John Mankins, who oversaw NASA's Advanced Concepts Studies program at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., said a space solar power system would cost trillions of dollars if it were done using traditional, one-of-a-kind spacecraft design and manufacturing processes. "Today, no one has had a business model that's made any sense," Boerman said. "We've taken a different approach." The advantages of collecting solar power in space is that much more solar energy is available and that it is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. PG&E, which is not investing any funds in the project, sees it as a no-risk deal. "It has tremendous commercial potential if Solaren can make this commercially viable," said Jonathan Marshall, head of strategic communications for PG&E. "This is a first of its kind," he added, "but some aspects of the technology are very well established." Related Links: Discovery Space Blog: Free Space |
advertisement
Put Discovery News on Your Site
|
-
our sites
-
video
mobile
-
shop
-
stay connected
-
corporate
