About 200 years has passed since the start of the industrial revolution, and humanity has now arrived at a major crisis related to its energy supply. In recent years there has been extensive debate and media coverage about clean energy, sustainable development, and global climate change, but what has largely been missing in the mainstream media is genuine knowledge about the point of view of scientists and engineers concerning viable and permanent solutions to many of these challenges. This chapter will elaborate on the prospects of mankind’s technological capability focusing specifically on taming the energy of our Sun, especially on the great potential of harvesting solar energy directly from space before it enters our atmosphere (or SBSP, space based solar power), and explore the imperative to invest in the development of this critical human endeavor not only to resolve our crisis in energy supply, but also to address major crises including anthropogenic (human-caused) climate change, war, terrorism and sustainable and peaceful human development on this planet and beyond.
Read more here: Harnessing the Sun Hsu
|This paper was first published as part of Space Commerce, The Inside Story, published by the Aerospace Technology Working Group (ATWG) and included on this site through the courtesy of ATWG, ISU and the individual authors.
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