This well-done video presents a number of different space-based solar power ideas.
Science fiction writers have been way out ahead on this topic!
In his 1931 story Power Planet, Murray Leinster detailed the idea of a Power Planet, a very large satellite used to gather solar energy and beam it back to Earth.
Fans of Golden Age sf also recall with fondness the Near-Space Solar Energy Collectors from Olaf Stapledon's 1937 novel Star Maker and the Solar Energy Beam from Clifford Simak's 1941 story Masquerade. And don't miss the solar station from Isaac Asmov's 1941 story Reason.
Be sure to beam these stories down from your local web server:
Elon Musk Wants Data Centers In Space
'Internally it’s made up of millions of components, but the most important ones are the thinking and memory parts of the Mind proper.' - Iain Banks, 1987.
ISS Plagued By Leak - Again!
'There were perhaps a dozen bladder-like objects in the tunnel...' - Robert Heinlein, 1948.
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!)
is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for
the Invention Category that interests
you, the Glossary, the Invention
Timeline, or see what's New.
Boy Makes Biomimetic Turtle Robot
't came out into plain view. Darkington glimpsed a slim body and six short legs of articulated dull metal.'
Elon Musk Wants Data Centers In Space
'Internally it’s made up of millions of components, but the most important ones are the thinking and memory parts of the Mind proper.'
Origin F1 Humanoid Robot's Facial Skin
'I could look down at that face of carefully molded synthetic rubber, tinted the exact shade of the doctor's living flesh.'