SRC-544

Survey and Documentation of Emerging Technologies for the Satellite Power System (SPS); DOE/ER-0097; April 1981

Commissioned by U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Energy Research, Solar Power Satellite Projects Division; Under Contract No. 31-109-ENG-38. Who paid for a study is recorded because it bears on how its conclusions should be read, not because it makes them wrong.

Published claims resting on this source

• CLM-1410 US government studies around 1980 thought crops might be grown under a receiving station, because its mesh lets most sunlight through and warms the ground only slightly. They also said it would make farming and repairs harder, needed design changes and had not been studied properly. One later survey suggested raising the station and screening the ground from microwaves, or building greenhouses under it.
• CLM-1480 A 1981 survey for the US energy department says that a beam steered by a signal from the ground cannot form without that signal. If the signal fails, the antenna's parts fall out of step, the power spreads over half the sky, and what reaches the ground is as weak as a radio signal. The survey takes this to mean the beam could not be aimed anywhere except at the signal.

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