In the Australian newspaper Tasmanian Times, conservationist Kim Peart wrote:
“In his 1976 vision for human space settlement, ‘The High Frontier,’ Princeton professor Gerard K. O’Neill wrote ‘We will find ourselves here on Earth with a clean energy source and will further improve our environment by saving, each year, a billion tonnes (sic) of fossil fuels.’”
“This ‘clean energy source’ was to be from the unlimited energy-well of the Sun, by building solar power stations in space to access directly the radiant energy of our star where Sol never sets. Instead, humanity chose to dig deeper into the Earth for fossil fuel, which has led to global warming, climate change and ocean acidification, as well as disasters like the 2010 Gulf oil well explosion and subsequent pollution.
“Now we fight over where the power and water comes from. There should be no such fight. We are simply paying the price of skipping out on serious space development in the 1970s.
“If current Earth changes could have been avoided entirely by drilling up for energy instead of down, then the real discussion should be about how soon we catch up with the future and build solar power stations in space.
“With survival on the line, we need to identify how to secure a confident survival presence beyond Earth, so that we will be able to deliver a sustainable human presence on Earth.”
These are the thoughts of a conservationist on the other side of the planet, but they ring true no matter where on Earth we live. Space based solar power is not science fiction—it is being developed right now, right here. One company has filed two patents for a system to capture clean, inexhaustible power from the sun and deliver it to us in our homes and factories, and another company has signed an agreement with California’s Pacific Gas and Electric Co. (PG&E) to provide space based solar power within the next decade.
Clearly, the technology exists now. We don’t have to wait for some new and exotic materials (called “unobtanium”) by some and the engineering is just that; nuts and bolts engineering. We have hundreds of satellites circling the Earth providing us with communications and entertainment so easily and universally that we take it for granted. Rocket launches take place every day and scarcely get mention anywhere except the space development journals.
If we have the technology, and even President Obama has mentioned funding it in his budget proposals, what are we waiting for? It’s known as “political will.”
Not partisan politics, but the will of the people, you and me, to declare our determination to free humanity from dependence on fossil fuels for our energy needs.
Where will this lead us? The International Space Station is already home to humans living and working in space. Hotel magnate Robert Bigelow already has two inflatable habitats in orbit as test platforms while he builds larger structures which in time will become orbiting hotels for the adventurous and bases for journeys to the Moon, Mars and beyond.
Humans have always looked up at the stars and wondered what it would be like to go there. Isn’t it time we did it? Let’s start by endorsing and supporting efforts to capture the Sun’s inexhaustible and uninterruptible energy, freeing us to step across the borders of the next frontier.
