2 CM SPS Affirmative

SPS AFF
DDI 2008 – Clark/Martin Lab

Alex, Dustin, Gabrielle, Kylah
Index
Index........................................................................................................................................................................1
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1AC........................................................................................................................................................................23
**INHERENCY**...............................................................................................................................................24
Need SPS Now......................................................................................................................................................25
Need SPS Now......................................................................................................................................................26
Need Alternative Energy Now............................................................................................................................27
Nobody Doing Plan Now.....................................................................................................................................28
**COMPETITIVENESS**.................................................................................................................................29
Heg Good Impact Extensions..............................................................................................................................30
Economy Impact Module....................................................................................................................................31
Other Countries Ahead Now...............................................................................................................................32
Other Countries Ahead Now...............................................................................................................................33
SPS Solves – Intellectual Competitiveness.........................................................................................................34
SPS Solves – Heg..................................................................................................................................................35
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**SPACE COLONIZATION**.........................................................................................................................36
Not Happening Now.............................................................................................................................................37
SpaceCol Solves Extinction.................................................................................................................................38
SPS Solves.............................................................................................................................................................39
SPS Solves – Beaming Energy............................................................................................................................40
It’s Possible – Mars..............................................................................................................................................41
**SOLVENCY**.................................................................................................................................................42
SPS Provides Energy...........................................................................................................................................43
SPS Solves – Private Sector Key To Tech..........................................................................................................44
AT: Tech Fails......................................................................................................................................................45
NASA Key.............................................................................................................................................................46
NASA Key.............................................................................................................................................................47
NASA Key.............................................................................................................................................................48
DoD Key................................................................................................................................................................49
DoD Key................................................................................................................................................................50
US Key – Global Impact......................................................................................................................................51
US Key – Effective Development........................................................................................................................52
**ADD-ONS**.....................................................................................................................................................53
Failed States Impact Module..............................................................................................................................54
Failed States Impact Module..............................................................................................................................55
Fossil Fuels Impact Module................................................................................................................................56
SPS Solves Energy Crisis.....................................................................................................................................57
SPS Solves CO2....................................................................................................................................................58
Military Readiness Impact Module – Global War............................................................................................59
Military Readiness Impact Module – Hegemony..............................................................................................60
SPS Solves – Not Beaming Energy.....................................................................................................................61
SPS Solves – Saves Soldiers’ Lives.....................................................................................................................64
NASA Key – Military Tech.................................................................................................................................65
Peak Oil Impact Module.....................................................................................................................................66
Internal Link – Prolif...........................................................................................................................................67
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Internal Link – Weather Alteration...................................................................................................................68

Internal Link – Laundry List.............................................................................................................................69
**ANSWERS TO OTHER ARGUMENTS**...................................................................................................72
AT: Economically Unfeasible..............................................................................................................................73
AT: Economically Unfeasible..............................................................................................................................74
AT: Interference...................................................................................................................................................75
AT: Ground Power Tradeoff..............................................................................................................................76
AT: Ground Solar Power CP..............................................................................................................................77
AT: International CP...........................................................................................................................................78
AT: Other Topical Counterplans.......................................................................................................................79
AT: Private Sector CP.........................................................................................................................................80
AT: States CP (maybe)........................................................................................................................................81
AT: Other Agency CPs........................................................................................................................................82
AT: Solar Power Market Arguments.................................................................................................................83
Politics – Plan Popular.........................................................................................................................................84
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Alex, Dustin, Kylah, Gabrielle
1AC
Contention 1: Inherency
The U.S. needs alternatives to relying on unstable, polluting energy sources in

competition with the developing world – space-powered satellites are the best
alternative
National Security Space Office, part of a long-term government study on the feasibility of solar space power as a provider of
U.S. energy, 10-10-07, “Space-Based Solar Power As an Opportunity for Strategic Security,”
http://www.nss.org/settlement/ssp/library/final-sbsp-interim-assessment-release-01.pdf
Since the “Fresh Look” Study much has changed. The events of 9/11 dramatically altered the world
strategic security environment. Major energy producing areas of the world are perceived as being
unstable, and the risks of dependence on unstable areas of the world for energy supplies are
increasingly less acceptable to both citizens and policymakers. The rising demand of the developing
world—in particular the burgeoning economies of China and India—are increasing energy competition.
Growing concern over long‐term climate change has become a mainstream issue. Globalization, begun
at the end of the last century has created an extremely rapid and accelerating pace of change in the
technological, informational, and business sectors. These changes are being driven by the aggregate
decisions of billions of people, millions of companies, thousands of governments, and huge
international markets that cross the borders of over a hundred countries. The ability to stop, or even
slow, this change is beyond the ability of any single nation, company, or organization. The DoD, as the
nation’s largest institutional consumer of technology and energy, has determined that long‐term energy
security is now a forefront issue. The early developments of the 21st Century have created conditions
that merit that this nation takes a relook of SBSP.
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Thus, the plan:
The United States federal government should provide incentives to the

National Aeronautics and Space Administration for research, development, and
implementation of space-based solar power satellites. We’ll clarify.
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Contention 2: Competitiveness
Other countries are surpassing US space tech. Government

incentives are necessary to bridge the gap and spur new tech.
Leonard David, Senior Space Writer, “US Commission Calls for Space Program Overhaul,” November
18, 2002
Japan, China, Russia, India, and France, to name a few, see space as a strategic and economic
frontier that should be pursued aggressively. "So should we," the Commission report comments.
For example, in the booster-for-hire business, the French company, Arianespace, captured 50
percent of the commercial world market in 2001. The United States and Russia each has 19 percent,
the report warns. "The U.S. commercial space industry continues to lose access to markets as
demand decreases and international competition increases. Government regulations and
incentives are necessary to bolster this important market until there is a turn-around in
demand." U.S. market share is on the decline due to foreign government intervention and
protectionist policies, the report says, adding that there is need for fair and open competition. In
this arena, the success or failure of America's future efforts in space exploration is linked to our
ability to work effectively with partners on projects "such as the International Space Station and
planetary defense." A Commission recommendation is for a new business model geared to the U.S.
aerospace industry, making use of innovative government and industry policies. The hope is to
establish a strong and healthy U.S. aerospace industry that is attractive to investors One photo
used by the Commission points to a candidate space investment prospect. "Mining the Moon for ore
and isotopes might make sound commercial business opportunities in the future."
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1AC
Continued lack of US technological dominance collapses the
economy and decreases heg. Status quo funding by Asian
countries and lack of US action ensure this.
Adam Segal ‘04 Is America Losing Its Edge? From Foreign Affairs , November/December
http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/display.article?id=4893
Summary: For 50 years, the United States has maintained its economic edge by being better
and faster than any other country at inventing and exploiting new technologies. Today,
however, its dominance is starting to slip, as Asian countries pour resources into R&D and
challenge America's traditional role in the global economy. Adam Segal is Maurice R.
Greenberg Senior Fellow in China Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations and the author of
Digital Dragon: High Technology Enterprises in China. The United States' global primacy
depends in large part on its ability to develop new technologies and industries faster than
anyone else. For the last five decades, U.S. scientific innovation and technological
entrepreneurship have ensured the country's economic prosperity and military power. It was
Americans who invented and commercialized the semiconductor, the personal computer, and the
Internet; other countries merely followed the U.S. lead. Today, however, this technological
edge-so long taken for granted-may be slipping, and the most serious challenge is coming from
Asia. Through competitive tax policies, increased investment in research and development (R&D),
and preferential policies for science and technology (S&T) personnel, Asian governments are
improving the quality of their science and ensuring the exploitation of future innovations. The
percentage of patents issued to and science journal articles published by scientists in China,
Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan is rising. Indian companies are quickly becoming the second-
largest producers of application services in the world, developing, supplying, and managing
database and other types of software for clients around the world. South Korea has rapidly eaten
away at the U.S. advantage in the manufacture of computer chips and telecommunications software.
And even China has made impressive gains in advanced technologies such as lasers, biotechnology,
and advanced materials used in semiconductors, aerospace, and many other types of manufacturing.
Although the United States' technical dominance remains solid, the globalization of R&D is
exerting considerable pressures on the American system. Indeed, as the United States is
learning, globalization cuts both ways: it is both a potent catalyst of U.S. technological
innovation and a significant threat to it. The United States will never be able to prevent rivals
from developing new technologies; it can remain dominant only by continuing to innovate
faster than everyone else. But this won't be easy; to keep its privileged position in the world,
the United States must get better at fostering technological entrepreneurship at home.
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Economic collapse leads to nuclear war
T. E. Bearden, LTC, U.S. Army (Retired), CEO, CTEC Inc., Director, Association of Distinguished
American Scientists (ADAS), Fellow Emeritus, Alpha Foundation's Institute for Advanced Study
(AIAS)June 24, 2000 (http://www.seaspower.com/EnergyCrisis-Bearden.htm)
As the collapse of the Western economies nears, one may expect catastrophic stress on the 160
developing nations as the developed nations are forced to dramatically curtail orders. International
Strategic Threat Aspects History bears out that desperate nations take desperate actions. Prior to
the final economic collapse, the stress on nations will have increased the intensity and number
of their conflicts, to the point where the arsenals of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) now
possessed by some 25 nations, are almost certain to be released. As an example, suppose a
starving North Korea {[7]} launches nuclear weapons upon Japan and South Korea, including U.S.
forces there, in a spasmodic suicidal response. Or suppose a desperate China — whose long-range
nuclear missiles (some) can reach the United States — attacks Taiwan. In addition to immediate
responses, the mutual treaties involved in such scenarios will quickly draw other nations into
the conflict, escalating it significantly. Strategic nuclear studies have shown for decades that,
under such extreme stress conditions, once a few nukes are launched, adversaries and
potential adversaries are then compelled to launch on perception of preparations by one's
adversary. The real legacy of the MAD concept is this side of the MAD coin that is almost never
discussed. Without effective defense, the only chance a nation has to survive at all is to launch
immediate full-bore pre-emptive strikes and try to take out its perceived foes as rapidly and
massively as possible. As the studies showed, rapid escalation to full WMD exchange occurs.
Today, a great percent of the WMD arsenals that will be unleashed, are already on site within
the United States itself {[8]}. The resulting great Armageddon will destroy civilization as we
know it, and perhaps most of the biosphere, at least for many decades.
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And, sustained US hegemony solves multiple scenarios for
global nuclear war
Robert Kagan, senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, “End of Dreams, Return
of History, July 19, 2007,
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/07/end_of_dreams_return_of_histor.html)
The jostling for status and influence among these ambitious nations and would-be nations is a
second defining feature of the new post-Cold War international system. Nationalism in all its forms
is back, if it ever went away, and so is international competition for power, influence, honor, and
status. American predominance prevents these rivalries from intensifying -- its regional as well
as its global predominance. Were the United States to diminish its influence in the regions
where it is currently the strongest power, the other nations would settle disputes as great and
lesser powers have done in the past: sometimes through diplomacy and accommodation but often
through confrontation and wars of varying scope, intensity, and destructiveness. One novel
aspect of such a multipolar world is that most of these powers would possess nuclear weapons.
That could make wars between them less likely, or it could simply make them more catastrophic.
It is easy but also dangerous to underestimate the role the United States plays in providing a
measure of stability in the world even as it also disrupts stability. For instance, the United States is
the dominant naval power everywhere, such that other nations cannot compete with it even in
their home waters. They either happily or grudgingly allow the United States Navy to be the
guarantor of international waterways and trade routes, of international access to markets and raw
materials such as oil. Even when the United States engages in a war, it is able to play its role as
guardian of the waterways. In a more genuinely multipolar world, however, it would not. Nations
would compete for naval dominance at least in their own regions and possibly beyond.
Conflict between nations would involve struggles on the oceans as well as on land. Armed
embargos, of the kind used in World War i and other major conflicts, would disrupt trade flows in
a way that is now impossible. Such order as exists in the world rests not merely on the goodwill
of peoples but on a foundation provided by American power.
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Collapse of US hegemony would signal a new dark age –
regional nuclear conflict terrorism and death would dominate
the earth
Niall Ferguson, professor at NYU and a senior fellow of the Hoover Institution, 2000, “When Empires
Wane”, http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110005244)
Waning empires. Religious revivals. Incipient anarchy. A coming retreat into fortified cities.
These are the Dark Age experiences that a world without a hyperpower might find itself
reliving. The trouble is, of course, that this Dark Age would be an altogether more dangerous one
than the one of the ninth century. For the world is roughly 25 times more populous, so that friction
between the world's "tribes" is bound to be greater. Technology has transformed production; now
societies depend not merely on freshwater and the harvest but also on supplies of mineral oil that are
known to be finite. Technology has changed destruction, too: Now it is possible not just to sack a
city, but to obliterate it.
For more than two decades, globalization has been raising living standards, except where countries
have shut themselves off from the process through tyranny or civil war. Deglobalization--which is
what a new Dark Age would amount to--would lead to economic depression. As the U.S. sought
to protect itself after a second 9/11 devastated Houston, say, it would inevitably become a less
open society. And as Europe's Muslim enclaves grow, infiltration of the EU by Islamist extremists
could become irreversible, increasing trans-Atlantic tensions over the Middle East to breaking point.
Meanwhile, an economic crisis in China could plunge the Communist system into crisis,
unleashing the centrifugal forces that have undermined previous Chinese empires. Western
investors would lose out, and conclude that lower returns at home are preferable to the risks of
default abroad.
The worst effects of the Dark Age would be felt on the margins of the waning great powers.
With ease, the terrorists could disrupt the freedom of the seas, targeting oil tankers and cruise
liners while we concentrate our efforts on making airports secure. Meanwhile, limited nuclear wars
could devastate numerous regions, beginning in Korea and Kashmir; perhaps ending
catastrophically in the Middle East.
The prospect of an apolar world should frighten us a great deal more than it frightened the heirs
of Charlemagne. If the U.S. is to retreat from the role of global hegemon--its fragile self-belief
dented by minor reversals--its critics must not pretend that they are ushering in a new era of
multipolar harmony. The alternative to unpolarity may not be multipolarity at all. It may be a
global vacuum of power. Be careful what you wish for.
Your heg bad arguments don’t apply, plan ensures positive

space leadership.
National Security Space Office, Report compiled by more than 170 academic, scientific, technical, legal,
and business experts around the world, 10/10/07, “Space Based Solar Power as an Opportunity for Strategic
Security, Report to the director, interim assessment (http://www.nss.org/settlement/ssp/library/final-sbsp-
interim-assessment-release -01.pdf)
FINDING: The SBSP Study Group found that SBSP offers significant opportunities for positive
international leadership and partnership, at once providing a positive agenda for energy,
development, climate, and space.
If the United States is interested in energy, sustainable development, climate change, and the
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peaceful use of space, the international community is even hungrier for solutions to these
issues.
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Additionally, tech breakthroughs resolve nuclear war, famine,
disease, poverty and economic collapse.
Mike Treder, Executive Director of CRN, 02/18/2006, “From Heaven to Doomsday: Seven Future
Scenarios” ,http://ieet.org/index.php/ieet/articles/treder20060218
Research scientists, technology entrepreneurs, open-minded academics and political

progressives are persecuted and stymied in most countries, including the U.S.; they are
systematically silenced, jailed, or exterminated in other places. Advancements in artificial
intelligence, genetic engineering, space exploration, robotics, and nanotechnology come to a
halt. Moore’s Law is finally overturned.
Famine, pestilence, disease, and starvation at levels never seen before devastate much of the
world. As millions suffer horrible wasting deaths, billions more are born into inescapable
poverty and squalor. Chronic worldwide economic crises result in massive political instability
that leads to civil wars, regional wars, and ultimately nuclear wars.
At the close of the 21st century, world conditions have returned to a state more like the 19th
century. It is the second Dark Ages.
Plan solves – SPS is key to sustain the scientific lead of the

U.S.
Joseph D. Rouge – Acting Director, National Security Space Office; 10-10-07; National Security Space
Office; http://www.nss.org/settlement/ssp/library/final-sbsp-interim-assessment-release-01.pdf
In absolute scale and implications, it is likely that SBSP would ultimately exceed both
the Manhattan and Apollo projects which established significant workforces and
helped the US maintain its technical and competitive lead. The committee expressed
it was “deeply concerned that the scientific and technological building blocks critical
to our economic leadership are eroding at a time when many other nations are
gathering strength.” SBSP would require a substantial technical
workforce of high‐paying jobs. It would require expanded
technical education opportunities, and directly support the
underlying aims of the American Competitiveness Initiative.
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Contention 3: Space Colonization
Extinction is inevitable now – we need to get off the rock. Space colonization
is key to save the human race.
William E. Burrows and Professor Robert Shapiro - Senior Research Scientist, Department of Chemistry, Burrows is the
director and founder of the Science and Environmental Reporting Program. A former reporter for The New York Times, The
Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal, New York University; October1999; Ad Astra 11 “An Alliance To Rescue
Civilization” http://www.robertshapiro.org/work3.htm
We who live on Earth are menaced by an array of potential catastrophes that go far beyond what is usually taken to be merely
dangerous. And they require a truly radical strategy to prevent our collective civilization all of culture itself from essentially
vanishing....We therefore believe that it is urgent to hedge against such calamities by preparing a copy of our civilization and
moving it out of harm's way. Even if the Earth were turned into a vast field of devastation, humanity and its achievements
would survive. Think of it as backing up the planet's hard drive and keeping the "disk," constantly updated, in a secure location.
Many of the possible disasters would affect our entire planet, so the logical location for such a haven would be off of it, in a
base on another world. The Moon would appear to be the most likely candidate, and we will use it in our discussion, but we do
not rule out the possibility that it could be elsewhere, for example on Mars. We hope that the project would be international, and
propose to call it the Alliance to Rescue Civilization, or ARC.
Every second we delay space colonization one hundred trillion people die
Nick Bostron, professor of philosophy at Yale University, ’04, “Astronomical Waste: The Opportunity Cost of Delayed
Technological Development,” http://www.nickbostrom.com/astronomical/waste.html
As a rough approximation, let us say the Virgo Supercluster contains 10^13 stars. One estimate of the computing power
extractable from a star and with an associated planet-sized computational structure, using advanced molecular
nanotechnology[2], is 10^42 operations per second.[3] A typical estimate of the human brain’s processing power is
roughly 10^17 operations per second or less.[4] Not much more seems to be needed to simulate the relevant parts of the
environment in sufficient detail to enable the simulated minds to have experiences indistinguishable from typical current
human experiences.[5] Given these estimates, it follows that the potential for approximately 10^38 human lives is lost
every century that colonization of our local supercluster is delayed; or equivalently, about 10^31 potential human lives
per second.
While this estimate is conservative in that it assumes only computational mechanisms whose implementation has been at least
outlined in the literature, it is useful to have an even more conservative estimate that does not assume a non-biological
instantiation of the potential persons. Suppose that about 10^10 biological humans could be sustained around an average star.
Then the Virgo Supercluster could contain 10^23 biological humans. This corresponds to a loss of potential equal to about
10^14 potential human lives per second of delayed colonization.
What matters for present purposes is not the exact numbers but the fact that they are huge. Even with the most
conservative estimate, assuming a biological implementation of all persons, the potential for one hundred trillion
potential human beings is lost for every second of postponement of colonization of our supercluster
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Space colonization solves war, hunger, poverty, disease, and pollution, but
now is key – there’s only a narrow window of time when we have the ability
AND the resources
Sylvia Engdahl, computer science teacher and space advocate, 11-3-03, Space and Human Survival: My Views on the Importance
of Colonizing Space,” www.sylviaengdahl.com/space/survival.htm
Myths showing these things are indeed part of the response to a new perception of our environment: the perception that as far
as Earth is concerned, it is limited. [A basic premise of my course was that all myth is a response of a culture to the
environment in which it perceives itself to exist.] But at the rational level, people do not want to face them. They tell
themselves that if we do our best to conserve resources and give up a lot of the modern conveniences that enable us to spend
time expanding our minds, we can avoid such a fate—as indeed we can, for a while. But not forever. And most significantly,
not for long enough to establish space settlements, if we don’t start soon enough. Space humanization is not something that
can be achieved overnight.
I have called this stage in our evolution the “Critical Stage.” Paul Levinson [the Director of Connected Education] uses
different terminology for the same concept. He says that we have only a narrow window to get into space, a relatively short
time during which we have the capability, but have not yet run out of the resources to do it. I agree with him completely
about this. Expansion into space demands high technology and full utilization of our world’s material resources (although not
destructive utilization). It also demands financial resources that we will not have if we deplete the material resources of Earth.
And it demands human resources, which we will lose if we are reduced to global war or widespread starvation. Finally, it
demands spiritual resources, which we are not likely to retain under the sort of dictatorship that would be necessary to maintain
a “sustainable” global civilization.
Because the window is narrow, then, we not only have to worry about immediate perils. The ultimate, unavoidable danger
for our planet, the transformation of our sun, is distant—but if we don’t expand into space now, we can never do it.
Even if I’m wrong and we survive stagnation, it will be too late to escape from this solar system, much less to explore for the
sake of exploring.
I realize that what I’ve been saying here doesn’t sound like my usual optimism. But the reason it doesn’t, I think, is that most
people don’t understand what’s meant by “space humanization.” Some of you are probably thinking that space travel isn’t
going to be a big help with these problems, as indeed, the form of it shown in today’s mythology would not. Almost certainly,
you’re thinking that it won’t solve the other problems of Earth, and I fear you may be thinking that the other problems should
be solved first.
One big reason why they should not is the “narrow window” concept. The other is that they could not. I have explained why I
believe the problem of war can’t be solved without expansion. The problem of hunger is, or ultimately will be, the direct
result of our planet’s limited resources; though it could be solved for the near-term by political reforms, we are not likely to
see such reforms while nations are playing a “ zero-sum game” with what resources Earth still has. Widespread poverty,
when not politically based, is caused by insufficient access to high technology and by the fact that there aren’t enough
resources to go around (if you doubt this, compare the amount of poverty here with the amount in the Third World, and the
amount on the Western frontier with the amount in our modern cities). Non-contagious disease, such as cancer, is at least
partially the result of stress; and while expansion won’t eliminate stress, overcrowding certainly increases it. The problem
of atmospheric pollution is the result of trying to contain the industry necessary to maintain our technology within the
biosphere instead of moving it into orbit where it belongs.
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We have an obligation to the human race to sustain life and get off the rock
James Pinkerton - A graduate of Stanford University, he served on the White House staff under both Ronald Reagan and George
H.W. Bush; 6-27-06; “The Ultimate Lifeboat” TCS Daily – a publication of tech central station, http://research.lifeboat.com/tcs.htm
But there's one huge problem: No matter how far we go, virtually, we haven't actually gone anywhere, physically. Our
corporeal selves are still here on earth, still vulnerable to whatever fate befalls the earth. All those cyber-savvy yuppies
in the World Trade Center had their cell phones and Blackberries with them on 9-11, and those machines worked fine,
even unto the end. But the vaunted products of the Digital Revolution couldn't save those poor high-techsters from the
grim-reaping reality of the massed kinetics of fiery fuel.
And that's the point about the earth, too. If it goes, we go. And so we should go elsewhere, so that when the earth goes, we
have another place to go. And while we're at it, we should take our pets and plants, too. We wouldn't want to be without them,
just as they wouldn't want to be without us -- even if they don't know it. It's our job to know things, and to act accordingly. And
if we fail at that mission, then we really will have failed in upholding our end of the Burkean bargain -- that is, partnering
not only with the living and the dead, but with those who are yet to be born.
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SPS is the key catalyst for space colonization

The SBSP Study Group found that the SBSP development would have a transformational,
even revolutionary, effect on space access for the nation(s) that develop(s) it.
SBSP cannot be constructed without safe, frequent (daily/weekly), cheap, and reliable access to
space and ubiquitous in‐space operations. The sheer volume and number of flights into space,
and the efficiencies reached by those high volumes is game‐changing. By lowering the cost to
orbit so substantially, and by providing safe and routine access, entirely new industries and
possibilities open up.
SBSP and low‐cost, reliable space access are co‐dependent, and advances in either will catalyze
development in the other.
And, research stimulated by the plan is key to space colonization

Joseph D. Rouge – Acting Director, National Security Space Office; 10-10-07; National Security Space Office;
Several major challenges will need to be overcome to make SBSP a reality, including the creation of low‐cost space
access and a supporting infrastructure system on Earth and in space. Solving these spacesp access and operations
challenges for SBSP will in turn also open space for a host of other activities that include space tourism,
manufacturing, lunar or asteroid resource utilization, and eventually settlement to extend the human race. Because
DoD would not want to own SBSP satellites, but rather just purchase the delivered energy as it currently does via
traditional terrestrial utilities, a repeated review finding is that the commercial sector will need Government to accomplish
three major tasks to catalyze SBSP development. The first is to retire a major portion of the early technical risks.
This can be accomplished via an incremental research and development program that culminates with a space‐
borne proof‐of‐concept demonstration in the next decade. A spiral development proposal to field a 10 MW continuous
pilot plant en route to gigawatts‐class systems is included in Appendix B. The second challenge is to facilitate the policy,
regulatory, legal, and organizational instruments that will be necessary to create the partnerships and relationships
(commercial‐commercial, government‐commercial, and government‐government) needed for this concept to succeed. The
final Government contribution is to become a direct early adopter and to incentivize other early adopters much as
is accomplished on a regular basis with other renewable energy systems coming on‐line today. /
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Contention 5 – Solvency
SPS provides enough clean energy alone for humans to live comfortably for
billions of years
The SBSP Study Group found that by providing access to an inexhaustible strategic reservoir
of renewable energy, SBSP offers an attractive route to increased energy security and assurance.
The reservoir of Space‐Based Solar Power is almost unimaginably vast, with room for growth
far past the foreseeable needs of the entire human civilization for the next century and beyond.
In the vicinity of Earth, each and every hour there are 1.366 gigawatts of solar energy
continuously pouring through every square kilometer of space. If one were to stretch that
around the circumference of geostationary orbit, that 1 km‐wide ring receives over 210
terawatt‐years of power annually. The amount of energy coursing through that one thin band
of space in just one year is roughly equivalent to the energy contained in ALL known
recoverable oil reserves on Earth (approximately 250 terawatt years), and far exceeds the
projected 30TW of annual demand in mid century. The energy output of the fusion‐powered
Sun is billions of times beyond that, and it will last for billions of years—orders of magnitude
beyond all other known sources combined. Space‐Based Solar Power taps directly into the
largest known energy resource in the solar system. This is not to minimize the difficulties and
practicalities of economically developing and utilizing this resource or the tremendous time and
effort it would take to do so. Nevertheless, it is important to realize that there is a tremendous
reservoir of energy—clean, renewable energy—available to the human civilization if it can
develop the means to effectively capture it.
That clean energy spills over into the private sector – companies use new
technologies
Gary Arlen Staff Writer 2/8/05 Post-Newsweek Business Information: Newsbytes "For Tech's Sake: lightweight Solar Power for
Mobile Users" Lexis [ev]
Nonetheless, the opportunity is immense, especially as government users not just military field personnel increasingly rely on
transportable power supplies. Developers envision that their thin-film polymers will be wrapped onto building materials,
such as cubicle walls allowing windows and ceiling lights to feed power to new devices, especially in temporary locations and
venues where traditional electrical wall sockets are scarce. Nanotech energy developers are fond of statistics about the vast
opportunities they face. Of the worldwide energy production (about four terawatts), barely 1 percent comes from renewable
sources, and solar power represents less than 1 percent of that segment, McGahn says. As portable devices demand more
power and as the devices themselves become more multi-functional (further increasing power needs), the value of
photovoltaic supplies becomes more apparent. That is one reason for the young companies to dream that their flexible
products will move beyond the coatings of devices. Invisible rooftop and tent-top solar collectors and even clothing coated
with photovoltaic material are the next steps in this power play. For IT developers especially the growing cadre tasked with
implementing efficient, long-lasting mobile applications the availability of so many photovoltaic options is becoming a
shining ray of light.
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With continued research, new solar technology can be ready by 2010.
Space Daily 7/25/07 "Consortium Achieves Record-High Solar Cell Efficiency" Lexis [ev]
The consortium's goal is to create solar cells that operate at 50 percent in production, Barnett said. With the fresh funding and
cooperative efforts of the DuPont-UD consortium, he said it is expected new high efficiency solar cells could be in
production by 2010. The highly efficient VHESC solar cell uses a novel lateral optical concentrating system that splits
solar light into three different energy bins of high, medium and low, and directs them onto cells of various light sensitive
materials to cover the solar spectrum. The system delivers variable concentrations to the different solar cell elements. The
concentrator is stationary with a wide acceptance angle optical system that captures large amounts of light and eliminates the
need for complicated tracking devices. The VHESC would have immediate application in the high-technology military,
which increasingly relies upon a variety of electronics for individual soldiers and the equipment that supports them. As well, it
is hoped the solar cells will have a large number of commercial applications.
Don’t buy their indicts – embracing technology now is key to effective future
deployment.
Dr. Keith Aliberti, research physicist in the Sensors and Electron Devices Directorate at the Army Research Laboratory and Thomas
L. Bruen logistics management specialist at the Army Logistics Innovation Agency at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, 2007 Army Logistician
Vol 39 No 1 "Energy on Demand" Lexis [ev]
Research is underway in all energy-related areas as the Nation seeks to eliminate its dependence on foreign oil. Several
technical advances have occurred in the use of organic feedstock to produce electricity. Commercial large-scale waste-to-
energy converters have been marketed, and it may be possible to reduce them in size so they can be used on the battlefield.
Photovoltaics is a heavily commercialized area that enjoys significant developmental funding outside of the Department of
Defense. Advances in solar power are occurring with breakthroughs in more efficient materials and designs. Multijunction,
thin-film nanoscale solar cells are in development, promising up to 50-percent energy conversion. Recently, a major scientific
breakthrough occurred in the stabilization and storage of anti-matter, a first step toward unlocking the door to the most
powerful energy source currently known to man. In the coming age of directed-energy weapons, the implications for rearming
and refueling are enormous. Logisticians must demonstrate a willingness to investigate innovative concepts and
technologies leading to onsite usable energy and power systems at the point of effect in the battlespace. We should
develop a basic understanding of the scientific and technological underpinnings of these capabilities in order to influence
policies and procedures that deal with the generation, storage, distribution, utilization, and standardization of new energy
technologies.
Even if the tech doesn’t exist now, the plan spurs private sector development
Finding: The SBSP Study Group found that a small amount of entry capital by the US Government is likely to
catalyze substantially more investment by the private sector.
This opinion was expressed many times over from energy and aerospace companies alike. Indeed, there is anecdotal
evidence that even the activity of this interim study has already provoked significant activity by at least three
major aerospace companies. Should the United States put some dollars in for a study or demonstration, it is
likely to catalyze significant amounts of internal research and development. Study leaders likewise heard that
the DoD could have a catalytic role by sponsoring prizes or signaling its willingness to become the anchor
customer for the product.
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Federal funding is a prerequisite to private sector development – the private
sector will get on board but only after the government demonstrates viability
Brian Berger, Space News Staff Writer, 10-12-07
< http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/071012-pentagon-space-solarpower.html>
Nearer term, the U.S. government should fund in depth studies and some initial proof-of-concept demonstrations to show
that space-based solar power is a technically and economically viable to solution to the world's growing energy needs.
Aside from its potential to defuse future energy wars and mitigate global warming, Damphousse said beaming power down
from space could also enable the U.S. military to operate forward bases in far flung, hostile regions such as Iraq without relying
on vulnerable convoys to truck in fossil fuels to run the electrical generators needed to keep the lights on. As the report puts it,
"beamed energy from space in quantities greater than 5 megawatts has the potential to be a disruptive game changer on the
battlefield. [Space-based solar power] and its enabling wireless power transmission technology could facilitate extremely
flexible 'energy on demand' for combat units and installations across and entire theater, while significantly reducing
dependence on over-land fuel deliveries." Although the U.S. military would reap tremendous benefits from space-based solar
power, Damphousse said the Pentagon is unlikely to fund development and demonstration of the technology. That role, he said,
would be more appropriate for NASA or the Department of Energy, both of which have studied space-based solar power in the
past. The Pentagon would, however, be a willing early adopter of the new technology, Damphousse said, and provide a
potentially robust market for firms trying to build a business around space-based solar power. "While challenges do
remain and the business case does not necessarily close at this time from a financial sense, space-based solar power is closer
than ever," he said. "We are the day after next from being able to actually do this." Damphousse, however, cautioned that the
private sector will not invest in space-based solar power until the United States buys down some of the risk through a
technology development and demonstration effort at least on par with what the government spends on nuclear fusion
research and perhaps as much as it is spending to construct and operate the international space station. "Demonstrations are
key here," he said. "If we can demonstrate this, the business case will close rapidly." Charles Miller, one of the Space
Frontier Foundation's directors, agreed public funding is vital to getting space-based solar power off the ground. Miller
told reporters here that the space-based solar power industry could take off within 10 years if the White House and
Congress embrace the report's recommendations by funding a robust demonstration program and provide the same kind
of incentives it offers the nuclear power industry.
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NASA has the infrastructure and the technological ability to do the plan best
John C. Mankins, former manager of NASA’s Advanced Concepts Studies Office of Space Flight, ’97, “A fresh look at space solar
power: New architectures, concepts and technologies,” Advanced Projects Office of the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration, http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6V1N-3TDH483-
V&_user=4257664&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000022698&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=4
257664&md5=25671813feddd13175814cc6a164b28c
Another important change has occurred at the US national policy level. US National Space Policy now calls for NASA to make
significant investments in technology (not a particular vehicle) to drive the costs of ET0 transportation down dramatically. This is,
of course, an absolute requirement of space solar power. This policy is, of course, independent of any SSP-related considerations
and thus need not be “charged” against the cost of developing SSP technology. Also, a variety of other key technical advances have
been made involving many key technological areas and diverse new systems concepts. Although systems-level validation of key
technologies, such as power conversion and large-scale wireless power transmission (WP R have not occurred, component-level
progress has been great.
Only the federal government can do the plan – acquiescence of all parties is
key to effective policy
Howard Gruenspecht, Deputy Administrator of the Energy Information Administration, January ’02, “EMERGING ENERGY
SECURITY ISSUES:
RELIABILITY AND CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE PROTECTION,” http://209.85.165.104/search?
q=cache:MUkHfBsaphEJ:www.rff.org/rff/Events/AST28/upload/6468_1.pdf+%22Emerging+energy+security+issues:
+reliability+and+critical+infrastructure+protection.%22&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us&client=safari)
Reliability cannot be handled exclusively by private markets or state policies.

Reliability has aspects of a “public good” – access to reliable power depends on
the behavior of all parties throughout the interconnected grid.
Some scope for private acquisition of extra reliability.
System transcends state boundaries.
Action is needed at the federal level to promote the establishment of mandatory reliability rules.
Government approval and oversight of an industry-based reliability system with
mandatory participation is the preferred approach, since government itself lacks
the expertise to directly regulate reliability.
Large regional transmission organizations are a natural focus/locus for
reliability management activities, but they are not yet formed.
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SPS is better than all other forms of alternative energy
The SBSP Study Group found that while the United States requires a suite of energy options,
and while many potential options exist, none offers the unique range of ancillary benefits and
transformational capabilities as SBSP.
It is possible that the world’s energy problems may be solved without resort to SBSP by
revolutionary breakthroughs in other areas, but none of the alternative options will also
simultaneously create transformational national security capabilities, open up the space
frontier for commerce, greatly enable space transportation, enhance high‐paying, high‐tech
jobs, and turn America into an exporter of energy and hope for the coming centuries.
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The US government must lead the way in SSP – it’s the only energy source that
can supply global energy while aiding development and providing future
colonies in space
Peter E. Glaser, member of National Space Society Board of Governors, former Vice President for Advanced Technology at Arthur
D. Little, Inc., fellow of the American Association of the Advancement of Science and the American Institute for Aeronautics and
Astronautics, inducted into the Space Technology Hall of Fame, 2-23-2K, “The World Needs Energy from Space,”
http://www.space.com/opinionscolumns/opinions/glaser_000223.html
Humanity faces a new energy crisis. A growing population and rising per-capita energy consumption require a move away
from the polluting, finite energy supplies now in use. Moreover, renewable energy sources such as conventional solar and
wind power can only meet a portion of projected needs.
Space holds the key to an inexhaustible, non-polluting energy supply. That key is space solar power (SSP) -- using
space-based systems to collect the sun's energy and turn it into usable power for Earth.
SSP would employ satellites in Earth orbit or systems on the moon's surface equipped with solar cells that convert the sun's
energy into electricity. The electricity is fed to transmitting antennas and beamed to receiving antennas on Earth, located on
land or offshore.
This is not some futuristic dream. The key SSP technologies -- solar cells and wireless power transmission (WPT) -- are based
on the work of 19th century innovators such as Henri Becquerel and Nikola Tesla.
During the past three decades, SSP has been studied extensively by space agencies, universities and industry groups
worldwide. International meetings have been held on the subject since 1970. There now exists a large and growing literature on
the technical, economic and societal issues associated with SSP.
NASA and the Energy Department conducted a joint-evaluation program of solar power satellites in the 1970s, but interest
among policymakers declined after that decade's energy crisis faded away. Recently, U.S. political interest in SSP has begun to
revive -- sparked in part by the specter of global warming -- though other nations, including Japan and Russia, have conducted
serious SSP research throughout.
But much greater attention and effort are needed. SSP should become a top priority of the U.S. space program, and more
broadly of government and industry in the U.S. and around the world.
Consider the energy situation now confronting the world. Industrialization and urbanization will mean sharply increased energy
use. Reliance on fossil fuels could produce unprecedented environmental damage. Moreover, such finite sources may soon be
past their peak availability, if they aren't already.
The solution to this problem is to utilize terrestrial renewable energy resources to the maximum extent possible, while at the
same time developing SSP as a global, 24-hour-a-day energy supply.
The conversion of solar energy in space to usable power on Earth is the most plausible global alternative to nuclear
power plants, with their attendant safety, decommissioning and plutonium proliferation issues.
SSP can also be an integral part of global development. It can help boost economic growth and improve living
standards. It is the only means toward increased energy supplies compatible with the environment.
Space solar power is a challenging, long-term opportunity to tap space's unlimited resources rather than relying only on
Earth's limited ones. It will help sustain human life on Earth and, at a future time, in space.
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**INHERENCY**
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Need SPS Now

Solar Powered Satellites are needed now to deal with the looming energy
crisis
The magnitude of the looming energy and environmental problems is significant enough to warrant
consideration of all options, to include revisiting a concept called Space Based Solar Power (SBSP) first
invented in the United States almost 40 years ago. The basic idea is very straightforward: place very large
solar arrays into continuously and intensely sunlit Earth orbit (1,366 watts/m2) , collect gigawatts of electrical
energy, electromagnetically beam it to Earth, and receive it on the surface for use either as baseload power
via direct connection to the existing electrical grid, conversion into manufactured synthetic hydrocarbon fuels, or as
low‐intensity broadcast power beamed directly to consumers. A single kilometer‐wide band of geosynchronous
earth orbit experiences enough solar flux in one year to nearly equal the amount of energy containe within
all known recoverable conventional oil reserves on Earth today. This amount of energy indicates that there
is enormous potential for energy security, economic development, improved environmental stewardship,
advancement of general space faring, and overall national security for those nations who construct and
possess a SBSP capability.
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Need SPS Now

Development of SPS must begin now to solve future energy demands
Alex Canizares – is an associate in the firm’s litigation and international practice groups in Washington; 9-08-00;
WASHINGTON, Sept. 7 (States News Service) – Solar-powered satellites will become a major energy source by 2030,
scientists testified at a congressional hearing Thursday, helping to reduce reliance on dwindling fuel supplies.
With fuel supplies projected to fall and energy costs reaching historic highs, using satellites to transmit energy to
provide electricity used to heat homes and run appliances is becoming technologically viable, scientists told the House
Science subcommittee on space and aeronautics.
Electric energy use is projected to grow 75 percent worldwide by 2020, and oil production will slow due to depleting
reserves after 2015, said Ralph H. Nansen, president of Solar Space Industries.
Scientists say satellites powered by solar power will become a major energy source.
"Space solar power can solve these problems," Nansen said. "The time is now right for their development to begin."
A roadmap
John C. Mankins, manager of Advanced Concepts Studies at NASA, said the space agency is laying out a "roadmap" to
develop satellite-powered energy using several technologies in the works.
High-voltage solar panels that could handle sunlight during 99 percent of a 24-hour day, wireless transmitters that can beam
large amounts of microwave energy, and an "inflatable radiator" to absorb heat in space, are all under development, Mankins
said.
Relaying power from ground stations to satellites and back to ground stations at another location is another, perhaps more
readily available, application, Mankins said. A complete solar power satellite system to produce enough energy to be
economically viable may not emerge until 2025 to 2035, he said.
The idea of transmitting solar energy from space to earth first emerged in the 1960s, but research efforts failed to gain
ground until 1995, when NASA and other scientists began studying the idea more carefully using better technology. NASA
spends $22 million annually on the research.
The next step, Nansen said, is building a ground test program to integrate various technologies, including 20 to 50 kilowatt
solar arrays, antennas to transmit energy, and distribution grids, that would essentially transmit energy across a 1 to 5 kilometer
range on the ground.
However, the scientists said, the costs of launching satellites and hardware into space represent a "significant challenge"
to making solar space energy viable.
Mankins said there is no evidence yet that energy transmission from space using microwaves or lasers would damage the
environment. In fact, the use of solar-derived energy may benefit the environment by reducing reliance on fossil fuels, he
said.
Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., and the subcommittee chair, said he supported looking for "new sources of energy that are
clean" so that energy costs are reduced and "so we won’t have blackouts in California."
Rohrabacher, who has introduced legislation aimed at reducing launch costs, said space solar power is "one reason why I am
a strong advocate for cheap access to space."
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Need Alternative Energy Now

The U.S. needs alternatives to relying on unstable, polluting energy sources in
competition with the developing world – we must look to SPS
http://www.nss.org/settlement/ssp/library/final-sbsp-interim-assessment-release-01.pdf [Tandet]
Since the “Fresh Look” Study much has changed. The events of 9/11 dramatically altered the world
strategic security environment. Major energy producing areas of the world are perceived as being
unstable, and the risks of dependence on unstable areas of the world for energy supplies are
increasingly less acceptable to both citizens and policymakers. The rising demand of the developing
world—in particular the burgeoning economies of China and India—are increasing energy competition.
Growing concern over long‐term climate change has become a mainstream issue. Globalization, begun
at the end of the last century has created an extremely rapid and accelerating pace of change in the
technological, informational, and business sectors. These changes are being driven by the aggregate
decisions of billions of people, millions of companies, thousands of governments, and huge
international markets that cross the borders of over a hundred countries. The ability to stop, or even
slow, this change is beyond the ability of any single nation, company, or organization. The DoD, as the
nation’s largest institutional consumer of technology and energy, has determined that long‐term energy
security is now a forefront issue. The early developments of the 21st Century have created conditions
that merit that this nation takes a relook of SBSP.
Energy demands have changed - a new solution is needed to deal with rising
oil prices
NASA and DOE have collectively spent $80M over the last three decades in sporadic efforts studying this
concept (by comparison, the U.S. Government has spent approximately $21B over the last 50 years continuously
pursuing nuclear fusion). The first major effort occurred in the 1970’s where scientific feasibility of the concept
was established and a reference 5 GW design was proposed. Unfortunately 1970’s architecture and technology
levels could not support an economic case for development relative to other lower‐cost energy alternatives on the
market. In 1995‐1997 NASA initiated a “Fresh Look” Study to re‐examine the concept relative to modern
technological capabilities. The report (validated by the National Research Council) indicated that technology
vectors to satisfy SBSP development were converging quickly and provided recommended development focus
areas, but for various reasons that again included the relatively lower cost of other energies, policy makers elected
not to pursue a development effort.
The post‐9/11 situation has changed that calculus considerably. Oil prices have jumped from $15/barrel to now
$80/barrel in less than a decade. In addition to the emergence of global concerns over climate change, American
and allied energy source security is now under threat from actors that seek to destabilize or control global
energy markets as well as increased energy demand competition by emerging global economies . Our National
Security Strategy recognizes that many nations are too dependent on foreign oil, often imported from unstable
portions of the world, and seeks to remedy the problem by accelerating the deployment of clean technologies to
enhance energy security, reduce poverty, and reduce pollution in a way that will ignite an era of global growth
through free markets and free trade. Senior U.S. leaders need solutions with strategic impact that can be
delivered in a relevant period of time.
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Nobody Doing Plan Now

No government agency is mandated to do the plan now
FINDING: The SBSP Study Group found that no existing U.S. federal agency has a specific mandate to invest
in the development of Space‐Based Solar Power.
• Lacking a specific mandate and clear responsibility, no U.S. federal agency has an existing or planned program of
research, technology investment, or development related to Space‐Based Solar Power. Instead, the responsibilities
for various aspects of SBSP are distributed among various federal agencies.
o Recommendation: The SBSP Study Group recommends that the US Government should form a SBSP
Partnership Council that consists of all federal agncies with responsibilities relevant to successfully developing
SBSP. The SBSP Partnership Council must be chaired and led by an existing or newly created single‐purpose
civilian federal agency.
o Recommendation: The SBSP Study Group recommends that the US Government should task one or more
federal agencies for investing in key technoloies needed for SBSP.
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**COMPETITIVENESS**
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Heg Good Impact Extensions

Collapse of U.S. heg leads to world chaos
Peter Brookes – a senior fellow at The Heritage Foundation; 7-4-06; “Why they need us: Imagine a world
without America” The Heritage Foundation, http://www.heritage.org/press/commentary/ed070406a.cfm
For all the worldwide whining and bellyaching about the United States, today - America's 230th birthday - provides an
opportune time for them to consider for just a moment what the world might be like without good ol' Uncle Sam.
The picture isn't pretty. Absent U.S. leadership, diplomatic influence, military might, economic power and
unprecedented generosity, life aboard planet earth would likely be pretty grim, indeed. Set aside the differences America
made last century - just imagine a world where this country had vanished on Jan. 1, 2001.
On security, the United States is the global balance of power. While it's not our preference, we are the world's "cop on
the beat," providing critical stability in some of the planet's toughest neighborhoods.
Without the U.S. "Globo-cop," rivals India and Pakistan might well find cause to unleash the dogs of war in South Asia
- undoubtedly leading to history's first nuclear (weapons) exchange. Talk about Fourth of July fireworks . . .
In Afghanistan, al Qaeda would still be an honored guest, scheming over a global caliphate stretching from Spain to
Indonesia. It wouldn't be sending fighters to Iraq; instead, Osama's gang would be fighting them tooth and nail from
Saudi Arabia to "Eurabia."
In Asia, China would be the "Middle Kingdom," gobbling up democratic Taiwan and compelling pacifist Japan
(reluctantly) to join the nuclear weapons club. The Koreas might fight another horrific war, resulting in millions of
deaths.
A resurgent Russia, meanwhile, would be breathing down the neck of its "near abroad" neighbors. Forget the democratic
revolutions in Ukraine and Georgia, Comrade! In Europe, they'd be taking orders from Paris or Berlin - if those rivals weren't
at each other's throats again.
In Africa, Liberia would still be under Charles Taylor's sway, and Sudan would have no peace agreement.
And what other nation could or would provide freedom of the seas for commerce, including the shipment of oil and gas
- all free of charge?
Weapons of mass destruction would be everywhere. North Korea would be brandishing a solid nuclear arsenal. Libya
would not have given up its weapons, and Pakistan's prodigious proliferator, A.Q. Khan, would still be going door to
door, hawking his nuclear wares.
Also missing would be other gifts from "Uncle Sugar" - starting with 22 percent of the U.N. budget. That includes half the
operations of the World Food Program, which feeds over 100 million in 81 countries.
Gone would be 17 percent of UNICEF's costs to feed, vaccinate, educate and protect children in 157 countries - and 31
percent of the budget of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, which assists more than 19 million refugees across the
globe.
In 2005, Washington dispensed $28 billion in foreign aid, more than double the amount of the next highest donor (Japan),
contributing nearly 26 percent of all official development assistance from the large industrialized countries. Moreover,
President Bush's five-year $15 billion commitment under the Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief is the largest commitment
by a single nation toward an international health initiative - ever - working in over 100 (mostly African) countries. The United
States is the world's economic engine. We not only have the largest economy, we spend 40 percent of the world's budget
on R&D, driving mind-boggling innovation in areas like information technology, defense and medicine.
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Economy Impact Module
US Competitiveness in space solar power is key to economy
Arthur Smith, the President of Long Island Space Society, Space Daily 8-11-03
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/ssp-03b.html
Energy policy is in the news again, with debates in Congress, statements from presidential candidates, consternation over our
dependence on the Middle East for oil, and a California recall election traceable in part to energy supply problems for that
state. Use of energy, whether fuel for transportation, electrical energy running the internet, or the destructive energy
released in weapons, is central to our economy and security.
It is with good reason that the technical term for energy use per unit time, "power", suggests control in the human world as
well. Three actions taken now - working to reserve radio spectrum for power transmission, focusing on reductions in costs for
space launch, and investing in space solar power system research - hold the promise of opening up vast new sources of
power within the next 10-15 years.
Space is big - there is an awful lot of energy out there, and the crumbs we fight about here on Earth are laughably tiny
in comparison. Zettawatts from the Sun pass just through the region between Earth and Moon - that's enough energy for
each man, woman and child in the US to sustainably power an entire US economy all to themselves. Even our terrestrial
energy choices, fossil or renewable, fission or wind, almost all derive from the energy profligacy of our Sun and other stars
before it.
Economic collapse leads to nuke war
T. E. Bearden, LTC, U.S. Army (Retired), CEO, CTEC Inc., Director, Association of Distinguished American Scientists (ADAS),
Fellow Emeritus, Alpha Foundation's Institute for Advanced Study (AIAS)June 24, 2000 (http://www.seaspower.com/EnergyCrisis-
Bearden.htm)
As the collapse of the Western economies nears, one may expect catastrophic stress on the 160 developing nations as the developed
nations are forced to dramatically curtail orders. International Strategic Threat Aspects History bears out that desperate nations take
desperate actions. Prior to the final economic collapse, the stress on nations will have increased the intensity and number of
their conflicts, to the point where the arsenals of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) now possessed by some 25 nations, are
almost certain to be released. As an example, suppose a starving North Korea {[7]} launches nuclear weapons upon Japan and
South Korea, including U.S. forces there, in a spasmodic suicidal response. Or suppose a desperate China — whose long-range
nuclear missiles (some) can reach the United States — attacks Taiwan. In addition to immediate responses, the mutual treaties
involved in such scenarios will quickly draw other nations into the conflict, escalating it significantly. Strategic nuclear studies
have shown for decades that, under such extreme stress conditions, once a few nukes are launched, adversaries and potential
adversaries are then compelled to launch on perception of preparations by one's adversary. The real legacy of the MAD
concept is this side of the MAD coin that is almost never discussed. Without effective defense, the only chance a nation has to
survive at all is to launch immediate full-bore pre-emptive strikes and try to take out its perceived foes as rapidly and
massively as possible. As the studies showed, rapid escalation to full WMD exchange occurs. Today, a great percent of the WMD
arsenals that will be unleashed, are already on site within the United States itself {[8]}. The resulting great Armageddon will
destroy civilization as we know it, and perhaps most of the biosphere, at least for many decades.
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Other Countries Ahead Now

Japan is taking the lead on SPS now
American Institute of Physics -- February 25, 2008 -- Volume 987, pp. 11-16
WATER DYNAMICS: 5th International Workshop on Water Dynamics; DOI:10.1063/1.2896956
<http://scitation.aip.org/getabs/servlet/GetabsServlet?
prog=normal&id=APCPCS000987000001000011000001&idtype=cvips&gifs=yes>
Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) has been conducting studies on Space Solar Power Systems (SSPS) using
microwave and laser beams for years since FY1998 organizing a special committee and working groups. Current SSPS study
undertaken by JAXA consists of three main subjects, SSPS concepts and architectures study, technology demonstration
plan-making and elemental technology development. In SSPS concepts and architectures study, system concepts and
architectures of commercial type of microwave based SSPS (M-SSPS) and laser based SSPS (L-SSPS) has been studied for
years. In this study, a major focus is on identifying system concepts, architectures and key technologies that may
ultimately produce a practical and economical energy source. In the study of technology demonstration plan-making,
system design of tens of kW class Technology Demonstration Satellite and Ground Energy Transmission Experiment are
conducted. In elemental technology development study, several key technologies which are needed to be developed in
appropriate R&D roadmap are investigated. This paper presents the results of these study effort of JAXA and the most
promising SSPS concepts, including their key technologies.
Other countries are developing SPS technology because of high demand.

Taylor Dinerman, Author and Journalist based in NYC, October 22, 20 07, “China, the US, and Space Solar Power,”
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/985/1)
If the US were to invest in SBSP they would not be alone. The Japanese have spent considerable sums over the years on
this technology and other nations will seek the same advantages described in the NSSO study. America’s space policy
makers should, at this stage, not be looking for international partners, but instead should opt for a high level of international
transparency. Information about planned demonstration projects, particularly ones on the ISS, should be public and easily
accessible. Experts and leaders from NASA and from the Energy and Commerce departments should brief all of the major
spacefaring nations, including China.
Our world’s civilization is going to need all the energy it can get, especially in about fifty years when China, India, and
other rising powers find their populations demanding lifestyles comparable to those they now see the West enjoying. Clean
solar power from space is the most promising of large-scale alternatives. Other sources such as nuclear, wind, or terrestrial solar
will be useful, but they are limited by both physics and politics. Only space solar power can be delivered in amounts large enough
to satisfy the needs of these nations. As a matter of US national security it is imperative that this country be able to fulfill that
worldwide demand. Avoiding a large-scale future war over energy is in everyone’s interest.
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Other Countries Ahead Now

Japan is conducting studies on SPS in the status quo
Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, 2-15-06 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6V1N-
4KBDWC1-
1&_user=4257664&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000022698&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=4
257664&md5=e976305ccaf0a4f3765c5b49dc5c142c
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) has been conducting research of space solar power systems (SSPSs) in
cooperation with universities and industry. SSPSs have the potential to provide abundant quantities of electric power for use on the
Earth. However, there are a lot of hurdles to them, and one of the major hurdles is the transportation of SSPSs to the operational orbit,
which presumes to be geostationary Earth orbit (GEO) as in most of other SSPS concepts. In this research, two options of SSPS are
under study [1]. One is microwave-based, and assumed to generate electric power using photovoltaic solar arrays and to transfer the
generated power to the ground in the form of microwaves. The other is laser-based, and assumed to transform the solar energy into
laser power, and to send it onto the ground. The microwave-based system was examined in this study because its research phase is
more advanced. The basic scenario is the same for the laser-based, though it also has options utilizing laser propulsion. The objectives
of this study are to examine the transportation of the SSPSs from the ground to GEO, to give a reference scenario of the
transportation and to indicate the requirements for the SSPS design, fabrication and assembly. These will provide the first step
for evaluating the feasibility of the SSPS concept.
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SPS Solves – Intellectual Competitiveness

The public and space advocates overwhelmingly like the plan
Interest in the idea was exceptionally strong in the space advocacy community, particularly in
the Space Frontier Foundation (SFF), National Space Society (NSS), Space Development
Steering Committee, and Aerospace Technology Working Group (ATWG), all of which hosted or
participated in events related to this subject during the study period. here is reason to think that this interest may
extend to the greater public. The most recent
survey indicating public interest in SBSP was conducted in 2005 when respondents were asked
where they prefer to see their space tax dollars spent. The most popular response was
collecting energy from space, with support from 35% of those polled—twice the support for the
second most popular response, planetary defense (17%)—and three times the support for the
current space exploration goals of the Moon (4%) / Mars(10%).
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SPS Solves – Heg

And the U.S. must beat other countries to space to avoid a collapse in heg - it’s
the only country that can control space once it’s there
Everett Carl Dolman – is a Professor of Comparative Military Studies at the School of Advanced Air and Space Studies, United
States Air Force Air University; 5-23-05; “Space Power and U.S. hegemony: Maintaining a Liberal World Order in the 21st century”
http://www.gwu.edu/~spi/spaceforum/resource.html
The goals here are to establish the most beneficial global conditions for an extended and robust era of peace and prosperity –
for all states. Requisite for the purpose is a maximization of the period of hegemony of the United States. Control of
space is critical to this need.
Space has the unique capacity of being the ‘unflankable’ high ground. So tactically advantageous is the high ground
position that has both line of site over and defense domination of the battlefield that commanders have always sought it.
Space control is not only tactically advantageous on the battlefield, it is strategically so in our diplomacy. The entity of
space has real-time presence and persistence over the globe. So strong is the fortified position at the top of the Earth’s
gravity well that should any nation seize it, it could effectively deny access to space to any other state that should
attempt to put assets there. A simple argument could be made that the United States has an imperative to seize control of
space on this point alone, to prevent a dangerous enemy from taking it, but such a case could be made for any state that
desired domination over the world. My point is that not only is the United States the sole country with the capacity to
seize space (currently), it is the only great power that has a history of benign intervention and overall distain of empire
that it is morally important it do so before any state bent on world domination and oppression can.
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**SPACE COLONIZATION**
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Not Happening Now

Current space exploration is lagging – we need a new energy source to
catalyze development of space industries
John C. Mankins, former manager of NASA’s Advanced Concepts Studies Office of Space Flight, Spring ’08, “Energy Free from
Orbit,” Ad Astra (magazine of the National Space Society), http://www.nss.org/adastra/AdAstra-SBSP-2008.pdf [Tandet]
At the same time, current space missions are narrowly constrained by a lack of energy for launch and use in space. More
ambitious missions will never be realized without new, reliable, and less-expensive sources of energy. Even more, the
potential emergence of new space industries such as space tourism and manufacturing in space depend on advances in
space power systems just as much as they do on progress in space transportation. New energy options are needed:
sustainable energy for society, clean energy for the climate, and affordable and abundant energy for use in space. Space solar
power is an option that can meet all of these needs.
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SpaceCol Solves Extinction

We need to get off the rock and colonize space to sustain the human race
William E. Burrows and Professor Robert Shapiro - Senior Research Scientist, Department of Chemistry, Burrows is the
director and founder of the Science and Environmental Reporting Program. A former reporter for The New York Times, The
Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal, New York University; October 1999; Ad Astra 11 “An Alliance To Rescue
Civilization” http://www.robertshapiro.org/work3.htm
We who live on Earth are menaced by an array of potential catastrophes that go far beyond what is usually taken to be merely
dangerous. And they require a truly radical strategy to prevent our collective civilization all of culture itself from essentially
vanishing....We therefore believe that it is urgent to hedge against such calamities by preparing a copy of our civilization and
moving it out of harm's way. Even if the Earth were turned into a vast field of devastation, humanity and its achievements
would survive. Think of it as backing up the planet's hard drive and keeping the "disk," constantly updated, in a secure location.
Many of the possible disasters would affect our entire planet, so the logical location for such a haven would be off of it, in a
base on another world. The Moon would appear to be the most likely candidate, and we will use it in our discussion, but we do
not rule out the possibility that it could be elsewhere, for example on Mars. We hope that the project would be international, and
propose to call it the Alliance to Rescue Civilization, or ARC.
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SPS Solves
SPS can be used to create Earth-orbiting colonies
T. A. Heppenheimer – space advocate, researcher, and author of books on the reading list of the National Space Society;
Sept./Oct-78’; Vol. 15 No. 5 “Steps towards space colonization: colony location and transfer trajectories”
http://pdf.aiaa.org/jaPreview/JSR/1978/PVJAPRE28013.pdf
The concept of colonization of space1'2 represents a major departure in astronautics, in that it is considered to rest
upon the large-scale availability of lunar resources for use in industrial activities. Chief among these are the
construction of solar power satellites, which are to be subsequently transported to geosynchronous orbit. Such a proposal
clearly requires understanding of the problem of transport of lunar resources to the colony or manufacturing center.
The transport mode treated here involves launch of unprocessed lunar material, by mass-driver or electromagnetic
catapult, to be caught in space and subsequently transported to a colony in high Earth orbit. All processing and
manufacturing then are done at the colony; lunar operations are restricted to mining and launching of material.
New SPS systems get us off Earth

Mankins, 1998 (John C. Mankins, “A Fresh Look at Space Solar Power: New Architectures, Concepts and Technologies,”
http://www.spacefuture.com/archive/a_fresh_look_at_space_solar_power_new_architectures_concepts_and_technologies.shtml)
Lastly, there are a number of potential applications of these technologies in future human exploration missions,
including the moon, Mars and asteroids in the inner solar system. These include: megawatt-class SEPS Lunar cargo space
transfer vehicles Lunar orbit WPT for Lunar surface power affordable human Mars mission transportation systems. Of these,
the concept of using multi-megawatt-class SPS systems to achieve very low cost Mars mission concepts appears to have
particular leverage. By using systems that are amenable to low-cost, multi-unit, modular manufacturing, even though the
overall system masses are not lower, the cost appears to be significantly lower. Example: The "SolarClipper". An
especially intriguing opportunity is that of using affordable megawatt-class space power for interplanetary space missions. It
appears to be possible to reduce the cost for Earth surface-to-Mars orbit transportation dramatically through the use
of very advanced, large-scale SPS in a solar electric propulsion system (SEPS) approach. The basic architectural strategies of
the SolarClipper concept are straightforward.
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SPS Solves – Beaming Energy

Microwave and laser beam technology is key to affordable space travel
Dr. Robert L. Forward – senior scientist at Hughes Research Laboratories; October, 1987; Advanced Space Propulsion Study
http://www.transorbital.net/Library/D001_TOC.html#top
It is not necessary to use the rocket principle to build a vehicle that can travel through space. If we examine the
components of a generic rocket, we find that it consists of payload, structure, propellant, energy source, an engine to
put the energy into the propellant, and a thruster to expel the energized propellant to provide thrust. In most rockets, the
propellant and energy source are combined together into the chemical "fuel." Because a standard rocket has to carry its fuel
along with it, its performance is significantly limited. For a mission where the final vehicle velocity increment needed is ∆ V,
and the propellant exhaust velocity is v, the mass of fuel mf needed to propel a vehicle of mass mv rises exponentially with the
ratio ∆ V/v:
∆
mf = mv (e V/v-l)
If one attempts to do a difficult mission, such as a Saturn ring rendezvous mission, where the required mission, DV is 48 km/s,
using even our best chemical rocket, a liquid oxygen/liquid hydrogen system with a propellant exhaust velocity v of 5 km/s,
then DV/v is 9.6, and (eDV/v-l) = 15,000. It is not possible to build a spaceship that holds l5,000 times as much fuel mass as
vehicle mass.
There is a whole.class of spacecraft that do not have to carry along any energy source or propellant or even an engine,
and consist only of payload, structure, and thruster. These spacecraft work by beamed power propulsion. In a beamed
power propulsion system, the heavy parts of a rocket (propellant, energy source, and engine) are left on the ground or
in orbit, while the payload and associated structure carry out the mission. Essentially unlimited amounts of propellant
and energy can be supplied to carry out the mission, and the engine can be maintained and even upgraded as the
mission proceeds.
Many examples of beamed power propulsion systems have been discussed in the literature. During this study effort I prepared
a review of three beamed power concepts - pellet-stream-pushed, microwave-beam-pushed, and laser-beam-pushed
systems entitled, "Beamed Power Propulsion to the Stars." The paper was presented to the AAAS Symposium on Interstellar
Communication and Travel at the AAAS Annual Meeting held from 25-30 May 1988 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. That
paper is contained in Appendix A.
Because of the recent Space Defense Initiative (SDI) emphasis on high power lasers and large adaptive optical Systems for
directed energy weapons, laser powered beamed propulsion systems have become more feasible. A Laser Propulsion
Workshop was held from 7-18 July 1986 at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California to investigate
the feasibility of using some of the high power laser systems under development at LLNL for the SDI program as sources for
testing laser propulsion concepts. The decision of the workshop was to concentrate on laser thermal propulsion from ground to
low earth orbit. In this system, the vehicle carries its own propellant. The laser supplies the energy source to heat the
propellant (water) to temperatures higher than could be reached using any chemical reaction. The accelerations are
quite high (many times that of earth gravity) and the vehicle attains orbit before it goes out of sight of the ground-based
laser-optical system.
As a contribution to the workshop, I carried out a study of the feasibility of using highly reflecting multilayer thin film structures
driven by photon pressure from a laser beam. Very high terminal velocities (>100 km/s) of small (28 cm diameter), lightweight
(0.3 g), ten-layer dielectric-film laser sails were predicted for a first generation laser system with a power level of 100 MW and a
transmitter optical diameter of 10 m. The results of that study are presented in Appendix B.
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It’s Possible – Mars

Mars can support life if its climate is altered
Scientific American – popular science magazine; September ‘07; “The Future of Space Exploration” –Staff Writer
http://www.sciamdigital.com/index.cfm?fa=Products.ViewIssuePreview&ARTICLEID_CHAR=ABB51CD6-3034-45F2-8F76-
B0C843442E7
Bringing Life to Mars; The Future of Space Exploration; Scientific American Presents; by McKay; 6 Page(s)
Four billion years ago Mars was a warm and wet planet, possibly teeming with life. Spacecraft orbiting Mars have returned
images of canyons and flood valleys-features that suggest that liquid water once flowed on the planet's surface. Today,
however, Mars is a cold, dry, desertlike world with a thin atmosphere. In the absence of liquid water-the quintessential
ingredient for life-no known organism could survive on the Red Planet.
More than 20 years ago the Mariner and Viking missions failed to find evidence that life exists on Mars's surface, although
all the chemical elements needed for life were present. That result inspired biologists Maurice Averner and Robert D.
MacElroy of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Ames Research Center to consider seriously whether
Mars's environment could be made hospitable to colonization by Earthbased life-forms. Since then, several scientists, using
climate models and ecological theory, have concluded that the answer is probably yes: With today's technology, we could
transform the climate on the planet Mars, making it suitable once more for life. Such an experiment would allow us to examine, on
a grand scale, how biospheres grow and evolve. And it would give us the opportunity to spread and study life beyond Earth.biot
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**SOLVENCY**
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SPS Provides Energy

SPS provides enough energy alone for humans to live comfortably for billions
of years
The SBSP Study Group found that by providing access to an inexhaustible strategic reservoir
of renewable energy, SBSP offers an attractive route to increased energy security and assurance.
The reservoir of Space‐Based Solar Power is almost unimaginably vast, with room for growth
far past the foreseeable needs of the entire human civilization for the next century and beyond.
In the vicinity of Earth, each and every hour there are 1.366 gigawatts of solar energy
continuously pouring through every square kilometer of space. If one were to stretch that
around the circumference of geostationary orbit, that 1 km‐wide ring receives over 210
terawatt‐years of power annually. The amount of energy coursing through that one thin band
of space in just one year is roughly equivalent to the energy contained in ALL known
recoverable oil reserves on Earth (approximately 250 terawatt years), and far exceeds the
projected 30TW of annual demand in mid century. The energy output of the fusion‐powered
Sun is billions of times beyond that, and it will last for billions of years—orders of magnitude
beyond all other known sources combined. Space‐Based Solar Power taps directly into the
largest known energy resource in the solar system. This is not to minimize the difficulties and
practicalities of economically developing and utilizing this resource or the tremendous time and
effort it would take to do so. Nevertheless, it is important to realize that there is a tremendous
reservoir of energy—clean, renewable energy—available to the human civilization if it can
develop the means to effectively capture it.
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SPS Solves – Private Sector Key To Tech

Creating a market involving the private sector spurs technological innovation
Technology adoption can move at astounding speeds once a concept has been demonstrated and a market is
created. Who would have imagined that barely 100 years after the single wood & cloth, 338 kg Wright Flier
flew only 120 feet at a mere 30 mph, that the world would have fleets of thousands of jet‐powered, all‐metal
giants weighing as much as 590,000 kg cruising between continents at close to the speed of sound? Who, as
the first miles were being laid, would have foreseen the rate at which railroads, highways, electrification or
communications infrastructure would grow? SBSP calls mankind to look at the means to achieve orbit and
in‐space maneuver differently—not as monuments in themselves, but as a utilitarian infrastructure purposefully
designed to achieve a very worthwhile goal.
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AT: Tech Fails

We have the technology to create new SSP
The SBSP Study Group found that Space‐Based Solar Power is a complex engineering
challenge, but requires no fundamental scientific breakthroughs or new physics to become a reality.
Space‐Based Solar Power is a complicated engineering project with substantial challenges and a
complex trade‐space not unlike construction of a large modern aircraft, skyscraper, or
hydroelectric dam, but does not appear to present any fundamental physical barriers or require
scientific discoveries to work. While the study group believes the case for technical feasibility is
very strong, this does not automatically imply economic viability and affordability—this
requires even more stringent technical requirements.
FINDING: The SBSP Study Group found that significant progress in the underlying technologies has
been made since previous government examination of this topic, and the direction and pace of progress
continues to be positive and in many cases accelerating.
SPS technology has and is continuing to improve

There have been a number of important changes in the external context for consideration of space solar power during
the past 15-20 years. The most important is the increasing demand for energy globally and the resulting increasing
concern regarding carbon combustion, CO2 emissions and global climate change, discussed below. As a result, there is a
major priority being place on the development of renewable energy sources.
Another important change has occurred at the US national policy level. US National Space Policy now calls for NASA to
make significant investments in technology (not a particular vehicle) to drive the costs of ETO transportation down
dramatically. This is, of course, an absolute requirement of space solar power. This policy is, of course, independent of
any SSP -related considerations and thus need not be "charged" against the cost of developing SSP technology. Also, a
variety of other key technical advances have been made involving many key technological areas and diverse new
systems concepts. Although systems-level validation of key technologies, such as power conversion and large-scale wireless
power transmission ( WPT ) have not occurred, component-level progress has been great.
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NASA Key
NASA has the infrastructure and the technology to do the plan best
John C. Mankins, former manager of NASA’s Advanced Concepts Studies Office of Space Flight, ’97, “A fresh look at space solar
power: New architectures, concepts and technologies,” Advanced Projects Office of the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration, http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6V1N-3TDH483-
V&_user=4257664&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000022698&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=4
257664&md5=25671813feddd13175814cc6a164b28c [Tandet]
Another important change has occurred at the US national policy level. US National Space Policy now calls for NASA
to make significant investments in technology (not a particular vehicle) to drive the costs of ET0 transportation down
dramatically. This is, of course, an absolute requirement of space solar power. This policy is, of course, independent of any
SSP-related considerations and thus need not be “charged” against the cost of developing SSP technology. Also, a variety of
other key technical advances have been made involving many key technological areas and diverse new systems
concepts. Although systems-level validation of key technologies, such as power conversion and large-scale wireless power
transmission (WP R have not occurred, component-level progress has been great.
NASA is uniquely capable – technological advances

Leonard David – Senior Space Writer; 10-17-01; http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technology/solar_power_sats_011017-
1.html
For the last few years, interest in SSP has grown, not only at NASA, but also in the U.S. Congress and the White
House Office of Management and Budget. For its part, the space agency has scripted a research and technology, as well
as investment roadmap. This SSP stepping stone approach would enhance other space, military, and commercial
applications.
A special study group of the National Research Council (NRC) has taken a new look at NASA's current SSP efforts.
Their findings are in the NRC report: Laying the Foundation for Space Solar Power - An Assessment of NASA's Space Solar
Power Investment Strategy.
Richard Schwartz, dean of the Schools of Engineering at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, chaired the 9-person
NRC panel.
While not advocating or discouraging SSP, the advisory team said "it recognizes that significant changes have occurred
since 1979 that might make it worthwhile for the United States to invest in either SSP or its component technologies."
The study urges a sharper look at perceived and/or actual environmental and health risks that SSP might involve.
The NRC study group singled out several technological advances relevant to SSP:
Improvements have been seen in efficiency of solar cells and production of lightweight, solar-cell laden panels;
Wireless power transmission tests on Earth is progressing, specifically in Japan and Canada;
Robotics, viewed as essential to SSP on-orbit assembly, has shown substantial improvements in manipulators,
machine vision systems, hand-eye coordination, task planning, and reasoning; and
Advanced composites are in wider use, and digital control systems are now state of the art - both developments useful
in building an SSP.
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NASA Key
NASA’s commercial tech network maximizes spin offs
NASA 2002, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, http://www.sti.nasa.gov/tto/spinoff2002/spin02.pdf, “Spinoff” page
54
NASA’s Commercial Technology Network strives to ensure that the Agency’s research and development activities
reach the widest possible audience with the broadest impact. The network, dedicated to technology transfer, serves as a
resource of scientific and technical information with real-world applications for U.S. businesses interested in accessing,
utilizing, and commercializing NASA technology. As the methods of transferring NASA technology continue to grow,
the Commercial Technology Office at each NASA field center works closely with NASA incubators, Regional Technology
Transfer Centers, and others in the Commercial Technology Network to provide private industry with NASA technologies.
While not all technology transfers result in commercialization, countless U.S. citizens benefit from outreach and education
successes each year. The following section highlights this year’s successful technology transfer activities. In addition, it
provides a guide to the many organizations that comprise the NASA Commercial Technology Network.
Nasa funding vital to new and current R&D

Aliya Sternstein; 4-7-06; "House, employees urge more NASA R&D funding" Federal Computer Website,
http://www.fcw.com/online/news/94007-1.html#
House Science Committee leaders and NASA employees are urging appropriations subcommittee members to fund
NASA research and development above the president's requested amounts, arguing that the agency's R&D is important
to the country's future prosperity. House Science Committee Chairman Sherwood Boehlert (R-N.Y.) testified before the
Appropriations Committee's Science, the Departments of State, Justice and Commerce, and Related Agencies Subcommittee
that the sharply reduced funding for the NASA Science Mission Directorate in the fiscal 2007 budget "will sideline
important scientific work that not only would increase human knowledge but that would require the development of
technology that could promote U.S. security and competitiveness." Boehlert, who testified April 6, said Congress' top
priority should be fully funding the President's American Competitiveness Initiative, a 10-year plan to double basic research
funding at the National Science Foundation, the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the Energy Department's
Office of Science. For fiscal 2007, that translates to about $910 million in additional funding for research and about $380
million for education programs. After making that plan a priority, Boehlert said, additional funds should go to other areas of
scientific concern, including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Manufacturing Extension Partnership
program at NIST and the Science Mission Directorate at NASA. "Following the recommendations of the scientific community,
we urge you, at a minimum, to restore funding for the Research and Analysis programs in the [NASA] Directorate and to
permit additional smaller missions to be launched," he said. "Those items are more of a priority than any flagship science
mission." Boehlert also asked the committee not to implement the president's requested cuts to the Aeronautics Research
Mission Directorate at NASA. Late last month, employee union officials echoed Boehlert in a letter to the subcommittee.
Gregory Junemann, president of the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, noted that Congress and
the subcommittee admonished NASA last year for attempting to gut its fiscal 2006 aeronautics budget, yet NASA responded
this year by again proposing to cut the directorate's R&D. The proposed cut shows that the agency continues to be willing to
cannibalize successful science and engineering programs in an effort to fund the space shuttle and exploration programs
simultaneously at full throttle, Junemann wrote in his testimony. That effort is unsustainable, ill-advised and a short-sighted
scheme that would harm U.S. national security and economic competitiveness, he wrote.
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NASA Key
Funds for NASA R&D and technology is key to solvency
Government‐funded research is necessary and may be mandatory. Using academia to conduct some of the
research would be desirable. Sharing costs between government, academia and corporate interests who could then
commercialize results into products would be even better. Using the resources of NASA’s (former) Research
Partnership Centers – which have already done some of the research into SBSP, launch, materials and other
concepts would be valuable. DARPA also has existing relationships with universities that are likely to match well
with the research goals resulting from his study. Not only does this provide valuable help and creativity to the
research efforts, but it could build up the future workforce of expertise by giving students exciting and impactful
work to focus on while at university.
Using seed studies to conduct research may be useful not only for achieving the resulting research results but they
could be used strategically to build political support from companies in the aerospace, broader energy sector and
within environmental groups.
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DoD Key
The DoD has interest in SPS - the military needs alternative energy
Jeff Foust, aerospace analyst and editor/publisher of The Space Review, 8-13-07, “A Renaissance for Space Solar Power?”, The
Space Review, http://www.thespacereview.com/article/931/1 [Tandet]
In recent months, however, a new potential champion for space solar power has emerged, and from a somewhat unlikely
quarter. Over the last several months the National Security Space Office (NSSO) has been conducting a study about the
feasibility of space solar power, with an eye towards military applications but also in broader terms of economic and
national security.
Air Force Lt. Col. Michael “Coyote” Smith, leading the NSSO study, said during a session about space solar power at the
NewSpace 2007 conference in Arlington, Virginia last month that the project had its origins in a study last year that
identified energy, and the competition for it, as the pathway to “the worst nightmare war we could face in the 21st
century.” If the United States is able to secure energy independence in the form of alternative, clean energy sources, he said,
“that will buy us a form of security that would be phenomenal.”
At the same time, the DOD has been looking at alternative fuels and energy sources, given the military’s voracious
appetite for energy, and the high expense—in dollars as well as lives—in getting that energy to troops deployed in places
like Afghanistan and Iraq. Soldiers, he noted, use the equivalent of one AA battery an hour while deployed to power all their
devices. The total cost of a gallon of fuel delivered to troops in the field, shipped via a long and, in places, dangerous supply
chain, can run between $300 and $800, he said, the higher cost taking into account the death benefits of soldiers killed in
attacks on convoys shipping the fuel.
“The military would like nothing better than to have highly mobile energy sources that can provide our forces with
some form of energy in those forward areas,” Smith said. One way to do that, he said, is with space solar power,
something that Smith and a few fellow officers had been looking at in their spare time. They gave a briefing on the subject
to Maj. Gen. James Armor, the head of the NSSO, who agreed earlier this year to commission a study on the feasibility of
space solar power.
DoD business is key to SPS viability

Linda Shiner, editor of Air & Space Smithsonian magazine, 7-1-08, “Where the Sun Does Shine,” Air & Space Smithsonian,
http://www.airspacemag.com/space-exploration/Sun_Does_Shine.html
Why them? For one thing, supplying electricity to forward bases in Iraq and Afghanistan is hugely expensive—more than
a dollar a kilowatt-hour. (The average cost Stateside last year was under nine cents a kilowatt-hour.) If some organization
could deliver between five and 50 megawatts for less than a dollar a kilowatt-hour, the National Security Space Office
says, the Pentagon could be an anchor customer.
That’s just the kind of guaranteed business a space power system would need to become viable, according to experts
involved in the study. At a press conference last October, the National Space Society, one of several space advocacy groups
whose members contributed to the report, announced a new coalition to promote space solar power: the Space Solar Alliance
for Future Energy. The organization hopes to convince policymakers that space power deserves government funding—at
least to build a demonstrator—because of its potential to produce electricity cleanly, in vast amounts.
49
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DoD Key
The DoD should catalyze the plan
SBSP needs a champion. The benefits it can provide are benefits to the military in Scenario 1 but also to society as a
whole though the development f clean safe energy from Space in Scenario 2. Some feel it should be an effort led by
many government departments but DoD has taken that lead. It sees the value that applies to the many sectors of
the economy, and to the country as a whole. These efforts by DoD have lead to a higher credibility for this
solution than has existed thus far and it continues to build. The short term benefits under Urgent Need are more
valuable to DoD than to anyone else. Taking the leadership role, providing manpower and financing to further
research and study SBSP, and to encourage product development is work that DoD must continue to initiate and
support. One path would be to define and fund a series of the smallest meaningful demonstrations related to wireless
power transfer, SPS assembly, and SPS operations leading to a 5 MWe pilot for remote base support.
50
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US Key – Global Impact

The US government must lead the way in SSP – it’s the only energy source that
can supply global energy while aiding development and providing future
colonies in space
Peter E. Glaser, member of National Space Society Board of Governors, former Vice President for Advanced Technology at Arthur
D. Little, Inc., fellow of the American Association of the Advancement of Science and the American Institute for Aeronautics and
Astronautics, inducted into the Space Technology Hall of Fame, 2-23-2K, “The World Needs Energy from Space,”
http://www.space.com/opinionscolumns/opinions/glaser_000223.html [Tandet]
from the polluting, finite energy supplies now in use. Moreover, renewable energy sources such as conventional solar and
wind power can only meet a portion of projected needs.
land or offshore.
This is not some futuristic dream. The key SSP technologies -- solar cells and wireless power transmission (WPT) -- are based
on the work of 19th century innovators such as Henri Becquerel and Nikola Tesla.
among policymakers declined after that decade's energy crisis faded away. Recently, U.S. political interest in SSP has begun to
revive -- sparked in part by the specter of global warming -- though other nations, including Japan and Russia, have conducted
serious SSP research throughout.
But much greater attention and effort are needed. SSP should become a top priority of the U.S. space program, and more
broadly of government and industry in the U.S. and around the world.
use. Reliance on fossil fuels could produce unprecedented environmental damage. Moreover, such finite sources may soon be
past their peak availability, if they aren't already.
Space solar power is a challenging, long-term opportunity to tap space's unlimited resources rather than relying only on
Earth's limited ones. It will help sustain human life on Earth and, at a future time, in space.
51
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US Key – Effective Development

US leadership is key to space power development
WASHINGTON – A Pentagon-chartered report urges the United States to take the lead in developing space platforms
capable of capturing sunlight and beaming electrical power to Earth.
Space-based solar power, according to the report, has the potential to help the United States stave off climate change and
avoid futurefood crisis conflicts over oil by harnessing the Sun's power to provide an essentially inexhaustible supply of
clean energy.
The report, "Space-Based Solar Power as an Opportunity for Strategic Security," was undertaken by the Pentagon's National
Security Space Office this spring as a collaborative effort that relied heavily on Internet discussions by more than 170
scientific, legal, and business experts around the world. The Space Frontier Foundation, an activist organization normally
critical of government-led space programs, hosted the website used to collect input for the report.
Speaking at a press conference held here Oct. 10 to unveil the report, U.S. Marine Corps Lt. Col. Paul Damphousse of the
National Space Security Space Office said the six-month study, while "done on the cheap," produced some very positive
findings about the feasibility of space-based solar power and its potential to strengthen U.S. national security.
"One of the major findings was that space-based solar power does present strategic opportunity for us in the 21st
century," Damphousse said. "It can advance our U.S. and partner security capability and freedom of action and merits
significant additional study and demonstration on the part of the United States so we can help either the United State s
develop this, or allow the commercial sector to step up."
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**ADD-ONS**
53
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Failed States Impact Module

SPS prevents energy wars and failed states from energy crises
The SBSP Study Group found that SBSP offers a long‐term route to alleviate the security
challenges of energy scarcity, and a hopeful path to avert possible wars and conflicts.
If traditional fossil fuel production of peaks sometime this century as the Department of
Energy’s own Energy Information Agency has predicted, a first order effect would be some
type of energy scarcity. If alternatives do not come on‐line fast enough, then prices and
resource tensions will increase with a negative effect on the global economy, possibly even
pricing some nations out of the competition for minimum requirements. This could increase
the potential for failed states, particularly among the less developed and poor nations. It could
also increase the chances for great power conflict. To the extent SBSP is successful in tapping
an energy source with tremendous growth potential, it offers an “alternative in the third
dimension” to lessen the chance of such conflicts.
State failure causes environmental degradation, threatening biodiversity

Jeffrey Sachs, world-renowned economist and professor at the School of International and Public Affairs and director of the Earth
Institute at Columbia University, summer 2001, “The Strategic Significance of Global Inequality”, Washington Quarterly [Tandet]
Economic collapse and state failure are major contributors to environmental degradation of strategic concern to the
United States. For example, tropical deforestation—with serious consequences resulting in loss of biodiversity and long-
term climate change—is caused in part by population pressures in poor agrarian regions that lead to clear-cutting of
forests to make way for peasant agricultural sites. Most of the clear-cut land, alas, is unsuitable for intensive agriculture and
is quickly abandoned, with devastating long-term ecological consequences. Because of state failure, and the lack of
viable eco-nomic alternatives in these economies, environmental regulations are generally not enforceable or are easily
corrupted. Some of the earth’s most important zones of high biodiversity are at extreme risk because they lie precisely
within failed states. In1988, ecologist Norman Myers identified25 regions in the world with exceptionally high species
endemism. Many of these re-gions are within states, such as Brazil, Bo-livia, Colombia, China, Ecuador, India, Indonesia,
Mexico, Panama, Peru, South Africa, Turkey, and Venezuela, suffering under severe economic stress ,if not outright failure.
54
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Failed States Impact Module

Resulting biodiversity loss leads to extinction
David N. Diner, Judge Advocate General’s Corps of US Army, ’94, Military Law Review, Winter, 143
Mil. L. Rev. 161, Lexis
No species has ever dominated its fellow species as man has. In most cases, people have assumed
the God-like power of life and death -- extinction or survival -- over the plants and animals of the
world. For most of history, mankind pursued this domination with a single-minded determination to
master the world, tame the wilderness, and exploit nature for the maximum benefit of the human
race. n67 In past mass extinction episodes, as many as ninety percent of the existing species
perished, and yet the world moved forward, and new species replaced the old. So why should the
world be concerned now? The prime reason is the world's survival. Like all animal life, humans
live off of other species. At some point, the number of species could decline to the point at
which the ecosystem fails, and then humans also would become extinct. No one knows how
many [*171] species the world needs to support human life, and to find out -- by allowing certain
species to become extinct -- would not be sound policy. In addition to food, species offer many
direct and indirect benefits to mankind. n68 2. Ecological Value. -- Ecological value is the
value that species have in maintaining the environment. Pest, n69 erosion, and flood control are
prime benefits certain species provide to man. Plants and animals also provide additional
ecological services -- pollution control, n70 oxygen production, sewage treatment, and
biodegradation. n71 3. Scientific and Utilitarian Value. -- Scientific value is the use of species
for research into the physical processes of the world. n72 Without plants and animals, a large
portion of basic scientific research would be impossible. Utilitarian value is the direct utility
humans draw from plants and animals. n73 Only a fraction of the [*172] earth's species have
been examined, and mankind may someday desperately need the species that it is exterminating
today. To accept that the snail darter, harelip sucker, or Dismal Swamp southeastern shrew n74
could save mankind may be difficult for some. Many, if not most, species are useless to man in a
direct utilitarian sense. Nonetheless, they may be critical in an indirect role, because their
extirpations could affect a directly useful species negatively. In a closely interconnected
ecosystem, the loss of a species affects other species dependent on it. n75 Moreover, as the
number of species decline, the effect of each new extinction on the remaining species
increases dramatically. n76 4. Biological Diversity. -- The main premise of species
preservation is that diversity is better than simplicity. n77 As the current mass extinction has
progressed, the world's biological diversity generally has decreased. This trend occurs within
ecosystems by reducing the number of species, and within species by reducing the number of
individuals. Both trends carry serious future implications. Biologically diverse ecosystems are
characterized by a large number of specialist species, filling narrow ecological niches. These
ecosystems inherently are more stable than less diverse systems. "The more complex the
ecosystem, the more successfully it can resist a stress. . . . [l]ike a net, in which each knot is
connected to others by several strands, such a fabric can resist collapse better than a simple,
unbranched circle of threads -- which if cut anywhere breaks down as a whole." n79 By causing
widespread extinctions, humans have artificially simplified many ecosystems. As biologic
simplicity increases, so does the risk of ecosystem failure. The spreading Sahara Desert in
Africa, and the dustbowl conditions of the 1930s in the United States are relatively mild examples
of what might be expected if this trend continues. Theoretically, each new animal or plant
extinction, with all its dimly perceived and intertwined affects, could cause total ecosystem
collapse and human extinction. Each new extinction increases the risk of disaster. Like a
mechanic removing, one by one, the rivets from an aircraft's wings, mankind may be edging
closer to the abyss.
55
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Fossil Fuels Impact Module

SPS decreases reliance on fossil fuels by providing a viable alternative for
virtually every fossil fuel product
The SBSP Study Group found that in the long run, SBSP offers a viable and attractive route to
decrease mankind’s reliance on fossil fuels, as well as provides a potential global alternative to wider
proliferation of nuclear materials that will almost certainly unfold if many more countries in the world
transition to nuclear power with enrichment in an effort to meet their energy needs with carbon neutral
sources.
To the extent mankind’s electricity is produced by fossil fuel sources, SBSP offers a capability
over time to reduce the rate at which humanity consumes the planet’s finite fossil hydrocarbon
resources. While presently hard to store, electricity is easy to transport, and is highly efficient in
conversion to both mechanical and thermal energy. Except for the aviation transportation
infrastructure, virtually all of America’s energy could eventually be delivered and consumed as
electricity. Even in ground transportation, a movement toward plug‐in hybrids would allow a
substantial amount of traditional ground transportation to be powered by SBSP electricity.
For those applications that favor or rely upon liquid hydrocarbon fuels, America’s national labs
are pursuing several promising avenues of research to manufacture carbon‐neutral synthetic
fuels (synfuels) from direct solar thermal energy or radiated/electrical SBSP. The lab initiatives
are developing technologies to efficiently split energy‐neutral feedstocks or upgrade lower‐
grade fuels (such as biofuels) into higher energy density liquid hydrocarbons. Put plainly, SBSP
could be utilized to split hydrogen from water and the carbon monoxide (syngas) from carbon
dioxide which can then be combined to manufacture any desired hydrocarbon fuel, including
gasoline, diesel, kerosene and jet fuel. This technology is still in its infancy, and significant
investment will be required to bring this technology to a high level of technical readiness and
meet economic and efficiency goals. This technology enables a carbon‐neutral (closed carbon‐
cycle) hydrocarbon economy driven
by clean renewable sources of power, which can utilize the existing global fuel infrastructure
without modification. This opportunity is of particular interest to traditional oil companies. The
ability to use renewable energy to serve as the energy feedstock for existing fuels, in a carbon
neutral cycle, is a “total game changer” that deserves significant attention.
<Insert global warming impacts from the warming file>
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SPS Solves Energy Crisis

SPS is the only alt energy that can solve the energy crisis
Peter E. Glaser – former president of the International Solar Energy Society; 02-23-00;
from the polluting, finite energy supplies now in use. Moreover, renewable energy sources such as conventional solar and wind
power can only meet a portion of projected needs.
land or offshore.
This is not some futuristic dream. The key SSP technologies -- solar cells and wireless power transmission (WPT) -- are
based on the work of 19th century innovators such as Henri Becquerel and Nikola Tesla.
among policymakers declined after that decade's energy crisis faded away. Recently, U.S. political interest in SSP has begun
to revive -- sparked in part by the specter of global warming -- though other nations, including Japan and Russia, have
conducted serious SSP research throughout.
But much greater attention and effort are needed. SSP should become a top priority of the U.S. space program, and
more broadly of government and industry in the U.S. and around the world.
use. Reliance on fossil fuels could produce unprecedented environmental damage. Moreover, such finite sources may
soon be past their peak availability, if they aren't already.
Space solar power is a challenging, long-term opportunity to tap space's unlimited resources rather than relying only on Earth's
limited ones. It will help sustain human life on Earth and, at a future time, in space.
57
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SPS Solves CO2

SPS cuts CO2 emissions
This study does not take a position on anthropogenic climate change, which at this time
still provoked significant debate among participants, but there is undeniable interest in
options that limit carbon emission. Studies by Asakura et al in 2000 suggest that SBSP
lifetime carbon emissions (chiefly in construction) are even more attractive than nuclear power, and that
for the same amount of carbon emission, one could install 60 times the generating capacity, or alternately,
one could replace existing generating capacity with 1/60th the lifetime carbon emission of a coal‐fired plant
without CO2 sequestration.
58
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Military Readiness Impact Module – Global War

Military readiness deters global war
Jack Spencer – is a research fellow at the Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies; 9-15-00; “The Facts About
Military Readiness” The Heritage Foundation http://www.heritage.org/Research/MissileDefense/BG1394.cfm
Military readiness is vital because declines in America's military readiness signal to the rest of the world that the United States
is not prepared to defend its interests. Therefore, potentially hostile nations will be more likely to lash out against American
allies and interests, inevitably leading to U.S. involvement in combat. A high state of military readiness is more likely to deter
potentially hostile nations from acting aggressively in regions of vital national interest, thereby preserving peace.
59
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Military Readiness Impact Module – Hegemony

U.S. military power is key to hegemony
Stephen Gardner - Managing director of www.euro-correspondent.com; June 04; "Questioning American Hegemony,"
http://www.nthposition.com/questioningamerican.php
The second main underpinning of the orthodoxy of American hegemony is American military power. US military spending is
vast. It will be an estimated USD 400 billion in the budget year 2005, dwarfing the defence spend of any other country. The US has
the world's most technologically advanced and potentially devastating arsenal. Once again, the media reflects the orthodoxy
that American military might is hegemonic. In The Observer in February 2002, for example, Peter Beaumont and Ed Vulliamy
wrote, "The reality - even before the latest proposed increases in military spending - is that America could beat the rest of the
world at war with one hand tied behind its back."
Loss of hegemony leads to nuclear war

Zalmay Khalilzad, Senior assisnant at RAND Institute and former U.S. ambassador Spring, 1995, The Washington Quarterly,
Rethinking Grand Strategy, Losing the Moment? The United States and the World After the Cold War, l/n
Under the third option, the United States would seek to retain global leadership and to preclude the rise of a global rival or a
return to multipolarity for the indefinite future. On balance, this is the best long-term guiding principle and vision. Such a
vision is desirable not as an end in itself, but because a world in which the United States exercises leadership would have
tremendous advantages. First, the global environment would be more open and more receptive to American values --
democracy, free markets, and the rule of law. Second, such a world would have a better chance of dealing cooperatively
with the world's major problems, such as nuclear proliferation, threats of regional hegemony by renegade states, and
low-level conflicts. Finally, U.S. leadership would help preclude the rise of another hostile global rival, enabling the
United States and the world to avoid another global cold or hot war and all the attendant dangers, including a global
nuclear exchange. U.S. leadership would therefore be more conducive to global stability than a bipolar or a multipolar balance
of power system.
60
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SPS Solves – Not Beaming Energy

Space satellites provide essential war-time tasks key to military readiness
Institute of Air and Space Law – Faculty of Law at McGill University in Montreal, Canada;
Febrary 2008; “ “Peaceful” And Military Uses Of Outer Space: Law and Policy
Space is the new frontier and military satellites are k2 protect vital U.S. assets
Institute of Air and Space Law – Faculty of Law at McGill University in Montreal, Canada;
Febrary 2008; “ “Peaceful” And Military Uses Of Outer Space: Law and Policy
Faced with the perceived challenges, the US is focusing on the issue of space control, presumably through the
deployment of offensive capabilities able to ensure uninterrupted use of their space assets (Watts, 2001) In this sense, the
US Space Commands Vision for 2020 calls for “full spectrum dominance” arguing that the medium of space is the
fourth medium of warfare along with land, sea, and air. Also, the National Security Strategy, issued by the
White House in 2002, acknowledges the need to develop military capabilities able to protect critical US infrastructure
and assets in outer space
61
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SPS decreases fuel prices, provides a reliable energy supply, and saves
soldiers’ lives
The SBSP Study Group found that the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) has a large, urgent
and critical need for secure, reliable, and mobile energy delivery to the war‐fighter.
• When all indirect and support costs are included, it is estimated that the DoD currently spends
over $1 per kilowatt hour for electrical power delivered to troops in forward military bases in
war regions. OSD(PA&E) has computed that at a wholesale price of $2.30 a gallon, the fully
burdened average price of fuel for the Army exceeds $5 a gallon. For Operation IRAQI
FREEDOM the estimated delivered price of fuel in certain areas may approach $20 a gallon.
• Significant numbers of American servicemen and women are injured or killed as a result of
attacks on supply convoys in Iraq. Petroleum products account for approximately 70% of
delivered tonnage to U.S. forces in Iraq—total daily consumption is approximately 1.6 million
gallons. Any estimated cost of battlefield energy (fuel and electricity) does not include the cost
in lives of American men and women.
• The DoD is a potential anchor tenant customer of space‐based solar power that can be reliably
delivered to U.S. troops located in forward bases in hostile territory in amounts of 5‐50
megawatts continuous at an estimated price of $1 per kilowatt hour, but this price may increase
over time as world energy resources become more scarce or environmental concerns about
increased carbon emissions from combusting fossil fuels increases.
SPS improves military readiness by enabling expanded military operations and

decreasing the likelihood of energy wars
For the DoD specifically, beamed energy from space in quantities greater than 5 MWe has the potential
to be a disruptive game changer on the battlefield. SBSP and its enabling wireless power transmission
technology could facilitate extremely flexible “energy on demand” for combat units and installations
across an entire theater, while significantly reducing dependence on vulnerable over‐land fuel deliveries.
SBSP could also enable entirely new force structures and capabilities such as ultra long‐endurance
airborne or terrestrial surveillance or combat systems to include the individual soldier himself. More
routinely, SBSP could provide the ability to deliver rapid and sustainable humanitarian energy to a
disaster area or to a local population undergoing nation‐building activities. SBSP could also facilitate
base “islanding” such that each installation has the ability to operate independent of vulnerable ground‐
based energy delivery infrastructures. In addition to helping American and allied defense
establishments remain relevant over the entire 21st Century through more secure supply lines, perhaps
the greatest military benefit of SBSP is to lessen the chances of conflict due to energy scarcity by
providing access to a strategically secure energy supply.
62
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Beamed-down solar energy decreases military fuel supply lines
A few weeks ago, Tobias posted about the US military and eco-technology. In it, he jokingly suggested an eco-DARPA. As it
turns out, the military seems headed in that direction, specifically with a space-based solar power station that would
beam energy down to the surface.
The idea is that the Pentagon has decided that energy independence is now a national security issue, and as such falls under
their purview. In addition, this orbiting power station would negate the need for long fuel supply lines. Units could have
needed energy beamed down directly from orbit. Another benefit of having the military act as the early adopter is that
prices should begin to decrease almost immediately, making it more affordable for commercial enterprises to license the
technology for civilian consumption.
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SPS Solves – Saves Soldiers’ Lives

Energy from SPS decreases the fuel costs and casualties of the WOT
FINDING: The SBSP Study Group found that the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) has a large, urgent and
critical need for secure, reliable, and mobile energy delivery to the war‐fighter.
• When all indirect and support costs are included, it is estimated that the DoD currently spends over $1 per
kilowatt hour for electrical power delivered to troops in forward military bases in war regions. OSD(PA&E)
has computed that at a wholesale price of $2.30 a gallon, the fully burdened average price of fuel for the Army
exceeds $5 a gallon. For Operation IRAQI FREEDOM the estimated delivered price of fuel in certain areas
may approach $20 a gallon.
• Significant numbers of American servicemen and women are injured or killed as a result of attacks on
supply convoys in Iraq. Petroleum products account for approximately 70% of delivered tonnage to U.S.
forces in Iraq—total daily consumption is approximately 1.6 million gallons. Any estimated cost of battlefield
energy (fuel and electricity) does not include the cost in lives of American men and women.
• The DoD is a potential anchor tenant customer of space‐based solar power that can be reliably delivered to
U.S. troops located in forward bases in hostile territory in amounts of 5‐50 megawatts continuous at an estimated
price of $1 per kilowatt hour, but this price may increase over time as world energy resources become more scarce
or environmental concerns about increased crbon emissions from combusting fossil fuels increases.
64
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NASA Key – Military Tech

NASA key to military tech
Leonard David, Sr Space Writer for Space.com, 10/18/2002, NASA US MILITARY TECH,
http://www.space.com/news/wsc_military_021018.html
HOUSTON -- The prowess of U.S. space technology is to be increased through a partnership struck up between NASA,
the U.S. Strategic Command, the National Reconnaissance Office, Air Force Space Command and the Pentagons
Director of Defense Research and Engineering.Word at the World Space Congress has it that the partnership has been
strengthened through a newly signed memorandum of agreement
Next-generation launch vehicles, enhanced use of Global Positioning System (GPS) satellite constellations,
telecommunications, and radar surveillance from space all these and other technologies are to be moved forward given
growth of a NASA-military alliance called the Partnership Council.
65
SPS 1AC
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Peak Oil Impact Module

SPS prevent a future ‘great power conflict’ over peak oil
FINDING: The SBSP Study Group found that SBSP offers a long‐term route to alleviate the security
challenges of energy scarcity, and a hopeful path to avert possible wars and conflicts.
If traditional fossil fuel production peaks sometime this century as the Department of Energy’s own Energy
Information Agency has predicted, a first order effect would be some type of energy scarcity. If alternatives do not
come on‐line fast enough, then prices and resource tensions will increase with a negative effect on the global
economy, possibly even pricing some nations out of the competition for minimum requirements. This could
increase the potential for failed states, particularly among the less developed and poor nations. It could also
increase the chances for great power conflict. To the extent SBSP is successful in tapping an energy source
with tremendous growth potential, it offers an “alternative in the third dimension” to lessen the chance of such
conflicts.
<Insert peak oil impact from the generic here>
66
SPS 1AC
DDI 2008 – CM Lab
Internal Link – Prolif

SPS will replace fossil fuels and prevent prolif
FINDING: The SBSP Study Group found that in the long run, SBSP offers a viable and attractive route to
decrease mankind’s reliance on fossil fuels, as well as provides a potential global alternative to wider
proliferation of nuclear materials that will almost certainly unfold if many more countries in the world
transition to nuclear power with enrichment in an effort to meet their energy needs with carbon neutral
sources.
To the extent mankind’s electricity is produced by fossil fuel sources, SBSP offers a capability over time to reduce
the rate at which humanity consumes the planet’s finite fossil hydrocarbon resoures. While presently hard to store,
electricity is easy to transport, and is highly efficient in conversion to both mechanical and thermal energy. Except
for the aviation transportation infrastructure, virtually all of America’s energy could eventually be delivered
and consumed as electricity. Even in ground transportation, a movement toward plug‐in hybrids would allow a
substantial amount of traditional ground transportation to be powered by SBSP electricity.
For those applications that favor or rely upon liquid hydrocarbon fuels, America’s national labs are pursuing several
promising avenues of research to manufacture carbon‐neutral synthetic fuels (synfuels) from direct solar thermal
energy or radiated/electrical SBSP. The lab initiatives are developing technologies to efficiently split energy‐neutral
feedstocks or upgrade lower‐grade fuels (such as biofuels) into higher energy density liquid hydrocarbons. Put
plainly, SBSP could be utilized to split hydrogen from water and the carbon monoxide (syngas) from carbon
dioxide which can then be combined to manufacture any desired hydrocarbon fuel, including gasoline, diesel,
kerosene and jet fuel. This technology is still in its infancy, and significant investment will be required to bring
this technology to a high level of technical readiness and meet economic nd efficiency goals.
This technology enables a carbon‐neutral (closed carbon‐cycle) hydrocarbon economy driven by clean
renewable sources of power, which can utilize the existing global fuel infrastructure without modification.
This opportunity is of particular interest to traditional oil companies. The ability to use renewable energy to
serve as the energy feedstock for existing fuels, in a carbon neutral cycle, is a “total game changer” that
deserves significant attention.
Both fossil and fissile sources offer significant capabilities to our energy mix, but dependence on the exact mix must
be carefully managed. Likewise, the mix abroad may affect domestic security. While increased use of nuclear
power is not of particular concern in nations that enjoy the rule of law and have functioning internal security
mechanisms, it may be of greater concern in unstable areas of rouge states. The United States might consider the
security challenges of wide proliferation of enrichment‐based nuclear power abroad undesirable. If so, having a
viable alternative that fills a comparable niche might be attractive. Overall, SBSP offers a hopeful path toward reduced
fossil and fissile fuel dependence.
67
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Internal Link – Weather Alteration

SPS can alter the weather using electromagnetic radiation
Keith Harmon Snow – graduated from the University of Massachusetts, worked for General Electric Aerospace Electronics
Laboratory on aerospace and defense technologies for classified communications; 7-11-07; “Space Drones, Black Programs, the
Unveiling of U.S. Military offensives in Weather as a Weapon, and the Coming Permanent State of Emergency”
http://webfairy.org/uav/7.htm
It is interesting to note that solar powered satellites were operational by 1979 – even as emerging solar technologies for public
and environmental benefit were being expropriated by big oil, gas and nuclear interests. [156] These satellites have the
capacity to generate extremely high power energy beams. By placing these satellites in geosynchronous or lower orbits,
“we could extend the range of applicability of weather modification ideas” offering great “potential for severe weather
modification,” wrote Dr. Bernard J. Eastlund. [157] Eastlund’s Thunderstorm Solar Powered Satellite (TSPS) would use
WRS-88D Doppler radar imaging systems to remotely sense and modify severe storms (with special interest in tornadoes) by
zapping them with high-power beams of electromagnetic radiation. “Even though these beams would be carefully
controlled,” Eastlund notes in passing, “a miss could still be dangerous biologically.” Missing the storm center,
dangerous, “high-level electromagnetic radiation could strike a populated area.”
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Internal Link – Laundry List

SPS is key to global leadership, scientific discovery, military readiness, and
planetary security
The Aerospace Commission recognized that Global U.S. aerospace leadership can only be
achieved through investments in our future, including our industrial base, workforce, long term
research and national infrastructure, and that government must commit to increased and
sustained investment and must facilitate private investment in our national aerospace sector.
The Commission concluded that the nation will have to be a space‐faring nation in order to be
the global leader in the 21st century—that our freedom, mobility, and quality of life will depend
on it, and therefore, recommended that the United States boldly pioneer new frontiers in
aerospace technology, commerce and exploration. They explicitly recommended hat the
United States create a space imperative and that NASA and DoD need to make the investments
necessary for developing and supporting future launch capabilities to revitalize U.S. space
launch infrastructure, as well as provide Incentives to Commercial Space. The report called on
government and the investment community must become more sensitive to commercial
opportunities and problems in space. Recognizing the new realities of a highly dynamic,
competitive and global marketplace, the report noted that the federal government is
dysfunctional when addressing 21st century issues from a long term, national and global
perspective. It suggested an increase in public funding for long term research and supporting
infrastructure and an acceleration of transition of government research to the aerospace
sector, recognizing that government must assist industry by providing insight into its long‐term
research programs, and industry needs to provide to government on its research priorities. It
urged the federal government must remove unnecessary barriers to international sales of
defense products, and implement other initiatives that strengthen transnational partnerships
to enhance national security, noting that U.S. national security and procurement policies
represent some of the most burdensome restrictions affecting U.S. industry competitiveness.
Private‐public partnerships were also to be encouraged. It also noted that without constant
vigilance and investment, vital capabilities in our defense industrial base will be lost, and so
recommended a fenced amount of research and development budget, and significantly
increase in the investment in basic aerospace research to increase opportunities to gain
experience in the workforce by enabling breakthrough aerospace capabilities through
continuous development of new experimental systems with or without a requirement for
production. Such experimentation was deemed to be essential to sustain the critical skills to
conceive, develop, manufacture and maintain advanced systems and potentially provide
expanded capability to the warfighter. A top priority was increased investment in basic
aerospace research which fosters an efficient, secure, and safe aerospace transportation
system, and suggested the establishment of national technology demonstration goals, which
included reducing the cost and time to space by 50%. It concluded that, “America must exploit
and explore space to assure national and planetary security, economic benefit and scientific
discovery. At the same time, the United States must overcome the obstacles that jeopardize its
ability to sustain leadership in space.” An SBSP program would be a powerful expression of this
imperative.
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SPS is key to solve great power wars, failed states, poverty, terrorism, and
climate change
Joseph D. Rouge, director of the National Security Space Office, space-based solar power study group under a government
organization that is responsible for integration and coordination of defense, intelligence, civil, and commercial space activities , Spring
’08, “Strategic Importance,” Ad Astra (magazine of the National Space Society), http://www.nss.org/adastra/AdAstra-SBSP-2008.pdf
[Tandet]
5. SBSP is an anti-war capability. America can use the existing technical expertise in its military to catalyze an energy
transformation that lessens the likelihood of conflict between great powers over energy scarcity, lessens the need to
inter- vene in failed states which cannot afford required energy, helps the world climb from poverty to prevent the
spawn of terrorism, and averts the potential costs and disaster responses from climate change. Solving the long-term
energy scarcity problem is too vital to the world’s future to have it derailed by a miscon- ception that space solar power
might somehow be used as a weapon. That is why it is so important to educate people about this technology and to
continue to conduct the research in an open environment
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Effective energy policy key to deal with economy, healthcare, education,
terrorism, war, natural disaster, genocide, and human rights
Dick Lugar – is a U.S. senator from Illinois; 12-18-07; “U.S. Energy Security and the 2008 Presidential Election” The Lugar
Energy Initiative http://lugar.senate.gov/energy/press/speech/brookings2.cfm
Today, I would state unequivocally, that energy security and the economic and environmental issues closely associated
with it should be the most important topics of the 2008 Presidential election. I say this deliberately, notwithstanding the
existence of extremely important immediate concerns such as the war in Iraq and the performance of the American economy,
as well as persistent public policy struggles that have confronted us for decades, such as deficit reduction, health care, and
social security. I say this even in the context of my own long standing evangelism related to non-proliferation and arms
reduction, issues which I believe have not diminished in importance.
Three factors lead me to the conclusion that energy is the most vital topic of this Presidential election. First, energy is
the issue with the widest gulf between what is required to make our nation secure and what is likely to be achieved
through the inertia of existing programs and Congressional proposals. As such, it is the issue on which meaningful
progress most depends on the great intangible in American public policymaking – the application of dramatic, visionary, and
sustained Presidential leadership.
Congress and private enterprise can make evolutionary energy advancements, but revolutionary national progress in
the energy field probably is dependent on presidential action. Our energy dependence is perpetuated by a lack of national
will and focus. Only the President has the visibility to elevate a cause to national status, and only the President can leverage
the buying power, regulatory authority, and legislative leadership of an administration behind solving a problem that is highly
conducive to political procrastination and partisanship.
Second, transformational energy policies are likely to be a requirement for achieving our economic and social
aspirations here at home. In an era when exploding global demand for energy creates high prices and fears of scarcity,
the U.S. economy is likely to continue to underperform. Our ability to address social security, health care, education,
and overall budget problems will be heavily encumbered over both the short and the long run if we do not mitigate our
energy import dependence. Almost any scenario for recession will be deepened by high energy costs. Moreover, many
of the most severe recession scenarios involve sustained energy disruptions due to terrorism, war, embargo, or natural
disaster.
Third, energy is the underlying condition that exacerbates almost every major foreign policy issue. We pressure Sudan
to stop genocide in Darfur, but we find that the Sudanese government is insulated by oil revenue and oil supply
relationships. We pressure Iran to stop its uranium enrichment activities, yet key nations are hesitant to endanger their
access to Iran’s oil and natural gas. We try to foster global respect for civil society and human rights, yet oil revenues
flowing to authoritarian governments are often diverted to corrupt or repressive purposes. We fight terrorism, yet
some of the hundreds of billions of dollars we spend each year on oil imports are diverted to terrorists. We give foreign
assistance to lift people out of poverty, yet energy-poor countries are further impoverished by expensive energy import
bills. We seek options that would allow for military disengagement in Iraq and the wider Middle East, yet our way of
life depends on a steady stream of oil from that region. American national security will be at risk as long as we are
heavily dependent on imported energy.
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**ANSWERS TO OTHER ARGUMENTS**
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AT: Economically Unfeasible

Their evidence doesn’t take into account the economic benefits of spin-off
technology, which are almost as important as the energy SPS provides
Because the NRC had already verified NASA’s “Fresh Look Study” conclusion that SSP was not science fiction but instead just a
very massive engineering challenge to solve, the Caballeros focused on how to demonstrate that SSP could in fact be economically
feasible. While DOE and NASA had previously failed to close the SSP business case by examining energy as the only delivered
revenue stream, DoD has a voracious demand for many different capabilities beyond just energy. These capabilities include
command and control, persistent surveillance, operationally-responsive space access, space control, orbital debris removal, and in-
space construction and maintenance of large structures. Recognizing that technical advances are occurring exponentially around
the globe, and that history has shown time and again that deliberate and sustained innovation is the engine that drives true
economic and political power, the “Eureka!” moment came with the realization that all of the previous business case analyses
failed to include the economic and national security benefits of sure spin-off technologies and ancillary capabilities associated
with deployment of a major SSP system. This list included not only the capabilities previously described, but also space
infrastructure, low-cost reusable space access, orbital maneuver capabilities, broad-area space radar surveillance and
telecommunication, and space-to-space and ground-to-ground power beaming. The ancillary benefit list was so remarkably large
that it became nearly as important as the actual energy SSP could provide—no one in the DoD had ever viewed SSP through
this lens before.
Lack of political will is the only barrier to the plan, not economic feasibility
David Boswell – speaker at the 1991 International Space Development Conference; 08-30-04;
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/214/1
Another barrier is that launching anything into space costs a lot of money. A substantial investment would be needed to
get a solar power satellite into orbit; then the launch costs would make the electricity that was produced more expensive
than other alternatives. In the long term, launch costs will need to come down before generating solar power in space
makes economic sense. But is the expense of launching enough to explain why so little progress has been made?
There were over 60 launches in 2003, so last year there was enough money spent to put something into orbit about every
week on average. Funding was found to launch science satellites to study gravity waves and to explore other planets.
There are also dozens of GPS satellites in orbit that help people find out where they are on the ground. Is there enough
money available for these purposes, but not enough to launch even one solar power satellite that would help the world
develop a new source of energy?
In the 2004 budget the Department of Energy has over $260 million allocated for fusion research. Obviously the government
has some interest in funding renewable energy research and they realize that private companies would not be able to fund the
development of a sustainable fusion industry on their own. From this perspective, the barrier holding back solar power
satellites is not purely financial, but rather the problem is that there is not enough political will to make the money
available for further development.
There is a very interesting discussion on the economics of large space projects that makes the point that “the fundamental
problem in opening any contemporary frontier, whether geographic or technological, is not lack of imagination or will,
but lack of capital to finance initial construction which makes the subsequent and typically more profitable economic
development possible. Solving this fundamental problem involves using one or more forms of direct or indirect
government intervention in the capital market.”
73
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AT: Economically Unfeasible

Turn – plan spurs economy by creating new industries and jobs
SBSP cannot be constructed without routine access to space and ubiquitous in‐space operations. The sheer
volume and number of flights into space, and the efficiencies reached by those high volumes is game
changing. By lowering the cost to orbit so substantially, and by providing safe and routine access, entirely
new industries and possibilities open up.
74
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AT: Interference
SPS can transmit energy to Earth without any interference
Our Sun is the largest known energy resource in the solar system. In the vicinity of Earth,
every square meter of space receives 1.366 kilowatts of solar radiation, but by the time it
reaches the ground, it has been reduced by atmospheric absorption and scattering;
weather; and summer, winter, and day‐night cycles to less than an average of 250 watts
per square meter. Space‐Based Solar Power offers a way to break the tyranny of
these day‐night, summer‐winter and weather cycles, and provide continuous and
predictable power to any location on Earth.
75
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AT: Ground Power Tradeoff

They don’t trade off – ground and space solar power are complementary
technologies
Geoffrey A. Landis, scientist at the NASA Glenn Research Center, on the science team of the Pathfinder mission to Mars and the
Mars Exploration Rovers mission, February ’04, “Reinventing the Solar Power Satellite,” NASA,
http://gltrs.grc.nasa.gov/reports/2004/TM-2004-212743.pdf [Tandet]
Analyses of space solar power often assume that ground solar power is a competing technology, and
show that space solar power is a preferable technology on a rate of return basis. In fact, however, space
solar power and ground solar power are complementary technologies, not competing technologies. These
considerations were initially discussed in 1990 [4]. Low-cost ground solar power is a necessary precursor
to space solar power: Space solar power requires low cost, high production and high efficiency solar
arrays, and these technologies will make ground solar attractive for many markets. The ground solar
power market, in turn, will serve develop technology and the high-volume production readiness for space
solar power.
Since ground solar is a necessary precursor to space solar power, an analysis of space solar power
should consider how it interfaces with the ground-based solar infrastructure that will be developing on a
faster scale than the space infrastructure.
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AT: Ground Solar Power CP

Ground solar power is ineffective – solar-powered satellites are comparatively
more effective and efficient
To be economically viable in a particular location on Earth, ground- based solar power must overcome three hurdles.
First, it must be daytime. Second, the solar array must be able to see the sun. Finally, the sunlight must pass through the
bulk of the atmosphere itself. The sky must be clear. Even on a seemingly clear day, high level clouds in the atmosphere
may reduce the amount of sunlight that reaches the ground. Also various local obstacles such as mountains, buildings or
trees may block incoming sunlight. The longer the path traveled, the more sunlight is absorbed or scattered by the air so
that less of it reaches the surface. Altogether, these factors reduce the average energy produced by a conventional ground-
based solar array by as much as a factor of 75 to 80 percent. And ground
solar arrays may be subjected to hours, days, or even weeks of cloud cover—periods when the array produces no energy at
all. By comparison, the sun shines continuously in space. And in space, sunlight carries about 35 percent more energy than
sunlight attenuated by the air before it reaches the Earth’s surface. No weather, no nighttime, no seasonal changes; space is an
obvious place to collect energy for use on Earth.
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AT: International CP
International cooperation over SPS is possible
John C. Mankins, former manager of NASA’s Advanced Concepts Studies Office of Space Flight, ‘97, International Astronautical
Federation, “A Fresh Look at Space Solar Power: New Architectures, Concepts and Technologies,”
http://spacefuture.com/archive/a_fresh_look_at_space_solar_power_new_architectures_concepts_and_technologies.shtml [Tandet]
There are fundamentally new opportunities for partnerships compared to the environment of 20 years ago. Strong
opportunities exist now for international teaming and resultant support. Recently, SSP activities have occurred in Japan,
Canada, Europe, Russia. For example, the Japanese have conducted a wide variety of experiments, studies and technological
research related to space solar power during the past 10 years, including a particular SSP study entitled: "SPS 2000".
Finally, there is a new paradigm for the relationship between governments and industries, for example with NASA's role in
research and development to reduce risk and to seek government mission applications -but not to actually develop operational
systems.
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AT: Other Topical Counterplans

SPS is better than all other forms of alternative energy
The SBSP Study Group found that while the United States requires a suite of energy options,
and while many potential options exist, none offers the unique range of ancillary benefits and
transformational capabilities as SBSP.
It is possible that the world’s energy problems may be solved without resort to SBSP by
revolutionary breakthroughs in other areas, but none of the alternative options will also
simultaneously create transformational national security capabilities, open up the space
frontier for commerce, greatly enable space transportation, enhance high‐paying, high‐tech
jobs, and turn America into an exporter of energy and hope for the coming centuries.
79
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AT: Private Sector CP

US funding for Space Solar Power key to efficient research studies
Nearer term, the U.S. government should fund in depth studies and some initial proof-of-concept demonstrations to show that
space-based solar power is a technically and economically viable to solution to the world's growing energy needs. Aside from its
potential to defuse future energy wars and mitigate global warming, Damphousse said beaming power down from space could also
enable the U.S. military to operate forward bases in far flung, hostile regions such as Iraq without relying on vulnerable convoys to
truck in fossil fuels to run the electrical generators needed to keep the lights on. As the report puts it, "beamed energy from space in
quantities greater than 5 megawatts has the potential to be a disruptive game changer on the battlefield. [Space-based solar power] and
its enabling wireless power transmission technology could facilitate extremely flexible 'energy on demand' for combat units and
installations across and entire theater, while significantly reducing dependence on over-land fuel deliveries." Although the U.S.
military would reap tremendous benefits from space-based solar power, Damphousse said the Pentagon is unlikely to fund
development and demonstration of the technology. That role, he said, would be more appropriate for NASA or the Department
of Energy, both of which have studied space-based solar power in the past. The Pentagon would, however, be a willing early
adopter of the new technology, Damphousse said, and provide a potentially robust market for firms trying to build a business
around space-based solar power. "While challenges do remain and the business case does not necessarily close at this time from a
financial sense, space-based solar power is closer than ever," he said. "We are the day after next from being able to actually do this."
Damphousse, however, cautioned that the private sector will not invest in space-based solar power until the United States buys down
some of the risk through a technology development and demonstration effort at least on par with what the government spends
on nuclear fusion research and perhaps as much as it is spending to construct and operate the international space station.
"Demonstrations are key here," he said. "If we can demonstrate this, the business case will close rapidly." Charles Miller, one of the
Space Frontier Foundation's directors, agreed public funding is vital to getting space-based solar power off the ground. Miller told
reporters here that the space-based solar power industry could take off within 10 years if the White House and Congress
embrace the report's recommendations by funding a robust demonstration program and provide the same kind of incentives it
offers the nuclear power industry.
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AT: States CP (maybe)

Only the federal government can do the plan – acquiescence of all parties is
key to effective policy
Howard Gruenspecht, Deputy Administrator of the Energy Information Administration, January ’02, “EMERGING ENERGY
SECURITY ISSUES:
RELIABILITY AND CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE PROTECTION,” http://209.85.165.104/search?
q=cache:MUkHfBsaphEJ:www.rff.org/rff/Events/AST28/upload/6468_1.pdf+%22Emerging+energy+security+issues:
+reliability+and+critical+infrastructure+protection.%22&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us&client=safari) [Tandet]
Reliability cannot be handled exclusively by private markets or state policies.

Reliability has aspects of a “public good” – access to reliable power depends on
the behavior of all parties throughout the interconnected grid.
Some scope for private acquisition of extra reliability.
System transcends state boundaries.
Action is needed at the federal level to promote the establishment of mandatory reliability rules.
Government approval and oversight of an industry-based reliability system with
mandatory participation is the preferred approach, since government itself lacks
the expertise to directly regulate reliability.
Large regional transmission organizations are a natural focus/locus for
reliability management activities, but they are not yet formed.
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AT: Other Agency CPs

Which agency does the plan is irrelevant – individuals supersede
John C. Mankins, former manager of NASA’s Advanced Concepts Studies Office of Space Flight,, 10-12-07, “Leading Scientists
and Thinkers on Energy,” from an interview with Mankins conducted by David Houle, an analyst who advises companies on new
developing technology, http://www.evolutionshift.com/blog/2007/10/12/leading-scientists-and-thinkers-on-energy-–-john-c-mankins/
[Tandet]
The question is, how best for the U.S. government to take a leadership role in space solar power? That really depends on
the policies worked out by the Administration and the Congress. NASA, DOE or any other Agency will not work on
space solar power unless the Administration gives them the assignment to do so. Lots of organizations could take a hand
in this; it is such an enormous challenge. During 2002-2004, NASA worked with the National Science Foundation on space
solar power R&D—a partnership that was very successful. Also in the past, DOD organizations such as DARPA, the
Office of Naval Research or the Air Force Research Laboratory have all played critical roles in national-scale innovations.
On the government side, there probably must be a formal office somewhere—just where and how remains an open
question. Ultimately, the individuals involved (and the charter of they receive) are more important that the details of the
organization, or where it resides.
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AT: Solar Power Market Arguments

SPS must be sold in US markets first
Geoffrey A. Landis, scientist at the NASA Glenn Research Center, on the science team of the Pathfinder mission to Mars and the
Mars Exploration Rovers mission, February ’04, “Reinventing the Solar Power Satellite,” NASA,
http://gltrs.grc.nasa.gov/reports/2004/TM-2004-212743.pdf [Tandet]
For more near-term economic feasibility, however, it is desirable to look at electricity markets within
the United States. The economic climate of the United States is more likely to allow possible investment
in large-scale electric power projects than the poorer "developing" nations, and hence it is more likely
that the first satellite-power projects will be built to service the electrical market in the U.S. Although in
the long term the third-world mega-cities may be the region that has the greatest growth in electrical
power demand, the initial economic feasibility of a space solar project will depend on the ability of such
a facility to be competitive in the U.S. electric market.
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Politics – Plan Popular

The public and space advocates overwhelmingly like the plan
Interest in the idea was exceptionally strong in the space advocacy community, particularly in
the Space Frontier Foundation (SFF), National Space Society (NSS), Space Development
Steering Committee, and Aerospace Technology Working Group (ATWG), all of which hosted or
participated in events related to this subject during the study period. here is reason to think that this interest may
extend to the greater public. The most recent
survey indicating public interest in SBSP was conducted in 2005 when respondents were asked
where they prefer to see their space tax dollars spent. The most popular response was
collecting energy from space, with support from 35% of those polled—twice the support for the
second most popular response, planetary defense (17%)—and three times the support for the
current space exploration goals of the Moon (4%) / Mars(10%).
84

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DDI 2008 – Clark/Martin Lab

Internal Link – Weather Alteration...................................................................................................................68

The U.S. needs alternatives to relying on unstable, polluting energy sources in

The United States federal government should provide incentives to the

Alex, Dustin, Kylah, Gabrielle

Other countries are surpassing US space tech. Government

Alex, Dustin, Kylah, Gabrielle

Alex, Dustin, Kylah, Gabrielle

Alex, Dustin, Kylah, Gabrielle

Alex, Dustin, Kylah, Gabrielle

Your heg bad arguments don’t apply, plan ensures positive

Alex, Dustin, Kylah, Gabrielle

Alex, Dustin, Kylah, Gabrielle

Research scientists, technology entrepreneurs, open-minded academics and political

Plan solves – SPS is key to sustain the scientific lead of the

SPS is the key catalyst for space colonization

And, research stimulated by the plan is key to space colonization

Reliability cannot be handled exclusively by private markets or state policies.

Need SPS Now

Need SPS Now

Need Alternative Energy Now

Nobody Doing Plan Now

Heg Good Impact Extensions

Economy Impact Module

US Competitiveness in space solar power is key to economy

Economic collapse leads to nuke war

Other Countries Ahead Now

Other countries are developing SPS technology because of high demand.

Other Countries Ahead Now

SPS Solves – Intellectual Competitiveness

SPS Solves – Heg

Not Happening Now

SpaceCol Solves Extinction

New SPS systems get us off Earth

SPS Solves – Beaming Energy

It’s Possible – Mars

SPS Provides Energy

SPS Solves – Private Sector Key To Tech

AT: Tech Fails

SPS technology has and is continuing to improve

NASA is uniquely capable – technological advances

Nasa funding vital to new and current R&D

DoD business is key to SPS viability

US Key – Global Impact

US Key – Effective Development

Failed States Impact Module

State failure causes environmental degradation, threatening biodiversity

Alex, Dustin, Kylah, Gabrielle

Failed States Impact Module

Fossil Fuels Impact Module

<Insert global warming impacts from the warming file>

SPS Solves Energy Crisis

SPS Solves CO2

Military Readiness Impact Module – Global War

Military Readiness Impact Module – Hegemony

Loss of hegemony leads to nuclear war

SPS Solves – Not Beaming Energy

SPS Solves – Beaming Energy

SPS improves military readiness by enabling expanded military operations and

SPS Solves – Beaming Energy

SPS Solves – Saves Soldiers’ Lives

NASA Key – Military Tech

Peak Oil Impact Module

ANSWERS TO OTHER ARGUMENTS