SRC-547

Final Report, Laser Power Conversion System Analysis, Vol. II -- NASA CR-159523; Contract NAS3-21137; September 1978 (documentation form gives March 15, 1979 for Vols. I and II jointly)

Commissioned by NASA Lewis Research Center, Contract NAS 3-21137. 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-1232 In 1978 a NASA contractor designed a satellite that would turn sunlight into an infrared laser beam and send it, by way of a mirror satellite high above the equator, to a ground station about 30 m across. The ground station would use the beam as heat to run turbines. On paper, about 5 to 6 per cent of the sunlight collected in space would reach the grid as electricity.
• CLM-1233 The design's beam would be very intense at the receiver, about two thousand times stronger than sunlight, so the site would need a fenced zone a few hundred metres across. At the fence, the study says, the infrared light would be far below the eye-safety limit of the day. A passing jet would warm slightly, but a slow light aircraft might be harmed.

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