Value chain · CLM-0934
In plain terms
In 1988 the NASA centre running the work said the solar power satellite programme did not stop because the technology failed. It stopped because the up-front investment was more than American utilities would risk, and because the energy crisis ended. The same document reports that the centre's own three-year rectenna research at very high frequencies produced encouraging results and no working devices.
The claim as recorded
NASA Lewis states in 1988 that the SPS programme stopped for investment risk and the end of the energy crisis, not for technical failure. Transcribed from the Program Background: studies indicated the SPS was technologically feasible, proven in part by the 1975 Goldstone demonstration, and "Despite the technical feasibility of such a system, the initial investment to make the SPS system cost competitive was higher than what the U.S. utility industry was willing to make in such a high risk enterprise. The momentum generated by the SPS concept during the early 70's quickly diminished when the energy crisis ended almost a decade later." The same centre reports its own null result four printed pages later: a three-year effort to develop high-frequency rectennas at 300 GHz (Georgia Institute of Technology, NASA Grant NAG3-282) and 28 THz (University of Cincinnati, NASA Grant NAG3-532), of which "At the termination of both grants, some encouraging results were obtained, although no operational devices were completed."
Evidence behind this: NASA Lewis Research Center's own programme background, in a NASA conference publication - the sponsoring centre describing why its own programme stopped and reporting its own negative result. The Program Background pages are heavily letter-for-digit corrupted and the passages below are TRANSCRIBED, with the raw rendering given in `support`.
Scope and limits
THIS IS THE SPONSOR'S OWN ACCOUNT OF WHY ITS PROGRAMME ENDED AND IS NOT AN INDEPENDENT FINDING. A research centre explaining a cancellation has an obvious interest in attributing it to funding climate rather than to technical shortfall, and this record does not weigh that - it records what the centre said. NOTHING HERE ESTABLISHES THAT THE TECHNOLOGY WAS IN FACT FEASIBLE; the same volume's Brown viewgraph, CLM-0933, puts the assumed SPS efficiency above anything then measured, which is a technical gap the same document carries. "The initial investment" is not quantified anywhere on that page. The rectenna null is a null about two grants, not about the frequencies - encouraging results were obtained, and what they were is not stated here.
What it assumes
No assumptions are recorded against this claim.
Where it comes from
Read first-hand on registration. The grant sentence is VERBATIM and clean: "At the termination of both grants, some encouraging results were obtained, although no operational devices were completed." The investment sentence is TRANSCRIBED because the page is letter-for-digit corrupted; raw rendering: "Despite the technical feasibillty of such a system, the initial investment to make the SPS system cost competitive was higher than what the U.S. utillty Industry was w1111ng to make In such a hlgh rlsk enterprise. The momentum gen- erated by the SPS concept during the early 7O's quickly diminished when the energy crisis ended almost a decade later." "quickly diminished when the energy crisis ended" matches clean and is the anchor. Grant identifiers "300 GHz", "28 THz", "NAG3-282", "NAG3-532" are clean. "Cincinnati" is not clean on this page: the layer gives "Unlverslty of C1nclnnat_" (PDF p.13), and the clean hits for "Cincinnati" are elsewhere, on PDF pp.5, 7, 105 and 187. "Georgia Institute of Technology" renders as "Georgia Instltute of Technology", and "Georgia Tech" does not occur on PDF p.13; case-insensitive, it occurs on PDF pp.31 and 37.
Basis: GHz and THz (rectenna development frequencies)
Related records
- Answers question
- QST-002 not published in this release
Cite this
energyaperture.com/c/clm-0934
CLM-0934, Energy Aperture, as of 1988.
Connected records
Other published records linked to this one. A list, not a judgement.
- Also from SRC-417
- CLM-0933In 1988 the leading experimenter listed three numbers side by side: the best efficiency physics allows for beaming power and converting it...CLM-0940Two NASA efforts to build rectennas at much higher frequencies than the standard 2.45 GHz ended without a working device. One concluded the...