Value chain · CLM-1057
In plain terms
The safety study's own picture of the system: about $13 billion of hardware per satellite in 1978 money, 640 people in orbit for six months to build each one, forty heavy launches per gigawatt, a launch site loud at six kilometres and windows rattling at 125, and one rocket failure that could kill a thousand.
The claim as recorded
The final health-and-safety volume characterises the reference SPS at "$13,421 x 10^6 (1978 $)" of direct equipment and construction material cost per unit, "average for 60 units, including investment phase costs", excluding rectenna land at $125 million and labour at $327 million per unit; construction labour of 0.70 million person-hours in orbit, 2.83 million in launch operations, 4.22 million in launch-area maintenance and 15.0 million building the rectenna; "640 persons in orbit for 1/2 year to construct 5000 MW satellite" and "approx. 1400 maintenance crew in orbit for 300 GWe system"; "approximately 40 flights per 1000 MW capacity during construction phase"; launch noise of 95 dBA at 6 km and sonic-boom overpressure able to cause "nonprimary structural damage at 125 km"; an HLLV catastrophe whose "maximum accident may exceed 1000 fatalities"; orbital crews' "peak exposure potential of 2400 mW/cm2"; and, as printed, transmitter densities "22 kW/cm2" centre and "2.4 kW/cm2" edge where the reference design's unit is per m2.
Evidence behind this: T3-the programme's secondary characterisation of the reference system (its ref 56), tabulated numbers read from a render, with one unit slip carried as printed.
Scope and limits
A SECONDARY CHARACTERISATION (its ref 56) OF THE REFERENCE SYSTEM, NOT A DESIGN DOCUMENT; the "kW/cm2" is a unit slip against CLM-0204's 22 kW/m2; the 1000-fatality event is a stated maximum with no probability.
What it assumes
No assumptions are recorded against this claim.
Where it comes from
ER-0091 PDF p.44 image read: "$13,421 x 106 (1978 $)"; "Average for 60 units, including investment phase costs. Excludes receiving antenna land ($125 x 106/unit) and estimated labor costs ($327 x 106/ unit)"; the four labour figures; "22 kW/cm2 2.4 kW/cm2 23 mW/cm2 1 mW/cm2 <0.01 mW/cm2 0.222". PDF p.47 normalised: "640 persons in orbit for 1/2 vear to construct 5000 MW satellite"; "approx. 1400 maintenance crew in orbit for 300 GWe system"; "peak exposure potential of 2400 mW/cm2". PDF p.46 normalised: "Maximum accident may exceed 1000 fatalities". ER-0053 PDF p.41 normalised: "Approximately 40 flights per 1000 HW capacity during construction phase"; raw: "95 dBa at 6 km distance"; "nonprimary structural damage at 125 km distance". PDF p.64 Table A.1: SPS 5,000 MW, 90 per cent, "Land and labor costs excluded. Values are 1978 dollars".
Basis: CDEP characterisation, 1978 dollars
Related records
- Answers question
- QST-037 not published in this release
- Contradicts
- CLM-0204 In this 1978 design, heat from the power-conversion tubes, not the RF electronics themselves,... on the printed transmitter unit only (a slip not a design figure)
Cite this
energyaperture.com/c/clm-1057
CLM-1057, Energy Aperture, as of 1980.
Connected records
Other published records linked to this one. A list, not a judgement.
- Also from SRC-525
- CLM-1056Measured in expected deaths per year for a big power station's worth of electricity, the programme found coal far the worst and everything...
- Also from SRC-536
- CLM-1056Measured in expected deaths per year for a big power station's worth of electricity, the programme found coal far the worst and everything...