Kevin Street wrote: > I really like this one. Dr. David Criswell has come up with a good reason to > start up the space race again. If the Chinese claim the moon first, they > might become the new power barons of the 21st century. > > Dr. Criswell has a plan to plate the moon with solar cells and beam the > collected energy to earth. According to him, it would take about fifteen > billion dollars to get started, and another hundred and thirty five billion > dollars to break even, but after that all those sunbeams would be money in > the bank. Forget about oil and nuclear energy, the real future could be > solar powered!
*snip* G. Harry Stine proposed something like this back in the late 70's, but he was recommending satellites. It seems to me that satellites would be cheaper and more efficient, as well as easier to build, control and maintain. Granted, I'm not a rocket scientist, but it seems to me it'd be a waste of energy to go all the way to the moon to plant something that'd do just as well a mere couple thousand miles up. Adam
