Value chain · CLM-0925
In plain terms
In 2001 the whole of American space solar-cell research - NASA, the Air Force and industry together - ran at about eight million dollars a year, against seventy-five million for ordinary ground solar cells at the Department of Energy. The same committee noted that space hardware is built in tiny quantities and tested heavily, while a power satellite would need millions of each part, and that the manufacturing investment NASA does not usually make might be where the biggest saving is.
The claim as recorded
The 2001 NRC committee records that space photovoltaics R&D was funded at roughly one ninth the rate of terrestrial photovoltaics R&D: "The NASA and Air Force R&D annual budgets for space PV are approximately $2 million and $5 million, respectively, with industry investing approximately $1 million of independent R&D in space PV", against "The DOE has an annual budget of approximately $75 million for PV technology development, supported by approximately $20 million from private industry" - about $8 million a year for space against $75 million for terrestrial, before counting the private $20 million. It adds that Japan and the European Union "have also increased support for PV research significantly during the past few years". On manufacturing it states that space components are "made in very small quantities and are subject to extensive testing" while an SSP would need "millions of each item, so process improvement and mass production could result in substantial cost reduction", and that "NASA typically does not invest in manufacturing technology, but for SPMAD, that investment may represent the largest payoff".
Evidence behind this: National Research Council committee assessment, read directly in the held file. The p.39 material comes from section 3-3, which the drafting stream read earlier in the week and did NOT re-read; it was re-checked on registration by quotation match only.
Scope and limits
2001 FIGURES AND THEY ARE ANNUAL BUDGETS, NOT CUMULATIVE INVESTMENT. The one-to-nine ratio is this register's arithmetic on the committee's own numbers, not a figure the committee states. US ONLY - the committee notes Japanese and EU increases without quantifying them, so the ratio is not a world one. The DOE $75 million is for PV technology development generally, not for a space-comparable programme, so the comparison is between differently scoped efforts and should be read as an order-of-magnitude contrast rather than a like-for-like one. NOTHING HERE ESTABLISHES ANY CURRENT FUNDING LEVEL.
What it assumes
No assumptions are recorded against this claim.
Where it comes from
Read first-hand from the held PDF on registration, and verified from a FILE rather than an inline shell string, because a double-quoted shell string eats the dollar figures and returns a false no-match. Raw, printed p.37: "The DOE has an annual budget of approximately $75 million for PV technology development, supported by approximately $20 million from private industry." De-hyphenated, same page: "The NASA and Air Force R&D annual budgets for space PV are approximately $2 million and $5 million, respectively, with industry investing approximately $1 million of independent R&D in space PV." De-hyphenated, printed p.39: "Space components, typically, are made in very small quantities and are subject to extensive testing." / "there will be a need for millions of each item, so process improvement and mass production could result in substantial cost reduction" / "NASA typically does not invest in manufacturing technology, but for SPMAD, that investment may represent the largest payoff".
Basis: USD per year (R&D budgets)
Related records
- Answers question
- QST-002 not published in this release
Cite this
energyaperture.com/c/clm-0925
CLM-0925, Energy Aperture, as of 2001.
Connected records
Other published records linked to this one. A list, not a judgement.
- Also from SRC-054
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