Sbsp affirmative- arl lab- ndi 2011


Commercial Space Industry



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Commercial Space Industry




Leads to spin-off tech – that solves space access and infrastructure as well as Earth tech



NSSO, ‘7 National Security Space Office [10/10/07, “Space-Based Solar Power as an Opportunity for Strategic Security: Report to the Director, National Security Space office Interim Assessment Release 0.1,” http://www.nss.org/settlement/ssp/library/final-sbsp-interim-assessment-release-01.pdf, DS]
FINDING: The SBSP Study Group found that retirement of the SBSP technical challenges begets other significant strategic benefits for exploration, commerce and defense, that inandofthemselves may justify a national program.At present, the United States has very limited capabilities to build large structures, very large apertures or very high power systems in orbit. It has very limited inspace maneuver and operational capability, and very limited access to space. It cannot at present move large amounts of mass into Earth orbit. The United States correspondingly has extremely limited capabilities for inspace manufacturing and construction or in‐situ space resource utilization. It has no capability for beamed power or propulsion. SBSP development would advance the state of the art in all of the above competencies. • The expertise gained in developing large structures for space based solar power could allow entirely new technologies for applications such as image and realtime surface and airborne object tracking services, as well as high bandwidth telecommunications, highdefinition television and radio, and mobile, broadcast services. It would enable entirely new architectures, such as power platforms that provide services to multiple payloads, autonomous self‐constructing structures, or wireless cooperative formations. The Solar Electric Transfer Vehicles (SETV) needed to lift the Space Solar Power Satellites out of low‐earth orbit, and perhaps even form its components, would completely revolutionize our ability to move large payloads within the EarthMoon system. • The technology to beam power over long distances could lower application satellite weights and expand the envelope for Earth‐ and space‐based power beaming applications. A truly developed SpaceBased Solar Power infrastructure would open up entirely new exploration and commercial possibilities, not only because of the access which will be discussed in the section on infrastructure, but because of the power available on orbit, which would enable concepts as diverse as comet / asteroid protection systems, deorbit of space debris, spacetospace power utilities, and beamed propulsion possibilities including farterm concepts as a true interstellar probe such as Dr. Robert Forward’s StarWisp Concept.


SBSP key to space commercialization


NSSO, ‘7 National Security Space Office [10/10/07, “Space-Based Solar Power as an Opportunity for Strategic Security: Report to the Director, National Security Space office Interim Assessment Release 0.1,” http://www.nss.org/settlement/ssp/library/final-sbsp-interim-assessment-release-01.pdf, DS]
Finding: The SBSP Study Group found that SBSP appears to have significant growth potential in the long run, and a national investment in SBSP may return many times its value. Most of America’s spending in space does not provide any direct monetary revenue. SBSP, however, may create new markets and the need for new products that will provide many new, highpaying technical jobs and net significant tax revenues. Great powers have historically succeeded by finding or inventing products and services not just to sell to themselves, but to others. Today, investments in space are measured in billions of dollars. The energy market is trillions of dollars, and there are many billions of people in the developing world that have yet to connect to the various global markets. Such a large export market could generate substantial new wealth for our nation and our world. Investments to mature SBSP are similarly likely to have significant economic spinoffs, each with their own independent revenue stream, and open up or enable other new industries such as space industrial processes, space tourism, enhanced telecommunications, and use of offworld resources. Not all of the returns may be obvious. SBSP is a both infrastructure and a global utility. Estimating the value of utilities is difficult since they benefit society as a whole more than any one user in particular—consider what the contribution to productivity and GDP are by imagining what the world would be like without electric lines, roads, railroads, fiber, or airports. Not all of the economic impact is immediately captured in direct SBSP jobs, but also in the services and products that spring up to support those workers and their communities. Historically such infrastructure projects have received significant government support, from land grants for railroads, to subsidized rural electrification, to development of atomic energy. While the initial‐capability on‐ramp may be slow, SBSP has the capability to be a very significant portion of the world energy portfolio by midcentury and beyond.



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