In the long term, there’s the potential to provide a base load of power to augment the intermittent availability of terrestrial wind and solar energy—a key need if the world is to de-carbonize its electricity generation.
But that’s probably putting the cart before the horse. One of the biggest challenges of space-based solar power is that it has always been theoretical. It should work. But will it work? Trying out a low-cost demonstrator mission in the next couple of years is a fine way of finally putting that question to rest.
I’m not a fancy space laser scientist so I want to ask: Does this not result in an increase of solar energy on Earth? Like, the problem with global climate change is that the planet is retaining heat and they want to literally fire lasers from space into the atmosphere.
It does, but it’s negligible on the scale that’s currently realistic to build