic (1990) poses some rather rhetorical moral questions which if answered with energy from space as foreign aid provides a moral justification along with the environmental justification for satellite power systems. The ones I agree with and which support my thesis are: • Is it moral for a few generations to consume the resources which are indispensable for the survival of all future generations? • Is it permissible to irreversibly pollute the biosphere? • What legacy will we leave our children? Conclusions Satellite Power Systems (SPS) can have a beneficial impact on the global problems of pollution, the increasing need for energy and the economic imperative for development benefitting the poor of the world. I lowever for the SPS concept to have an impact and to attract the support needed to turn technological dreams into economic reality there must be more to the program than demonstrating another neat technological trick. The source of this support lies within the realm of developmental ethics (Engel, 1990 and Goulet, 1990). The future consequences of present actions and decisions have never before been as morally relevant and urgent as they are today (Kothari, 1990). As the linked and growing crises of energy, the environment and equitable development are showing us decisions taken at one point in time have a powerful impact on people and cultures which have had no voice and been given little consideration in the decision process. Decisions made today will affect future generations in ways which will be largely irreversible. With SPS we have a chance to colonize the future with hope and opportunity. A chance to provide environmentally benign energy while opening a path to the stars. U. S. President George Hush paralleled the thrust of this paper in his greeting to the 1989 Global Change Conference where he said: "Let us remember as we chase our dreams into the stars that our first responsibility is to our Earth, to our children, to ourselves. Yes, let us pursue those dreams, but let us also preserve the fragile world we inhabit." Energy from space provided to the developing nations under a
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