FIGURE 31 Supershuttle for everyone-in-orbit enterprise Of course delivery of solar power from GEO to the ground-or even to SUPERSHUTTLE (at the 80,000-ft.-high beginning and end of each jaunt into space)-- requires new technology, as present day laser or microwave systems deposit power inside the atmosphere, with possibly negative environmental impact to birds, planes, people, other fauna, and flora. New technology for power transmission from space The optical MACROLASER, stellar energy handling satellites, relying on the new "liquid space optics" technology, could solve the problem of economically supplying all but limitless "free" solar energy to Earth—at least to the outermost reaches of the atmosphere. There yet remains the problem of transmitting that energy safely, continuously and efficiently, to the ground. Obviously the expedient of "shining (laser or maser or even concentrated sunlight) beams down through the atmosphere," is fraught with potential risks to both physical and life forms, let alone serious attenuation of the beam itself. A desirable alternative would be a system for converting the beam to a high voltage- low current electrical output at 80,000 ft. altitude (above all clouds, birds, planes, geography, etc.), and then sending the electricity to the ground via a 16-mile-long pair of "umbilical" solid rods of, say, copper. One mile diameter "solar cell sea" at 80000 feet Such a system could be implemented with an 80,000-ft-high receiver consisting of an expanse or "sea" of solar cells. A 22-mile-collector-diameter MACROLASER system in geosynchronous Earth orbit feeding the 16-mile-high solar-cell "sea" at 1% efficiency is
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