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Lunar Solar Power?

Larspeart

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Alright, I have heard this for years, but in the last week or so (with Bush's upcoming announcements and all) it has come up a lot more. A viable reason to establish a lunar base, besides serving as a jumping point for Martian and outer solar system exploration and exploitation, is that we could somehow harness and gather solar power on the Moon 24/7 in massive amounts, and 'beam' it back to Earth. I have heard some estimates that harvesting solar power in this manner could supply Earth with as much as 80% of it's daily output of energy.

Is there any merit to this at all? It seems pretty far out, but I have been hearing it from relatively reliable NASA and scientific sources, so I'm left wondering.

Now, realize that I am a big fan of Martian exploration and colonization, so I'm not dogging any government/private ventures that will get us there. It just seems far out to think that we can realistically gather that much power and then find a way to beam it all back to Earth, cheaply.

Thoughts?
 
What happens during a lunar eclipse? No power for the Earth? What happens if something gets in the way of the power stream? No power again? Will it be one power beam for the entire planet? Seems a lot of “what if” questions need to be addressed before we start reflecting energy from the moon back to the Earth.
 
knightmb said:
Seems a lot of “what if” questions need to be addressed before we start reflecting energy from the moon back to the Earth.
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Sim City 2000 had a power plant on this premise. Every so often, the beam would get misaligned and seriously fry something on the ground.
 
Granted, due to the lack of an atmosphere, the Moon receives more solar energy per unit area than would this same area on Earth.

However, the problem of collecting that energy then transmitting that back to Earth is considerable. After all, if it was really so easy to collect vast amounts of solar energy, then one would see this sort of thing here on terra firma.

However, dealing with the problem of transmitting vast amounts of energy from the Moon down to Earth is a very large task as well. It is too long to string wires. Microwaves would be mostly absorbed by the atmosphere. Lasers could keep a nice tight beam, pack a lot of energy, and possibly be used to heat boilers or something which could be used to drive turbines that spin generators. But high-power lasers are very inefficient (about 1% is typical), so one would really have to collect mucho, mucho, mucho, Lunar solar energy for such a system to be worth the effort.

In short, Lunar Solar Energy sounds impractical at this time.
 
knightmb said:
What happens during a lunar eclipse? No power for the Earth? What happens if something gets in the way of the power stream? No power again? Will it be one power beam for the entire planet? Seems a lot of “what if” questions need to be addressed before we start reflecting energy from the moon back to the Earth.
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The argument is that there are portions of the moon that receive almost constant solar contact.

Yeah, it seemed pretty impractical to me too. I just see a lunar base as a jumping off point to deeper/further exploration in the solar system.

I'll bet with the refocus towards manned missions to the moon and mars, the New Horizons mission to Pluto gets scrapped. it's too bad, because this is about the end of the window for a practical mission to Pluto for the next 200 years.

:(
 
Even assuming an eficient method for transmitting the power, why go 240,000 miles to the moon to collect solar power when it can be collected in a much closer earth orbit?
 
Larspeart said:

I'll bet with the refocus towards manned missions to the moon and mars, the New Horizons mission to Pluto gets scrapped. it's too bad, because this is about the end of the window for a practical mission to Pluto for the next 200 years.

:(
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You are probably right. Lots of science will be sacrificed to support manned missions. The shuttle has been an expensive and tragic waste. The ISS is a huge boondoggle that has no real purpose. Dozens of worthwhile projects have lost out to the "glamour" of manned missions. To bad...
 
The ISS is a pointless hunk of money-sucking metal. It had provided NO science, and does nothing in its present (and likely permanent) status. Get rid of it!

The Shuttle has been long-overdue for replacement, and I say it is about time we look to other, better, bigger, more efficient craft. The orbital space plane is a start, but is by no means an ideal. I want to see what the X-project and other private industries can come up with.
 
patnray said:
Even assuming an eficient method for transmitting the power, why go 240,000 miles to the moon to collect solar power when it can be collected in a much closer earth orbit?
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You're absolutely right. Not only is it easer to put them in close orbits but you can repair/replace them at a fraction of the cost of lunar-based collectors. In addition the Moon has a two week day/night cycle. That means either you go without for a couple of weeks every month or you spread your collectors around the Moon.

Actually microwaves aren't absorbed that readily by the atmosphere (why we use them in radar) though the power concentrations would need to be either very great or you have to use large surface collectors. And you can use microwave antenna to convert the energy back to electricity on the surface.

Another thing you can do in orbit that you can't do on the Moon is drag a long conducting cable below you and extract energy from the Earth's magnetic field.

The ISS is useless. Reagan was told it would cost 8 billion - the cost is at 100 billion now and the thing ain't even close to being finished. And what can you do on it that you can't do on an automated probe? Host very rich people in bad conditons? The ISS is nothing more than a place for the space shuttle to go - another waste of money that needs to be scrapped.
I say get rid of NASA and it's stranglehold on the private development of space.
 
Back to lunar solar power: I think sometimes scientific minds get carried away.

Possible or not, the idea is daft. Think about it: Assume a solar panel costs X$. To transport it to the Moon (or mine stuff and produce it on the Moon), will cost hundreds of times the price of the solar panel (at present millions of times, but let's be optimistic about technological advances). So, even if it was many times more effective on the Moon, it would still be cheaper (and safer) to install it on Earth.

Hans
 
/cheer Age

I totally agree. NASA, as well as other nations using government to stranglehold the world on the issue of space has got to stop. The minute the private industry is allowed to go balls out on space on their own terms, you'll see RAPID space and technology developments. The private industry is just itching to look for mineral and techo-rights, as well as set up land developments on the Moon/Mars.
 
People saying the ISS is a waste are just wrong. Anything we do in the area of space exploration is an experience we will learn from. Each is a stepping stone.
 
Larspeart said:
The argument is that there are portions of the moon that receive almost constant solar contact.
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That is wrong. The moon turns on its axis about every 29 Earth days, so most portions of the moon, away from the poles, have a roughly 14 x 24 hour 'day' followed by a 14 x 24 hour night. The polar regions have midnight sun and constant darkness at different times of the year, much the same as the arctic and antarctic on Earth, but receive relatively little solar radiation per unit area anyway (same as on Earth, which is why it's cold at the poles).
 
Demigorgon said:
People saying the ISS is a waste are just wrong. Anything we do in the area of space exploration is an experience we will learn from. Each is a stepping stone.
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We are certainly getting information and experience from it, but it's the cost we are paying for what we are getting that makes it a waste. It's already an order of magnitude over it's original budget and the stupid thing isn't finished yet.

What really bugs me about W's announcement is that we're only adding $1.5B over the next 5 years, it's about $500M per shuttle flight! Add in the gap between when the shuttles are planned to retire and when it's (as yet undesigned) replacement enters operation and I'm wondering how exactly they're planning to get to Mars. If this is anything other than an election year feel good story then it'll be another money pit like Apollo. Good for the national prestige of those who care about that sort of thing but an extremely wasteful way to design synthetic orange flavored drinks.
 
What really bugs me about W's announcement is that we're only adding $1.5B over the next 5 years, it's about $500M per shuttle flight!
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They're re-alocating the shuttles monies to the new program.
 
Yup, so while they are only adding $1.5Bil, they will be redirecting a lot of the shuttle money (and later the ISS dough) towards the Moon and Mars. If Bush wants us to be on the Moon by 2013-2015, they will find the money.
 
Demigorgon said:
People saying the ISS is a waste are just wrong. Anything we do in the area of space exploration is an experience we will learn from. Each is a stepping stone.
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We've learned just how much money we can waste if a project is ill conceived and has no concrete goal...
 
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