The Ecological Situation and C.I.S. Scientists’ Work on the SPS Problem V. PRISNIAKOV* The people of Russia, the Ukraine and other countries now existing in the former USSR’s territory are deeply disturbed by the state of the environment. Energetics based on fossil sources and nuclear power causes great damage by pollution of the biosphere, though in energy production per capita our countries are still behind the leading industrial powers. Under these conditions the search for new technologies in energy production becomes extremely important. Both scientists and government are paying more and more attention to this problem. The public is becoming aware of the fact that there are no alternatives to using inexhaustible, ecologically clean solar power. In the Ukraine an extensive state program of solar energetics development has recently been adopted. The idea of solar power satellites put forward by Dr. P. Glaser evoked great interest in the USSR. It may not be out of place to mention that as early as 1903 the prominent Russian scientist and thinker, and founder of theoretical cosmonautics, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, wrote about the necessity of seizing the unlimited energy of Space, and at the dawn of the cosmic era in 1960 a suggestion to supply the Earth with solar power from a satellite was published in the Soviet Union on the pages of a popular youth magazine. The great experience gained in the process of creating power plants of space vehicles enabled soviet scientists to join actively in the development of the SPS concept. Since 1977 the USSR’S leading research centres have been involved in investigations into the problem of solar power satellites. This work was continued even in the early 80’s when the negative resolution of the DOE-NASA project caused a decreasing interest in the problem abroad. For the last 5 years there has been a revival of interest in SPS which has been stimulated by the accumulation of theoretical materials and new possibilities in cosmonautics connected with the appearance of the powerful launcher “Energiya” (only 3 launches of “Energiya” are required to realize the SPS demonstration project). Practically all questions that arose in the process of SPS development were reflected in the work of C.I.S. scientists : methods of solar energy conversion into the electric form, installation of power satellite structures into geosynchronous orbit; energy transmission to the Earth by microwave radiation. f Rector of Dniepropetrovsk State University, Academician of the Ukrainan Academy of Sciences, Dniepropetrovsk State University, 72 Gagarin Avenue, 320625 Dniepropetrovsk, Ukraine.
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