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:
Space Traffic Management (STM) Needed Now
'...the spot was a lonely one in an uncharted region, far from the normal lanes of space traffic.' - Arthur William Bernal (1935)
Capturing Asteroids With Nets
'...the meteor caught and halted just as a small boy catches a swift ball in his cap.' V.E. Thiessen, 1947.
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.
Humanoid Robots Building Humanoid Robots
''Pardon me, Struthers,' he broke in suddenly... 'haven't you a section of the factory where only robot labor is employed?''
Stratospheric Solar Geoengineering From Harvard
'Pina2bo would have to operate full blast for many years to put as much SO2 into the stratosphere as its namesake had done in a few minutes.'