Clean energy. Space exploration. Blasting the Earth with giant beams of microwave radiation?!? This article explores the history of an idea that refuses to die, no matter how many times we try to kill it.
Published in American Energy Policy in the 1970s, edited by Robert Lifset (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2014).
A solar power satellite orbits 22,240 miles above the Earth, collecting the sun’s energy and transmitting it safely to the surface in this illustration from artist Kris Holland. This magazine cover was printed in 2008, because solar power satellites are the idea that will never die.
Ad Astra: The magazine of the National Space Society, Volume 20, Number 1 (Spring 2008).