This article is 5 years Old, yet we only now see the moon getting the attention of others besides nasa.
The movement towards an entreprenurial Space, where systems cant check the physics is about too unfold. Biggest danger... as always....inertia led by those within the current institutions, where the monitoring of largess, has replaced the creative will to do things that reach farther, perform better, and cheaper, isnt just a buzz word for preservation of inflated values that mask a sleight of hand..
Power Play For the Moon Predicted
By Leonard David
Senior Space Writer
posted: 01:45 pm ET
15 October 2002
HOUSTON -- In the not too distant future when the Sun goes down, humanity may look to the Moon to light up the night in more ways than one.
University of Houston (UH) researchers are proposing here at the World Space Congress novel ways to harness sunlight energy not only to feed an energy-starved Earth, but also energize industrial bases and colonies on the Moon.
Master plan for the Moon
Alex Freundlich, a UH researcher, along with Charles Horton, senior research scientist at the Texas Center for Superconductivity and Advanced Materials, see a way to create huge solar cell arrays on the Moon. They can be fabricated by using materials found in the lunar regolith the upper crust of the Moon.
Working with NASAs Johnson Space Center, Freundlich and his colleagues have used "simulated" Moon material to devise solar cell devices.
The work has lead to a master plan for the Moon.
Whats required is a robotic lunar rover that cuts across the Moons surface, melting the regolith into a very thin film of glass. Then, a thin film of solar cells is applied to that lunar glass substrate. An array of such lunar solar cells could then be used as a giant solar energy converter that cranks out electricity.
Radiation resistant
"These solar cells would have lower efficiencies compared to devices currently used on Earth," Freundlich reported. "But by using such a large surface area, we could eventually generate enough electricity to supply a lunar base, support lunar manufacturing or colonies," he said.
Freundlich and his fellow researchers are developing solar cells that are far more efficient at converting sunlight than those utilized on spacecraft. Also, the advanced solar cells are being made to be more resistant to damaging radiation.
"The best space solar cell technology currently in use converts only about 28 percent of the sunlight hitting the device into electricity," Freundlich notes. "By adding a thin layer of nano-engineered material in these cells we are capable of boosting solar cell efficiencies to well above 35 percent," he added.
Criswell predicts
All this is good news for another lunar specialist, David Criswell, director of UHs Institute for Space Systems Operations.
Criswell is a strong advocate for solar power stations constructed on the Moon as a way to provide sustainable and affordable electric power to Earth. "They are likely the only option for enabling global prosperity by 2050," he believes. "The capital investment on the Moon will establish a large human population there and a manufacturing capacity that can create enormous new wealth," he predicts.
Criswell foresees hundreds to thousands of people a year scooting between the Earth and Moon.
Exporting sunlight
The airless Moon receives more than 13,000 terawatts of solar power. Harnessing just one percent of that sunlight could satisfy Earths power needs, Criswell said.
Criswell wants to put large banks of solar cells on the Moon that collect sunlight. That sunlight is then exported back to receivers on Earth via a microwave beam. That microwave energy is collected on Earth, converted to electricity, and fed into the local energy grid.
The Lunar Solar Power (LSP) system promoted by Criswell can be scaled up on the Moon to supply the 20 terawatts or more of electricity required by 10 billion people. Sunlight cascading down on the Moon is continuous, except once a year for about three hours during a full lunar eclipse. During that period of time, stored energy could be used to keep the energy pipeline from the Moon to the Earth fully operational.
High priority
"New wealth generated on the Moon will enable the cost-effective exploration of the Moon and the inner solar system, defense of the Earth and the Moon against comets and asteroids, and commercial development of the Moon and the inner solar system," Criswell explained to an audience at the World Space Congress.
"The highest priority must be given to establishing a base on the Moon," Criswell said, "to develop and demonstrate the LSP System, bootstrapping of industrial systems, and manufacturing of low-cost commodity products that enable safe living on the Moon."
"Our initial exploration of near-Earth space is supported by a tiny fraction of the discretionary wealth of society," Criswell concluded. "Growing long-term exploration of the Moon and the solar system requires the development of resources and a population on the Moon to generate growing off-Earth wealth. At this time, the critical frontier for humankind is economic development of the solar energy and material resources of the Moon." |
